By Andrei Lankov
It is human to dance ― at least, I am not aware of a single culture which does not know dance. The recent two centuries have seen a Western dancing culture which originated largely in Italy, France, and other parts of southern Europe spread across the globe ― together with the new assumptions about dancing as an art and about the manner of its presentation.
Dancing performances have presumably been a part of Korean life since time immemorial. Gisaeng or Korean courtesans were not known to the Westerners as ``dancing girls" for nothing.
Even those Westerners who often looked down on Korea and Korean arts with arrogance and disapproval, still wrote admiring descriptions of the dances which were staged during royal banquets and other special occasions.
Of course, there were festive dances in the village streets ― of an altogether different style and nature. But what old Korea lacked was a public dance performance, more or less similar to the Western idea of a ``concert.''
The first public dance performance took place only in the early 1900s, and the idea was obviously introduced from the West (more likely than not, via Japan).
It was the Korean courtesans, or gisaeng who staged the first public performances in Korea. Those sophisticated girls were a far cry from ``sex workers'' in the modern sense. Of course, they might choose to sleep with a patron if they found him attractive and courteous (or if the proposed monetary rewards were enticing enough).
But sex for them was merely a side job, with the essence of ``gisaengship'' being skills with witty talk, music and dancing.
Until the 1920s gisaeng remained the sole group of Korean women who were trained in the stage arts and did not see performing in front of others as a shameful activity. Thus it is only natural that they provided the first cadre of actresses and dancers.
It is known that the first public performance of a gisaeng troupe took place in May 1908. After that performances happened regularly. Obviously, the girls were presenting the same dances they usually performed behind the closed doors of private events.
By the early 1920s Koreans were encountering forms of Western dance, they saw classical ballet and also the more modernized forms. The performances were made possible by Russians and by Russian Koreans.
After the Communist revolution of 1917 and subsequent years of the Civil War many educated Russians had to flee overseas.
Thus, in the 1920s, many cities of the world were frequented by the Russian ballet troupes. Some of them came to Korea as well, introducing both Russian folk dances and European ballet.
The folk dancing, often performed by fit, handsome (and penniless) officers of the defeated White armies was seen as interestingly exotic, but it was too specific to inspire local imitations.
However, ballet and Westernized ``modern dance'' were an altogether different matter: They were seen as yet another expression of ``modernity.''
Of special importance was a visit of the ethnic Korean dancing group from the Russian port of Vladivostok. They came to Korea in April 1921. For the Koreans it was the first opportunity to see how ethnic Koreans could perform modern Western-style dance.
These visits by the Russian groups stimulated the growth of the local dancing schools, still often operated by former gisaeng.
Around the same time, social dancing was introduced, largely promoted by the YMCA and other missionary-led organizations. The awareness of social dance also stimulated interest in dance performances.
In the 1920s the Japanese dance schools, which served as major conduits for the new dancing forms, already had a number of Korean students.
In 1926 one of these students, the 19 years old Pae Ku-ja, returned to Korea and staged the first performances of Korean folk dance adjusted to the demands of the modern public concert.
She also created an academy where she taught the basics of modern dance, ballet, and her own interpretation of traditional folk dancing.
In 1926, the year when young Pae made her first public performance, Seoul witnessed another visitor, far more famous than the young Korean dancer. Korea was visited by Ishii Baku, widely known as the ``father of Japanese modern dance.''
Baku was also a great teacher. He educated an entire generation of young Japanese dancers who shaped the Japanese (and, more generally, East Asian) scene for many decades to come.
His performances in Seoul won the audience over and inspired a number of young Koreans from middle- and upper-middle-class backgrounds. Merely a decade earlier they would not even think of following such a supposedly degrading career, but things were changing fast.
His short performance had great, if partially unintended, consequences. Among the visitors there was a teenage girl from a prosperous family who was completely enraptured by what she saw.
She began to press her parents for permission to go to study dance in Japan, and the permission was reluctantly given. In due time the girl would become the first Korean to garner worldwide fame, a super-celebrity, a zealous (and probably sincere) pro-Japanese activist and perhaps even a Nazi admirer, a founder of North Korean ballet, an adviser on the arts to Kim Il-sung and, finally, an inmate of a North Korean prison camp. Her name was Choi Seung-hee, but that, as you guess, is another story …
Prof. Andrei Lankov was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and now teaches at Kookmin University in Seoul. He has recently published ``The Dawn of Modern Korea," which is now on sale at Kyobo Book Center and other major bookstores. The book is based on columns published in The Korea Times. He can be reached at anlankov@yahoo.com.