Students from Seoul, South Korea’s Hanyang University KUM Dance Company brought traditional Korean culture to the Beall Concert Hall Thursday afternoon in a series of lectures and an interactive workshop about cultural characteristics presented through dance.
The Hanyang students introduced the basic rhythms of traditional Korean dance in conjunction with its basic movements. University students in the audience used their hands and legs for drums to make Korean beats. Several audience members eagerly jumped on stage to learn the motions of the Buchaechum,or as it is more commonly known, the Korean Fan Dance.
Perhaps the most famous traditional Korean dance, the Fan Dance incorporates a methodical fluidity, as dancers holding fans in both hands gracefully step and twirl to the slow beat of the music. The fans cross behind and in front of the dancers, opening and retracting as the dancers move together to form more complex objects such as rotating flowers and undulating waves.
Hilary Hance, a University sophomore and music major, described the Fan Dance as “very fluid” and “smooth.”
Audience members were taught the five basic movements of the Fan Dance as well as the two basic rhythms that form the foundation of all traditional Korean dances.
Speaking through a translator and using a plethora of hand gestures, choreographer and professor Dr. Kim Un-mi narrated Hanyang’s presentation of traditional Korean dance. As Un-mi illustrated in her solo drum performance, instrument players of traditional Korean dance use no music, but instead play by feeling the rises and falls of the rhythm.
“Surprisingly, it works very well,” she said.
In the pieces they played, they used only drums – no other instruments – and improvised over the two basic rhythms. The rise and fall of sound and rhythm is particularly important to understanding and performing Korean dance. All traditional Korean music is composed of two parts: strong and loud sounds represent a male presence and weaker and softer ones represent a female presence, Un-mi said.
Strung between the top of two wooden planks, Un-mi’s drum stood about five feet off the ground at her head level. At the fast parts, her short wooden sticks blurred with speed as she alternated strikes between the skin of the drum and its hard frame.
Un-mi then instructed the audience in the basic rhythm she had used in her solo performance.
Music major Kate Rogers, who participated on-stage, called the presentation “beautiful” and “energetic,” adding that she appreciated the hands-on workshop. Rogers found the differences between Korean rhythms and those of Western music fascinating, saying it was “cool to be exposed” to Korean culture through dance and music.
Because much of traditional Korean dance is an illustration of the harmony found in nature, Assistant to the Dean of the School of Music and Dance Janet Stewart said it was “neat to see how other people express the beauty of their environment.”