Preserving traditional Korean dances amid modern influences
Traditional Korean dance is sometimes divided into two broad categories of court dance and folk dance, but it may be more useful to categorize it into court dance, folk dance, ritual dance and the dance of professional entertainers.
Court dance was performed at various court ceremonies and banquets. They are slow, solemn and elegant, with restrained, balanced movements. Of the 56 original royal court dances, the most famous today are the Kommu (Sword Dance) of the Shilla period (57 BC to 935 AD), the Hangmu (Crane Dance) of the Koryo period (918-1392), the Kiangmu (Instrument Music Dance) of the Paekche period (18 BC to 660 AD) and Ch'unaengmu (Spring Nightingale Dance) of the Choson Kingdom (1392 to 1910). All of these dances have been designated as "intangible cultural assets" by the Government for their perpetuation, and performers have been granted the title of "Human Cultural Treasures", the highest honor awarded to masters of traditional arts and craft.
Folk Dance includes farmer's dance, mask dance-dramas and various group dances combining song and dance, often accompanying work. Folk dances were performed to pray for a good harvest, to exorcise evil spirits, to entertain and to promote community unity. The often humorous mask-dance dramas combine music, dance and drama and are intended to exorcise evil, entertain both the spirits and the public and to satirize society.
Ritual dances include stately Confucian dances, more lively Shaman and Buddhist dances and funeral dances. Confucian dances performed during Confucian rituals are slow and stately and are often considered as part of court dances. They extol Confucius and honor the scholarly or military feats of renown ancestors. Dances performed during a kut (Shaman rites) vary greatly according to the individual shaman and are intended to call the spirit, entertain the spirit, receive messages from the spirits, exorcise evil spirits and give good luck to the spectators. Buddhist dances are performed at large memorial services to honor Buddha, rescue souls from hell and lead the faithful to enlightenment. Finally, funeral dances, which reflect the Korean belief in an afterlife, are intended to bid farewell to the deceased and console the bereaved.
Professional entertainers, especially kisaeng (professional female entertainers) and the Namsadang (wandering entertainers), performed both court and folk dances. Many of their dances combined features of the two. Although mainly performed at drinking parties of upper-class men or for common people in the open air, this class of dance includes many of the most commonly performed dances today, including Salp'uri (the Exorcism Dance) and Sungmu (the Nun's Dance).
With few exceptions, Korean dance has put emphasis not so much on fixed movement but on the dancers impromptu expression of emotion-deep ecstatic power and metaphysical joy.
A large number of traditional dances withered away during the nation's 35-year-long colonial rule by Japan and rapid industrialization and urbanization of Korea in the 1960s and 1970s. It was in the 1980s that people started focusing their attention on reviving the long-forgotten dances.
The development of early modern dance in Korea was largely thanks to the work of pioneers like Cho T'aek-won and Ch'oe Sung- hui, who originally studied Korean traditional dance and were later educated overseas as well. Following liberation in 1945, the Seoul Ballet Company was founded in 1950. And in 1956, Lim Sung-nam, a leading male dancer, returned home after studying ballet in Japan. He established a ballet studio in Seoul and has contributed enormously to the development of ballet in Korea, both in that capacity and as director of the National Ballet.
Today, Korea boasts approximately 40 traditional Korean dance troupes, 30 modern dance companies, including groups let by Yook Wan-soon and Hong Shin-cha, and 10 ballet companies, including the Universal Ballet Company, a private professional performing group which was organized in 1984.