The Halla Huhm Dance Collection:  An Inventory and Finding Aid, ed. Judy Van Zile.  Honolulu:  Center for Korean Studies, University of Hawaii, 1998.  181 pp. 

Reviewed by Michael Reinschmidt
Academia Koreana

[This review first appeared in Acta Koreana 2 (1999): 164-67.
Acta Koreana is published by Academia Koreana of Keimyung University.]

In this book, a team of researchers, collectors and staff under the leadership of Judy Van Zile has provided a highly organized compilation of materials.  It was Van Zile's goal to provide a broad access to a unique collection of documentary ephemera on Korean dance and the personal achievements of dancer Halla Pai Huhm.  But the compilation, whose production was commendably supported by several foundations, aims at more than simply inventorying documents and visuals.  It is an important step towards safeguarding and aiding future studies to contextualize innumerable aspects of Korean dance in connection with the name of Halla Huhm -- and her unusual life circumstances -- in its multiregional cultural context.

Huhm was born in 1922 in Pusan but five years later her family left Korea for Japan during the Japanese colonial period.  She received her first training in dance from a cousin who had studied not only Korean dance but ballet and modern European dance as well.  During World War II, Huhm traveled between Korea and Japan and studied Home Economics in Tokyo.  She then moved to Hawaii in 1949 following her marriage to a Korean American serviceman.  Despite her exposure to European trends, Huhm's relative isolation from her homeland is considered by some experts to be part of the reason she was so painstaking in preserving the stylistic accuracy of Korean dance forms in both her teaching and performance (p.2).  Such keen authenticity apparently also appealed to her fellow immigrants in Hawaii who were also looking for means of maintaining their Korean identity.  Her clear sense of her own cultural roots, however, did not prevent her active involvement with other Asian dance forms, which she even included in her own dance studio recitals.

Huhm became widely sought after as a performer and instructor in Hawaii and Korea, and her artistic quality earned her appointments and honors at universities in both countries.  As a person, Halla Huhm stood out as a symbol for etiquette, discipline, advocacy of Korean culture, but mostly for generosity.  She never asked for performance fees, and "if an event would contribute to knowledge about Korean culture and further worthwhile causes, those were sufficient reasons to perform" (p.6).  Her selfless attitude and her capacity as a dancer and a choreographic artist were honored with the Medal for Preserving Culture from the Korean government in 1980.  Further recognition and honors came, among other things, through performances at the Smithsonian Institution (1989) and the State of Hawaii (1993).  Exactly twenty major awards and certificates are listed and described in the awards-category of the book (pp. 28-30).  After her death in 1994 her long-time student and associate Mary Jo Freshley, also a member of the book's editorial team, assumed responsibility for Huhm's dance studio and its affiliated "Dances We Dance" Company, and for what came to be the Halla Huhm Dance Collection.

A short sketch of the life of Halla Huhm and a brief summary of the history of Korean immigration to Hawaii after 1903 (pp. 1-12) put the book's main body of annotated entries in perspective with Huhm's personal story and the larger history of other Diaspora Koreans.  The achievement of Halla Huhm becomes obvious when one looks at the specific needs of the Korean immigrant situation before and throughout the span of Huhm's own time in Hawaii.  The need for an identity was prevalent from the beginning.

About 7,000 men had lived miserable bachelors' lives on sugar plantations from 1903 until the so-called "picture brides" started to arrive after 1910.  But the misery didn't necessarily end with the picture brides' arrival; on the contrary, many a marriage failed due to what were often vast age and personal differences between bride and groom.  The quest for identity was further augmented through the loss of and struggle to regain national independence during the Japanese colonial period (1910-45).  After the war, the situation stabilized for Korean Hawaiians but still, many "GI brides," Korean women married to American soldiers, experienced great difficulty adjusting to their new homes and overcoming cultural barriers.

