Choedance
Choedance
12
https://doi.org/10.26861/sddh.2018.51.065
Emily Wilcox
(Assistant Professor of Modern Chinese Studies, Department of
Asian Languages and Cultures, University of Michigan)
무용역사기록학회
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Abstrac
Past English-language scholarship on Choe Seung-hui has focused on her world tour of
1938-1940 and her work in Japan and Japanese-occupied Korea prior to 1945. Choe’s
contributions to dance creation in the socialist world have been largely ignored. This essay
expands on the existing scholarship by using Chinese-language source materials to examine
Choe’s career in China and its implications for the connections between the pre- and
post-1945 periods of Choe’s career. This essay documents three important parts of Choe’s
work in China: her development of China-themed choreography, her adaptation of new dance
forms from Chinese opera, and her training of the first generation of Chinese dance
professionals. I argue that Choe’s work in China was continuous despite changes in political
context. The project that she began in the 1940s as part of the pan-Asianist project of Oriental
Dance later transformed by the 1950s into Chinese classical dance under socialist
internationalism.
<Keywords> Choe Seung-hui (Choi Seunghee), Oriental Dance, Chinese Classical Dance,
Pan-Asianism, Socialist Internationalism
Crossing Over: Choe Seung-hui’s Pan-Asianism in Revolutionary Time 67
Ⅰ. Introduction
Since taboos on the study of Choe Seung-hui 최승희 / 崔承喜 (also written Ch’oe
Sŭnghŭi or Choi Seunghee; in Japanese Sai Shoki; in Chinese as Cui Chengxi,
1911-1969) were lifted in South and North Korea in the 1990s, Anglophone researchers
have joined a growing group of international scholars contributing to new
understandings of the life and career of this influential Korean dancer, choreographer,
researcher, and pedagogue. While the transnational and intercultural dimensions of
Choe’s work have received significant attention in the emerging body of scholarship,
Anglophone scholars have tended to examine these themes within the context of the
pre-1945 Japanese imperial period, rather than after Choe’s move in 1946 to North
Korea (later the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, est. 1948). Choe’s
performances in the United States, Europe, and Latin America during her world tour
of 1938-1940 have understandably received special attention from Anglophone scholars,
as has the expression of colonialism, imperialism, modernity, and pan-Asianism in
Choe’s early work in Japan and colonial Korea (Van Zile 2001; Park 2004; Kim 2006;
Atkins 2010; Van Zile 2013; Kleeman 2014; Romero Castilla 2017). By comparison,
Choe’s work in Japanese-occupied China between 1941 and 1945 and the more than
two decades Choe spent developing dance in North Korea and China from 1946 to the
late 1960s has only recently begun to receive attention in English-language research
(Kim 2017; Wilcox 2019; Wilcox forthcoming).
Using Chinese-language historical sources, I argue that there are significant
continuities between the Japanese imperial and socialist phases of Choe’s career. After
her move to North Korea in 1946, Choe continued to travel widely as she had in the
earlier years, touring her dances abroad, participating and judging in international dance
competitions, creating work with diverse cultural influences, and collaborating with
artists in other countries (Won 2008; Gu 1951; Du and Yang 1958; Kim 2017). Choe’s
movements after 1946 followed new political networks, with the transnational circuits
of Japanese imperialism largely replaced by those of socialist internationalism. Despite
these changes in political context and geography, however, the substance of Choe’s
artistic activities remained in many ways consistent over time. One project in particular
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that continued across the 1946 divide was Choe’s effort to create a new concert dance
style on the basis of Chinese theater. During the Japanese imperial period, Choe began
this project under the label of “Oriental Dance” (also translated “Eastern Dance”; in
Korean Tongyang muyong 동양 무용; in Japanese Tōyō buyō 東洋舞踊; in Chinese
Dongfang wudao 東方舞蹈), a name that connected it to the imperialist ideology of
pan-Asianism. After the fall of the Japanese empire, Choe did not abandon this work
simply because the political context of Japanese imperialism had disappeared. Rather,
she reframed it to suit the new context of socialist internationalism. Thus, I suggest that
Choe’s dance-based articulations of pan-Asianism, rather than ending with the demise
of the Japanese empire, outlived the political circumstances in which they had initially
taken shape. In this way, Choe’s pan-Asianism “crossed over” the 1945 political divide
and found new life and new meanings in the socialist revolutionary age.
