KJCKorea
Journal Central

This study has been initiated to suggest a direction to Korean traditional dance through researching and analyzing successful reawakening factors of the dance performance <Soul, the Sunflower>. Now that a convention-oriented traditional culture cannot entice the public, many innovative attempts have been made by putting elements of different cultures and codes to the traditional one. Often, however, those attempts didn’t have enough artistic profoundness in themselves. Especially, the westernization of expression in Korean traditional dance made no distinction from the western one and adapting western music to Korean traditional dance technique without any proper alternation brought huge alienation between traditional and western elements. Bae Junghye, the choreographer of the performance <Soul, the Sunflower>, emphasized the significance of recreation process and asserted that perception and understanding of traditional emotions of Korean people, which makes the outcome more traditional and profound, is the key to success saying. This study tried to analyze the true meaning of recreation in <Soul, the Sunflower> in three different aspects. The overall emotional aspect through the performance, the use of small pieces in Korean traditional on the 2nd act, and finally the use of western music in the performance. With the interpretation and analysis that how all these different but well-harmonized combination of aspects expressed Korean traditional beauty, this study suggested positive steps and future tasks that Korean dance should take.

recreation(재창조), emotional aspect(정서적측면), Korean traditional beauty (한국적아름다움), westernation of expression(서구적 표현), combination(조화)