The purpose of this study is to illuminate the development and characteristics of dances in the area of Seoul based on achievements and significant contributions of Han Seong-jun, a master of Korean traditional dance. The study period spans from 1908, when Han Seong-jun settled in Seoul, to 1941, the year of his passing. Research methods involve literature related to Korean music and dance, as well as examining newspaper materials. The research focuses on Han Seong-jun’s dance lineage within traditional dance. The findings reveal that dance evolved through both theatrical and private arts organizations. In the early 1900s, Seoul-based dances, following Han Seong-jun’s legacy, were performed by artists associated with various private arts groups, gradually transitioning into commercialized, staged, and entertainment-oriented forms. From a traditional and creative perspective, dances are categorized into those transmitted and performed continuously and those that have disappeared and are now being revived. From today’s perspective, the approximately 72 works that Han Seong-jun staged, restructured, and created can be considered ‘Han Seong-jun style new tradition’. Most of the works have been destroyed, but there has been a movement to restore and reproduce them recently.

The purpose of this research is to provide insights into the essence and value of dance education by describing the teaching experiences through an auto- ethnographic method. It is difficult to find researches on the overall teaching experience ranging from early childhood education to college education. Having experienced child dance class, elementary school dance class, and college movement class, I seek to find the desirable education and its significance for students while reflecting on dance teaching method and its meanings. Students get interested in their body parts, and they learn how to communicate and share their feelings with others through dance education. The performance experiences as a dance teacher are as follows. First, a natural culture at home or a home atmosphere has formed through learning-by-playing. Second, my first part-time class has led to my lifelong workplace and developed functionally. Third, I have found that a strict discipline in a dance class could give difficulties for students to express freedom. Fourth, a dance class that gives joy and pleasure changes students’perception of dance, makes them more interested in their bodies, and have more confidence with dance. In conclusion, I have realized that a dance class enables students to widely understand various emotions expressed by the body, discover ‘self’ through this process, and it can be developed into a means of communication to form a community spirit.

This study summarizes issues related to copyright issues around dance or choreography in Korea. As a result of analyzing 42 previous studies, which was searched at RISS(Research Information Sharing Services), three major issues were aroused. First, the concept of dance copyright should be defined more clearly, and the requirements for recognition of creativity in dance works should be clarified. Second, in order to activate dance copyright protection, it is necessary to fix the ephemeral phenomena of dance in tangible media. Third, dance copyright is classified as a dramatic works in Korean Copyright Act, but the term is not appropriate. The main contents of this discussion reviews copyright law and precedents of each country, including Korea. Based on these discussions, a suggested improvement plan for the protection of dance copyright is proposed.

Recently the copyright issue in the traditional cultural field is being discussed due to the copyright claim on traditional dance. The copyright norms is unfamiliar to those who are engaged in traditional cultural fields in Korea. Despite this unfamiliarity, the number of cases in which copyright law is applied to the field of traditional culture is increasing. The copyright cases that have occurred in the field of literary works such as books in the past are now spreading to art, music, and dance. In this article, I have discussed some issues in judging the creativity and substantial similarity of cultural heritage-based works through representative cases of art works and musical works related to intangible cultural heritage. The copyright system is based on the assumption that a specific author has exclusive copyright for the work. On the other hand, many cultural heritages presuppose that ‘communities or groups’ have created, maintained and propagated them, and it is not easy to identify copyright holders because their boundaries are ambiguous. In addition, in order to establish an exclusive right such as copyright, a clear boundary must be set for the work, which is an object of rights, but the boundary of the traditional culture that has continuously changed from the past is not clear. Therefore, I suggest the open source model as an alternative to exclusive copyright.