This study examines the continuity in Choe’s dance activities between the Japanese
imperial era and her post-1946 work in North Korea by examining her international
career in China, which spanned these two periods. Choe’s contributions to dance in
China are well documented in the Chinese-language sources, including periodicals and
books published while Choe was in China during the 1940s and early 1950s and
retrospective accounts published since the early 2000s. Here, I draw on all of these
available Chinese-language materials, which I have accessed through digital Chinese
periodical databases, library collections in China and the United States, and more than
ten years of field research among professional dancers in China. In addition to reading
published documents and examining audiovisual recordings and photographs, I also
conducted oral history interviews with several prominent Chinese dancers who
personally studied with Choe when she taught at China’s Central Academy of Drama
in Beijing during the early 1950s. Most previous Anglophone scholars writing on Choe
have examined her work through the lens of Japanese, Korean, or Western-language
sources. Chinese-language materials thus represent a new perspective from which to
Crossing Over: Choe Seung-hui’s Pan-Asianism in Revolutionary Time 69
understand and interpret Choe’s transnational dance career. They help illuminate the
ways in which this creative, intelligent, and ambitious artist carved out space for her
own creative agendas in divergent political contexts and how she forged lasting
professional relationships that transcended boundaries of time and space.
Choe’s dance activities in China examined here lasted just over a decade, from 1941
until 1952. Not only did they cross the 1945 political watershed but were roughly
equally divided between two periods—the first structured by Japanese imperialism and
lasting roughly from 1941 to 1945 and the second structured by international socialism
and lasting roughly from 1946 to 1952. Over the course of these twelve years, relations
between China, Korea, and Japan underwent profound changes, shaped by tumultuous
events such as the Second Sino-Japanese War, the early Cold War, and the Korean
War. These events had consequences for China’s and Korea’s artistic spheres and Choe’s
role in them. For example, Choe’s tours in China during the Sino-Japanese War led
her to encounter Chinese theatrical practices and form friendships with Chinese
performance artists, while the needs of North Korean nation-building presented new
professional opportunities to translate her ongoing projects in a new political context,
and the Korean War brought Choe once again back to China to continue her earlier
work. What is astonishing is the relative constancy that can be observed in Choe’s
artistic activities in China amidst these profound sociopolitical shifts and her own
growth as a dance artist during these years. Throughout her time working in China,
Choe collaborated with roughly the same group of Chinese theater practitioners,
represented most notably by the world famous Peking opera (Jingju 京劇) star Mei
Lanfang 梅蘭芳 (1894-1961). In cooperation with Mei and others, Choe worked to
analyze and extract bodily movements used in various forms of Chinese opera (xiqu
戲曲, also known as Chinese indigenous theater) and use them as the basis for a new
dance form, what became known as Chinese classical dance (Zhongguo gudianwu 中國
古典舞). It was not until the mid-1950s that Chinese classical dance emerged as a fully
formed dance style under the patronage of the new Chinese socialist state (Wilcox
2019). Nevertheless, I show that this style was a direct continuation of the earlier
project of Oriental Dance that Choe had begun in the context of pan-Asianist ideology
during the Japanese imperial era.
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Because Choe’s work in China followed a consistent program with a clear progression
over the years from 1941 to 1952, I focus my study on this historical timeframe.
