Korean creative dance, as a product of the stream of times, has changed and been developed, together with the continuous changes of the Korean society. The economic growth due to the industrialization in the 1970's, resulted in growth of concern and i...
Korean creative dance, as a product of the stream of times, has changed and been developed, together with the continuous changes of the Korean society. The economic growth due to the industrialization in the 1970's, resulted in growth of concern and interest towards traditional culture. The movement of rediscovering the heritage and the subjectivity of national culture lead by university students and intellectuals, started out with the 'The Mask-dance Revival Movement' of the early 70's which lead to increase of stage performances and naturally the rise of Korea's dance. This process and the academic basis of 'Modernization of Tradition' of dance artists before the late 70's, contributed much to dance being recognized as an art. Increase of numbers of stage performances with the opening of the 1979 'Korea Dance Festival' played its role as a trigger in bringing forth the 'Renaissance of Korean Dance'. As Koreanology began gathering strength after the 60's, interest toward tradition also began to rise. Upon this current of the times, intellectuals and university graduates who had discovered the contradictions that the New dance possessed, attempted to solidify Korean Creative Dance as an independent genre, pursuing 'The Re-creation of Tradition' Growing on this foundation, Korean creative dance of the 90's had matured in quality, as an improved form of modern arts. However, still there are a few problems that Korean creative dance faces in order to fully settle as a dance genre. Which is, first, the modernization of the motif that embraces the zeitgeist, a factor of dance language in a macroscopic point of view. Second, the systematic grammatization of the dance language in accordance with the artist's motive, and finally, the modernization of stage elements that completes dance as stage art. Following the New dance era, in the transitional period leading to Korean creative dance, in order to overcome the above mentioned issues, many effort was put into developing new dance languages and to find the answer through re-experimenting 'Tradtion' that shares the current of the periodic situation. The first and foremost problem that Korean creative dance needs a solution to is the systematic grammatization of the physical dance language based on the motive of the artist. The physical dance language, which is the movement is the core technique in expression of dance arts, is yet to be found in Korean creative dance as its unique and original methodology of movement. This means that Korean creative dance does not yet have a aesthetic foundation, which is necessary for consolidating itself as a independent genre of modern arts. This problem eliminates the possibilities of the art form being handed down to the next generation, and limits Korean creative dance as an dance art form of just one single generation. Therefore, in order to transmit the tradition of Korean creative dance through generations, a unique physical dance language must be sought. The critical mind, concerning the problem of finding a unique dance language has stood out in the 1990's with universities in the lead. |