Perspectives On Korean Dance

The first comprehensive English language study of Korean dance.

Research Paper (postgraduate) from the year 2015 in the subject Theater Studies, Dance, , language: English, abstract: Have you ever asked yourself, which relations there are between Korean New Traditional Dance and Contemporary Dance? Traveling all around the world, people are watching me with big eyes as soon as I speak about my dance career. Many of them, even artists, ask me, which are the relations between Contemporary Dance and Korean New Traditional Dance. There is always a question mark on the face of people, when I try to explain that the Korean Dance, for example Korean Ballet or Korean Modern Dance, are related to Contemporary Dance. It is difficult for them to understand the subject at first. For many people, regard to the content of the Contemporary Dance is either an abstract subject or only an American art of Dance. With this small contribution I want to show the importance of Korean Dance generally and its relations to worldwide Dance. This book should even show the similarities between Korean New Traditional Dance and Contemporary Dance today. It is supposed to give answers to all my friends and colleges, who ask themselves: what are the differences and similarities of these dances? [The author is no native speaker.]

This volume asks what Koreans consider makes music Korean, and how meaning is ascribed to musical creation. Keith Howard explores specific aspects of creativity that are designed to appeal to a new audience that is increasingly westernized yet proud of its indigenous heritage--updates of tradition, compositions, and collaborative fusions. He charts the development of the Korean music scene over the last 25 years and interprets the debates, claims and statistics by incorporating the voices of musicians, composers, scholars and critics.

Looking Out is the first collection of writings to address the impact of multiculturalism on the dance world. It is unique in offering various perspectives, enlisting leading dance critics, performers, choreographers, and academics in a wide-ranging discussion of how dance from around the world can be better understood. Inspired by a groundbreaking 1990 conference of the Dance Critics Association, the book consists of a series of essays, each addressing a different facet of the problems and possibilities of multiculturalism.

Dance and the Corporeal Uncanny takes the philosophy of the body into the field of dance, through the lens of subjectivity and via its critique. It draws on dance and performance as its dedicated field of practice to articulate a philosophy of agency and movement. It is organized around two conceptual paradigms - one phenomenological (via Merleau-Ponty), the other an interpretation of Nietzschean philosophy, mediated through the work of Deleuze. The book draws on dance studies, cultural critique, ethnography and postcolonial theory, seeking an interdisciplinary audience in philosophy, dance and cultural studies.

In Corporeal Politics, leading international scholars investigate the development of dance as a deeply meaningful and complex cultural practice across time, placing special focus on the intertwining of East Asia dance and politics and the role of dance as a medium of transcultural interaction and communication across borders. Countering common narratives of dance history that emphasize the US and Europe as centers of origin and innovation, the expansive creativity of dance artists in East Asia asserts its importance as a site of critical theorization and reflection on global artistic developments in the performing arts. Through the lens of “corporeal politics”—the close attention to bodily acts in specific cultural contexts—each study in this book challenges existing dance and theater histories to re-investigate the performer's role in devising the politics and aesthetics of their performance, as well as the multidimensional impact of their lives and artistic works. Corporeal Politics addresses a wide range of performance styles and genres, including dances produced for the concert stage, as well as those presented in popular entertainments, private performance spaces, and street protests.