Employing this approach challenges the conventional periodization of modern Chinese
history, which regards the year 1949 as a fundamental break between two politically
divergent eras: the Republic of China (ROC) from 1912 to 1949 and the People’s
Republic of China (PRC) from 1949 to the present. From an institutional perspective,
there were important differences between Choe’s work before and after the establishment
of the PRC in 1949. For example, Choe’s collaborations with Chinese performing artists
and her establishment of dance institutions in China before 1949 appear to have been
private enterprises whose connection to Japanese government institutions was not totally
clear, while her parallel activities in China after 1949 were conducted as official activities
sponsored by the Chinese Ministry of Culture and ultimately based in China’s
state-sponsored national conservatory, the Central Academy of Drama. By placing these
activities side-by-side and documenting the historical links between them, I aim to show
not only how dance projects begun under the imperial ideology of pan-Asianism were
adapted to the new ideology of socialist internationalism, but also how private activities
and person-to-person friendships seeded during the imperial period laid the groundwork
for public culture initiatives and state-to-state diplomatic activities that flowered during
the Korean War under the early years of Sino-North Korean cultural exchange. Choe’s
career in China over the period from 1941 to 1952 thus offers a lens for exploring larger
questions in dance studies, modern Chinese history, and the origins of transnational
socialist culture in East Asia and beyond.
Choe’s first visits to China were a series of performance tours she made in the early
1940s, during which she visited the Japanese-controlled puppet state of Manchuria and
major cities along China’s eastern seaboard that had come under Japanese occupation
since the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937. Following Choe’s return to
Japan after her world tour to Europe and North and South America in early December
Crossing Over: Choe Seung-hui’s Pan-Asianism in Revolutionary Time 71
“From April to November 1941, Choe Seung-hui carried out more than a hundred
shows during a performance tour through Korea, China, and Japan. Starting in February
1942, she again performed as many as 130 shows in Korea and in China’s Northeast
(Dongbei 東北) and North China (Huabei 華北) territories. Among these, her performances
in Beijing and Tianjin alone added up to 18 […] On August 12, 1943, Choe and her
husband travelled in a group of fourteen people and four students including 針田陽子
and set out from Dandong, China, travelling to Wushun, Fengtian (Shenyang), Dalian,
Jilin, Xinjing (Changchun), Harbin, Qiqihar, Bei’an, Jiamusi, Mudanjiang, Tumen, etc.,
carrying out her third tour of China. After they arrived in Nanjing on September 4th,
they then carried out over a month of performances in Nanjing and Shanghai. Then, they
According to Li, Choe received highly positive receptions from Chinese audiences
during these tours. “Choe’s performances in China were just like her performances in
Paris, New York, and other Euro-American cities, receiving feverishly enthusiastic
responses from audiences,” Li writes (17). Other scholars have noted that apart from
performing for local Chinese audiences, Choe also performed shows for the
1) Li does not provide sources to document the exact dates, locations, and other information provided in this
description. However, Li’s account roughly matches other published timelines of Choe’s life. See Takashima
and Chong (1994: 217-218). Li cites Takashima’s 1981 biography of Choe later in her essay. All
translations from Chinese are my own.
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entertainment of Japanese soldiers during these visits (Park 2004: 622-624; Won 2008;
Atkins 2010: 169). This suggests that as for the vast majority of artists working in
Japan or Japanese-occupied locations during this period, Choe’s artistry was
intertwined in direct and indirect ways with Japan’s imperialist politics.
It was during these shows in Japanese-controlled parts of China from 1941 to 1943,
some of which were performances for Japanese soldiers, that Choe began to create,
perform, and promote what she called “Oriental Dance”: a pan-East Asian dance
repertoire that self-consciously adapted material from Chinese, Japanese, and Korean
sources. This new repertoire built on Choe’s past experience in intercultural dance but
marked an important departure from her earlier works in both their style and content.
