Korean Studies Internet Discussion List
KOREAN STUDIES REVIEW
Perspectives on Korean Dance, by Judy Van Zile, Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press. 2001. 334 + xxiii pp. 43 colour and 48 black and white photographs, dance notations, index (ISBN: 0-8195-6494-X).
reviewed by Keith Howard
SOAS, University of London[This review first appeared in Acta Koreana, 7.2 (July 2004): 193-197. Acta Koreana is published by Academia Koreana of Keimyung University.]
This is a lavish book, beautifully illustrated with contemporary dance scenes and historical paintings, set in a slightly larger format than we are used to that perfectly suits the mix of text, photographs, and tables. It seeks to be both an introduction to Korean dance and far more besides, the latter indicated in the sparing, but nonetheless important, use of Labanotation, a form of dance notation that is by far the most advanced and embracing system in use, and one for which Van Zile is known to be expert, and in the ninety-three pages devoted to appendices, glossary and index.
Van Zile has been associated with Korean dance for several decades, and is known to many of us for her meticulous articles, seven of which are reworked for inclusion here. Prior to this volume, English-language materials on Korean dance were limited indeed. A very old and brief survey, long since deleted, by Alan Heyman remains well known, Dances of the Three Thousand League Land (Seoul, Donga Ilbo, 1966); a number of non-specialist articles pepper musicological shelves; there are a number of MA dissertations. Dance specialists—and their publications—have, however, remained few and far between. This poor state of affairs has long needed to be redressed, since visitors to Korea are, I suspect, much more likely to watch a dance performance than hear Korean traditional music (the literature on music is much more expansive). The situation is no different in other parts of the globe, where the infamous Cantometrics of Alan Lomax, developed for the classification of song, is complemented by the less-specialised and at times mimicking Choreometrics for dance. Indeed, dance studies as an academic discipline (embracing dance ethnography, dance anthropology, and more), tends to be less developed than musicology. Van Zile, too, has had to juggle allegiances to music as well as dance as she has forged her career, both in her rise to a professorship in dance at the University of Hawai‘i and in her choice of publishing outlets (—journals that have included Asian Music and the Yearbook of Traditional Music). Previous to her work on Korean dance, she published on Japanese bon dance and dance in India.
Within Korea, studies of dance have been hampered by a number of factors. The court institute—indicatively, known since 1948 as the National Classical Music Institute (Kungnip kugagwŏn ) until it was renamed in English (but not Korean) in 1988 as the Korean Traditional Performing Arts Centre and, more recently, as the National Center for Korean Traditional Performing Arts, gave only a relatively low profile to dance. During the Japanese colonial period, there were no court dancers at this august institution’s forerunner, the Yi [Chosŏn] Dynasty Court Music Bureau (Yiwangjik aakpu), although in the mid 1920s, student musicians were trained to dance for the king’s birthday celebrations—a story that is retold in Van Zile’s book in relation to the restructuring of the court mask dance, Ch’ŏyongmu. Coupled to this, the association of women who dance in public with low class courtesans has ensured that the discipline is only now approaching something resembling respectability. Amongst the musicological fraternity, a third factor has hampered dance studies: whereas musical treatises and scores survive from the fifteenth century onwards, painting a particularly rich tapestry of development, stability and change in repertory, instruments and musicians, our knowledge of dance history relies on iconography and a collection of court manuals that give positions and costumes or dance paraphernalia but little more. And, finally, we need to consider the identity of those who have written about Korean dance, who come, too often, without appropriate training. Van Zile notes prominent writers on dance who trained in musicology, folklore, literature, theatre, film, and aesthetics (page 46). This extended overview should demonstrate that dance studies constitutes a discipline in its own right, and that Van Zile’s book needs to be critiqued as a product of that discipline (rather than as musicology or Korean Studies per se), but that, since the study of Korean dance remains in its infancy, Van Zile must—as she does—offer both introductory and more solidly academic components.
Van Zile’s volume starts by giving a broad view. An initial chapter is titled ‘The Many Faces of Korean Dance’ and moves from a historical consideration to choreography, contemporary dance, and ballet. More than this, though, is involved, not least a lucid and precise account of the characteristics of traditional dance (pages 12 – 14) that many of us have for many years longed for, detailing the emphasis on verticality, alternations between bending and extending, lowering and lifting, shoulder movement, and the absolutely vital concept of ‘motion in stillness’. A second chapter moves to terminology, exploring how Koreans categorize dance, and how this can be tracked both historically and in the present. This essentially completes a survey, adding folk dance and court dance genres, and distinctions between them, and showing how and why contemporary styles of dancing have developed. The broad view ends in a third chapter that considers Korea’s preservation system of National Treasures (‘Living Treasures’, ‘Intangible Cultural Properties’, ‘Intangible Cultural Assets’ are equivalent terms). Dance has been revived in folk festivals and elsewhere as an icon of identity, but one that comes with health warnings. On a personal note, this chapter alerted me to one of my own articles: given as a conference paper in 1996, I had never been told it had been furtively published but, having found the reference in Van Zile’s book, I now have a copy!
