The purpose of this paper is to examine how nationalism has been operated and emerged in the process of establishing the National Theater of Korea and Sejong Center for the Performing Arts, National Gugak Center, and Seoul Arts Center. I analyze the records about the construction of the theaters from the viewpoint of nationalism. Also I examine how the nationalistic view had been expressed architecturally and how the characteristics were revealed in the performances. The history of the construction of the theaters was entirely led by the state during the 3rd, 4th and 5th republics. The 3rd, 4th and 5th republics, all of which had been ruled by undemocratic regimes, emphasized nationalism in order to compensate their lack of legitimacy. The ‘nation’ has worked as a very effective concept to unite the whole people into a single identity, and traditional culture as well as art have been used as the most effective means of raising national pride. As such, the construction of the theaters as an infrastructure for expanding traditional performing arts was essential, and it was actively promoted in this background. At the height of this flow, which began in the 1960s, there was the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games.

This research attempted to clarify trends of Korean dances during the 1960s by analyzing dance video data from the National Gugak Center’s Garfias Collection. The Garfias Collection is an archive of Korean performing arts that was donated by American music anthropologist Robert Garfias in 2019. In 1966, Garfias stayed in Korea for several months and recorded Korean traditional performing arts through photographs and videos. In this collection, there are 14 video clips of Korean dances of the 1960s, which can be classified into three sections: court dance, Buddhist dance, and folk dance. Various literature surveys and expert interview were conducted to investigate the background and activity status of the performers at the time, as well as the costumes, dance movements and the composition patterns of each dance. In the case of court dance, they were performed before systematic restoration based on literature had been carried out, and it was found that the progress was faster and contained more creative elements than the current one. In Buddhist dance, it has proceeded almost identically to what is currently being performed, but it can be said that the pace of progression is faster and the individuality of the dancer stands out. Finally, in folk dance, it provided an opportunity to gain a new perspective on the formation of traditional dance since the video showed a very different aspect from the dance that is currently being transmitted.