The existing scholarship on Choe’s dance activities prior to 1940 suggest that she began
her career performing Japanese interpretations of Western dance, including a
combination of elements drawn from ballet, early European and American modern
dance, and revue-style commercial dance (Takashima and Chong 1994; Van Zile
2013). Starting in 1934, Choe began to stage new choreography that took inspiration
from diverse Korean cultural sources, such as the performances of peasants, kisaeng,
and shamans, characters from traditional Korean masked dance-drama, and dances
portraying, sometimes in a satirical way, Korean elites, monks, and generals. Because
of their creative approach to Korean material, these dances were known in Korean as
“shinmuyong” 新舞踊, meaning “new dance” (Lee 1997: 95-102). The repertoire Choe
performed during her world tour of 1938-40 emphasized her shinmuyong choreography
on Korean themes, together with additional pieces that used South and Southeast Asian
imagery or took inspiration from Buddhist art, some similar in style to earlier orientalist
dances by American modern dancer Ruth St. Denis.2) During the early 1940s, Japan’s
wartime ideology took a new turn with the Imperial Subject Movement and promotion
of the “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere,” which advocated pan-Asianism over
individual national identities. In this tense political environment, it became politically
dangerous for Choe to continue to focus on Korean subject material as she had done
2) For a detailed account of the works Choe performed when she visited the United States, see Van Zile (2001),
especially the appendix. On comparisons between Choe and St. Denis, see Van Zile (2013).
Crossing Over: Choe Seung-hui’s Pan-Asianism in Revolutionary Time 73
previously since the mid-1930s. It thus became politically necessary for Choe to create
and perform dances on a broader range of themes, especially those representing China
and Japan, which had not been part of her earlier choreography. It was this new
context that propelled Choe’s pursuit of Oriental Dance as a pan-East Asian dance
repertoire (Kleeman 2014: 200, 204-205).
Journalistic accounts of Choe’s tours in Beijing, Shanghai, and other major Chinese
cities in the years 1942 and 1943 show that Choe was already performing items from
her new Oriental Dance repertoire on these tours. In 1942, the magazine 369 Pictorial
published a short article on Choe’s tour in Beijing, stating that Choe had been invited
by the North China Performing Arts Association (Huabei yanyi xiehui 華北演藝協會)
and that her visit was highly anticipated by the local arts community (“Gewujia” 1942).
The next issue of the magazine included a blurry stage photograph showing Choe
dancing in a light-colored Chinese-style robe with a dark sash down the middle,
scalloped hip panels with a dark rim, long flowing sleeves, and a headdress with a
circular pendant on the forehead (Figure 2).
In the photograph, Choe appears to be
stepping forward on her left foot with her
head slightly tilted to the left and her hands
tossing her long sleeves back over her right
shoulder (“Riben zhuming” 1942). Although
the name of the dance is not given, the
costume and body position match photographs
identified elsewhere as Consort’s Song 明妃
曲, a Chinese-themed piece inspired by the
story of Wang Zhaojun 王昭君, a Chinese
woman who lived in the first century BCE
and has been a frequent subject in Chinese
literature (Liu 1943: 28; Takashima and
Figure 2. Photograph of Choe Seung-hui
Chong 1994: 121-122; Gu 1951: 95). In performing in China in 1942. Published in San liu
jiu huabao 三六九畫報 Vol. 16, No. 2, page 17.
1943, Pacific Weekly published a complete Reproduction provided by the Chinese Periodical
Full-text Database (1911-1949), Quan Guo Bao
list of the thirty-six dances Choe performed Kan Suo Yin (CNBKSY), Shanghai Library.