The central part of the book looks at specific dances. Van Zile takes the court mask dance, Ch’ŏyongmu —the only court dance performed by men—building a historical account that starts back with legend in Silla times, and forwards to decline (and temporary demise) in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, followed by revival and preservation in the twentieth century. Dance movement is illustrated through a series of floor plans showing the movements of the five dancers, each representing one of the five directions (‘centre’ is the fifth), and each characterised by a different costume colour, and sample movement phrases are given in Labanotation. The process whereby the dance was (re-)choreographed for the king’s birthday in the 1920s, and how this formed the basis for the preserved form, is usefully explored, although some vagueness—important, I guess, given that some of those closely involved are still alive— remains. Here, Kim Ch’ŏnhŭng (b. 1909) becomes a central informant. Ch’ŏyongmu is Intangible Cultural Property (Muhyŏng munhwajae ) No. 39; next Van Zile moves to Intangible Cultural Property No. 12, Chinju kŏmmu , a knife dance from Chinju, South Kyŏngsang Province. Here she gives us the two legends about its development, a brief historical account, then considerable detail of the surviving nineteenth and twentieth century documentation. Fieldwork in the early 1980s is evident, and again Van Zile offers floor plans and sample Labanotations as she details constituent movements and the use of space. She describes how the dance was choreographed and documented for its appointment as an Intangible Cultural Property, and in a final section considers gender, where contemporary dance movements exemplify the feminine yet a legend talks about a young boy as the original dancer.
From here, Van Zile moves to consider movement in shamanic contexts. Originally, this chapter was given in London at a workshop I organised on Korean shamanism, and it was subsequently published within a volume that I edited, Korean Shamanism: Revivals, Survivals, and Change (Seoul Press/Korea Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1998). While readers would expect me to be happy with the content, and, indeed, I am, the account offered does not fully balance the two previous chapters on Ch’ŏyongmu and Chinju kŏmmu. The reason is because shamanic dance is described, from performance and film, with little sense that we are hearing the voices of practitioners. In other words, I feel there is more to be explored with shamans themselves in fieldwork and, I suspect, with the dancers of salp’uri and other more recent dances that are widely considered to have derived from shamanic practice. One good reason for Van Zile’s interest in this subject is Halla Pai Huhm, a Korean dancer who settled in Hawai’i who performed (and wrote about) shaman dance. Shamanism, though, is a contested subject, and it would be interesting to know whether consideration of more of the vast amount of literature written recently in Korean would alter any of Van Zile’s comments. Similarly, Chongho Kim’s recent book (Korean Shamanism: The Cultural Paradox; Ashgate 2003) has alerted us to distinctions between shaman ritual (kut) and ritual concerts (kut kongyŏn) that I hope Van Zile can explore in a future publication.
Next, Van Zile offers a portrait of Kim Ch’ŏnhŭng, the master musician and dancer, ‘holder’ (poyuja) of two Intangible Cultural Properties, who has inspired many of us. He is of fundamental importance to Van Zile’s account because he has been so influential, as a link with the past and with the court, as a choreographer of new as well as traditional dance, as a documenter of both court and folk dance in numerous reports for—apart from anywhere else—the Office for Cultural Properties (Munhwajae kwalliguk; now the Munhwajae ch’ŏng), and as the person responsible for notations of court dances published during the 1980s by the National Classical Music Institute. The portrait of Kim is complemented by a chapter about a historical dance figure, Ch’oe Sŭnghŭi (known under her Japanese name, Sai Shoki). While Van Zile concentrates on Ch’oe as a Korean dancer in America, her subject is broader, for Ch’oe is widely regarded as the most important Korean dancer during the first half of the twentieth century. She fills in details omitted from two substantial accounts that tell her life story from an Asian perspective: Chŏng Pyŏngho’s Ch’umch’unŭn Ch’oe Sŭnghŭi—Segyerŭl hwiŏchabŭn Chosŏn yŏja (Seoul, Ppuri kip’ŭn namu, 1995), and Takashima Yusaburo and Chŏng Pyŏngho’s co-authored and edited Seiko no biin buyoka Sai Shoki (Tokyo, MT Publishing, 1994). Ch’oe developed repertory that is still to be found, modified but identifiable, in South Korea today. She settled in North Korea after the end of the Pacific War, and so was closely involved with the development of dance repertory there; sadly, the political activities of her husband led to him being purged around 1965, and he was killed along with, we presume, Ch’oe. Finally, Van Zile offers an account of Korean dance in Hawai’i, where Halla Pai Huhm’s work is to this day continued by Mary Jo Freshley. In this, she proves sensitive to the politics of a settled community, while detailing some of the many issues that have arisen over the years.
In sum, then, this is a full and informative account. Beautifully produced and illustrated, it mixes specialist material with writing that is always understandable for broader readerships. Yes, it should be on the shelves of your library, for dance, as a highly visible component of the Korean cultural heritage, has long needed this sort of treatment.
Citation:
Howard, Keith 2006
Review of Perspectives on Korean Dance, by Judy Van Zile (2001)
Korean Studies Review 2006, no. 11
Electronic file: http://koreaweb.ws/ks/ksr/ksr06-11.htm