The approximately 8,000 items in the collection, which is still in Freshley's possession, are stored in 31 boxes and consist of materials dating mostly from around the 1950s to 1997.  The collection is organized into seven main categories:  correspondence, awards, flyers, programs, international newspaper clippings (in Korean, English, Japanese), photographs (general and those depicting Huhm), and miscellaneous items. After the reading of a lengthy, four-page guide, the inventory is relatively easy to use (pp. 13-18).  Each item is conveniently accessible through exact chronological data, followed by a headline and the annotated text.  A catchy keyword-line in a bold-faced font summarizes the item. Unfortunately, although it is mentioned several times, a body of film (video and 8mm) 115 minutes in length has neither been described nor offered as a separate, eighth category section.

In the correspondence file, researchers will find thank-you notes, letters of appreciation, grant notifications, membership requests, invitations to perform, etc.  This category is an impressive record of Huhm's activities as well as a documentation of the increasing representation and establishment of Korean heritage studies in Hawaii.  Given the vast industriousness of Huhm's nature, one can only wonder as to how much she has contributed to this advanced development and the positive reception of Korean culture abroad.  Her career is remarkable in many ways, but interestingly enough it seems to peak at around the time of her death, after which came the establishment of the Halla Huhm Foundation.

The richest and most promising categories for researchers of the dance will most likely be the three newspaper sections.  A solid block of information from three languages (roughly the 1950's through the'90's) reflects the process of the media approaching a higher degree of sensitivity toward cultural performances not only in Japan and Korea, but especially in the U.S.  Not without reason was Huhm honored several times by succeeding Korean governments for her promotion of Korean culture.  A typical statement with a nationalist tone is the following newspaper headline from 1976:  "Halla Huhm Enhances National Glory Internationally" (p. 97).  More acceptably, the quest for authenticity is still maintained today, as expressed in a recent article entitled "The Roots and Transmission of Korean Performing Arts":  "Korean performing artists must find an identity -- modern and yet truly Korean -- that strikes a balance between the traditional arts and Western performing arts." (Mee-Won Lee, Koreana, 11/2 (1997): 16-21)

Although at times a bit voluminous, the mass of detail within the annotations can be thoroughly appreciated.  The system saves researchers much time in gaining a quick overview without spending hours on the boxed materials themselves.  It will be interesting, for example, to analyze the patterns of Huhm's experience against the larger backdrop of the performing arts in the homeland and at other Korean Diaspora locations around the world.

The collection itself seems to long for a more rounded status regarding Huhm's theory of dance, which at the same time obviously must have also been her philosophy of life.  Readers and researchers will be intrigued to learn about her "strong sense of discipline," "stern scolding," and the "development of true character" (p.6).  What have these things to do with dance? How did students gain an understanding of her teachings during studio sessions? How did the teachings affect the lives of her students? Moreover, how did Huhm reach her audience with her art? Did international audiences participate as enthusiastically as they do in Korea? These are (Western) expectations that readers will develop and bring with them to the actual collection.  To shed light on these questions is certainly not the task of this compilation, but its quality and nature alone hint at a number of research options for investigators, and possible tasks for the Huhm Foundation.  Conducting interviews with Huhm's former students would be a major task, as would assessing the philosophical and theoretical elements in Huhm's approach.

As for describing the myriad of photographs in the collection, I can only remark that sifting from item to item, one becomes keenly aware of the saying, "One picture is worth a thousand words," i.e., even a tiny selection of the most expressive photos would have enhanced a quick access to this part of the inventory.

Finally, I come to my only reservation:  the format of the publication, which currently, with a plastic comb binder, initially appears rather like a business report.  Perhaps the supporting foundations should be tapped again -- if a second edition is produced -- for a more book-like presentation.  It could be upgraded or restructured into a full-fledged catalogue including some of the most representative photographs and graphics described in the text.  Overall, however, this compilation should prove a rich source of information for researchers and devoted disciples of cultural blending, who in turn will no doubt come up with publications or new performances of their own, further promoting the development of the dance, the study of the dance, and the opportunities which the field of dance can contribute to the establishment of cultural identity, mutual understanding, and contemporary cultural renewal.