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Figure 3. List of Choe Seung-hui’s thirty-six dances performed in Shanghai in 1943. Published in Taipingyang
zhoubao 太平洋周報 Vol. 1, No. 84, page 1853. Reproduction provided by the Chinese Periodical Full-text
Database (1911-1949), Quan Guo Bao Kan Suo Yin (CNBKSY), Shanghai Library.
in Shanghai during her tour that year, and it confirms that Consort’s Song was one
of at least three works on Chinese themes included in that program, along with
Fragrant Consort 香妃 and Dance of Yang Guifei 楊貴妃艷舞 (“Chongyi” 1943) (Figure
3). Apart from Chinese-themed dances, the program also featured several pieces
inspired by Japanese material. These included Song and Dance Buddha 歌舞菩薩,
inspired by a Japanese painting from the Kamakura period (1185-1333) titled Arrival
of the 25 Bodhisattva 二十五菩薩來迎圖 that depicts bodhisattvas in the clouds playing
musical instruments; Samantabhadra Bodhisattva 普賢菩薩, based on a Japanese
painting from the Heian period (794-1185); and Chasing the Heart 追心, Dance Before
a God 神前舞, and Martial Spirit 武魂, all of which were adapted from Japanese Noh
dramas.3) During this time, the Chinese press often cited a poetic description of Choe’s
dance program that emphasized her blending of Chinese, Japanese and Korean
components. It stated, “Choe’s art is composed of the mixture of three elements: the
colors of Japan, the forms of China, and the lines of Choson”(“Chongyi” 1943; “Dongyang”
1943).
Choe explained the provenance of her new pan-East Asian program and its connection
to her new vision of Oriental Dance during a symposium held in Shanghai on October
23, 1943, a detailed transcript of which was published in the magazine Miscellany shortly
afterward (“Cui Chengxi” 1943) (Figure 4). Many of her new works, Choe explained,
3) For the complete program, see “Chongyi” (1943). For descriptions of the works, see also Gu (1951: 94-99).
For photographs of some of these works published in China, see Yi (1943).
Crossing Over: Choe Seung-hui’s Pan-Asianism in Revolutionary Time 75
and struggling to add new creation, making it become a new form of dance. China has
youth who are committed to Chinese dance art. If they can work hard at this, why
not open a new path, founding a new Chinese dance art?” (35). At the conclusion of
the symposium, Choe made an impassioned call for Chinese youth to join her in
working toward the realization of her proposal: “I fervently hope that this short
performance will attract the interest of China’s youthful men and women who are
devoted to dance art and that they will take this opportunity to jointly establish an
Oriental dance art. I hope that next time I come here, I will have new contributions
to place before Chinese audiences” (38). In the symposium report, Choe is identified
as a “Japanese dance expert,” underscoring the imperialist cultural frame in which this
event and Choe’s proposals for Oriental Dance initially emerged.
Also, like Choe, Mei was known for innovating upon traditional performance styles
(Goldstein 2007; Yeh 2017). During their conversation, Choe told Mei about her new
dance portraying Yang Guifei, a role for which Mei himself was quite well known.4)
At the time of their meeting, Mei had stopped performing as an act of resistance against
the Japanese occupation. However, during their conversation, Choe requested to study
with Mei and expressed the hope of one day seeing him perform again. Choe also asked
Mei about the training of artists in Chinese opera. After he reported on the situation,
Mei offered to take Choe to visit a professional Chinese opera school in Shanghai where
she could observe the training, and Choe enthusiastically agreed. According to another
account, published in 369 Pictorial in late 1943, just before Choe was about to leave
Beijing to return to Tokyo at the end of her 1943 tour, Choe reportedly met with Bai
Yuwei 白玉薇, an accomplished female Peking opera performer. During their
conversation, Choe reportedly told Bai that “in the future [I] will come back to Beijing
to establish a high-quality dance school” (“Liu guo” 1943: 22). Choe also added that
she hoped Chinese opera practitioners would pay more attention to dance in the future,
hinting at her plans to return and set up a dance research program for this purpose.
Following Choe’s return to Tokyo at the end of 1943, Chinese periodicals continued
to report on her activities researching and performing Chinese dance and her plans to
return to China and begin teaching Chinese students. As reported in a 1944 article in
369 Pictorial, Choe had staged a series of sold-out shows at the Tokyo Imperial theater
from January 27th to February 15th in which she presented a further enlarged repertoire
that included six works with Chinese themes. One of these pieces was titled Farewell
My Concubine 霸王别姬, based on a well-known work of Peking opera in which Mei
Lanfang famously portrayed the character of Yang Guifei. (Choe’s earlier piece Dance
of Yang Guifei was also included on this program.) Another newly added
Chinese-themed choreography performed in the same program was Autumn Moon in
the Han Palace 漢宮秋, based on a piece of classic Chinese music. Two others were
Lotus Steps 蓮步 and Zhen’e Vanquishes the Tiger 真餓刺虎. For this show, Choe had
4) As a male actor specializing in female roles, Mei portrayed similar characters to the ones in Choe’s
Chinese-themed dances. One of Mei’s most famous acts was “Drunken Beauty” 貴妃醉酒, depicting the
character of Yang Guifei.
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reportedly sought out a Chinese music ensemble led by Chen Lingxiu, a Chinese writer
studying in Tokyo, to provide the musical accompaniment. According to the article,
Choe was already making plans to return to give performances in China in August or
September of that year, for audiences in Beijing, Tianjin, and Qingdao (“Liu Ri” 1944).
Around this same time, China Weekly reported that Choe was still studying in Japan
but that she “has a hope that will likely be realized next spring… to bring in some
Chinese students” (“Zuji” 1944: 22). This same writer added that Choe was also
planning to collect more materials in China for further dance creation, with the goal
“to create a most contemporary, most ideal expression of the beauty of Oriental
spiritual beauty (Dongfang jingshen mei 東方精神美)” (22). Another article published in
1944 in Literary Pictorial announced that Choe “will soon publicly set up an institute
and offer instruction” (Gu 1944: 3).
These years of anticipation and preparation
finally came to fruition in Choe’s establishment
of the Oriental Dance Research Institute
(Dongfang wuyong yanjiusuo 東方舞踊研究所5)),
the first of two dance training programs she would
lead in Beijing during her career. Accounts vary
on the exact year the Oriental Dance Research
Institute was founded. In his well-researched
Chinese-language book on Choe’s career published
in 1951, Gu Yewen dates the founding of the
Institute to 1944, and this is the date also used
by the contemporary scholar Li Aishun cited
above (Gu 1951: 12; Li 2005: 18) (Figure 6).
Figure 6. Cover of Chinese-language book
on Choe Seung-hui published by Gu Yewen However, the earliest Chinese-language sources I
in Shanghai in 1951. Photograph from
author’s collection.
have been able to locate that mention the Institute
5) Sources are inconsistent about the exact name of the institute. Chinese accounts published in 1945 tend to
use “wuyong” 舞踊, a term for dance that has elitist and Japanese associations. Later Chinese publications,
including those in the early 1950s, replace “wuyong” with “wudao” 舞蹈, so the name becomes “Dongfang
wudao yanjiusuo” 東方舞蹈研究所. Both can be translated as Oriental Dance Research Institute.
Crossing Over: Choe Seung-hui’s Pan-Asianism in Revolutionary Time 79
“Choe Seung-hui: A part of Chinese dance still exists in Peking opera and Kunqu.
However, it cannot yet constitute an independent branch of art. What does Mr. Mei
think? I believe that within Chinese classical drama [such as Peking opera and Kunqu]
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there is a great deal of rich and elegant dance materials. If one used this as a foundation
and created a new Chinese dance art [on its basis], it would certainly be better than
the dance art of Western ballet. However, without Mei’s efforts, it would be difficult
Mei Lanfang: In the past, I too had many aspirations to experiment. However, because
of the restrictions of tradition, Peking opera must be sung, and dance could not become
independent [from singing]. Regardless though, I think this can be done, although of
course there will be many challenges. If Ms. Choe takes the creation of Oriental Dance
(Dongfang wuyong 東方舞踊) as her own mission, I hope that by employing Chinese
materials it will certainly be possible to succeed.” (Luo 1945: 85-86).
Following this exchange, the two went on to discuss their own specific approaches
to creation and performance, and Mei expressed his strong endorsement for Choe’s
artistic accomplishments. According to the report, Mei encouraged Choe to train more
students so that in the future it might be possible to stage large-scale narrative dances
similar to European ballets using the dance styles she had created. In response, Choe
explained that this was indeed her intention in setting up the Oriental Dance Research
Institute in Beijing. Outlining the Institute’s purpose, Choe stated, “By teaching my
foundational dance methods and experience to Chinese disciples, what I really want to
do is to establish a new Chinese dance (xin Zhongguo zhi wuyong 新中國之舞踊), with
the ultimate hope being Eastern ballet (Dongyang de balei 東洋的芭蕾)” (86). Mei
apparently endorsed this idea, since he reportedly replied, “It is truly fortunate to have
a research institute in Beiping [Beijing] set up by such a world talent as Ms. Choe”
(86). Shortly after this meeting, a journalist writing for New Century found a bouquet
from Mei in Choe’s guest room, and Choe told the reporter that she had met with Mei
several times and “hoped to frequently study with him” (“Cui Chengxi yi ge” 1945: 29).
Mei was not the only Chinese actor Choe sought out for tutelage and guidance while
she was in China developing the program for her Oriental Dance Research Institute in
1945. That year, an article published in Literary Pictorial reported that a number of
famous Peking opera actors had offered their “sincere criticisms” regarding Choe’s
Crossing Over: Choe Seung-hui’s Pan-Asianism in Revolutionary Time 81
Although Choe was devoted to the study of Chinese opera and expressed her desire
to create from it a new form of Chinese dance, she continued to describe her
exploration of Chinese dance as just one part of her overall mission to create the
pan-East Asian dance genre of Oriental Dance. Japan’s imperialist ideology of
pan-Asianism included an explicit aim to make Asia capable of competing culturally
and politically with the colonialist Western powers (Saaler and Szpilman 2011). Thus,
one way in which Choe’s discourses about Oriental Dance aligned with pan-Asianism
was by positioning Oriental Dance in competition with European ballet, a leading
Western concert dance form. In her meeting with Mei Lanfang on May 31, 1945, for
example, Choe stated, “I think if a new Chinese dance form were created on the basis
of Chinese opera, it would be better than Western ballet” (Luo 1945: 85). In a meeting
with a group of female writers held in Shanghai on April 9th, 1945, Choe elaborated
on this idea further and directly connected it with the aims of the Oriental Dance
Research Institute. She stated,
“I hope to broadly promote Oriental dance art. So, in Beiping [Beijing] I set up a dance
research institute. I don’t dare to hope to become the director of Oriental art. However,
I hope to become a bridge between the dance arts of the various nationalities, making
Chinese and Japanese dance art blend together into a dance art that is unique to the
Orient. Russian ballet and German ballet can represent European culture. However, in
the Orient, although China has Chinese form dance, Japan has Japanese indigenous dance,
and Choson [Korea] has Choson [Korean] dance, there is still no one kind of dance art
that can represent the Orient as a whole. So, I hope to produce through research a kind
Choe made clear in these discussions that she regarded Chinese artists as essential
collaborators in her work at the Oriental Dance Research Institute. She also confirmed
that she saw Chinese dance as just one part of Oriental Dance, which encompassed
dances from all of East Asia. According to her public statements recorded in the
Chinese press, Choe’s ultimate goal in establishing the Institute and creating dance from
Chinese opera was thus to achieve the pan-Asianist project of creating Oriental Dance,
Crossing Over: Choe Seung-hui’s Pan-Asianism in Revolutionary Time 83
so that East Asia would have a concert dance form of its own to rival concert dance
forms such as ballet in the Western world.
After the Japanese surrender in late summer of 1945, Choe remained in China for
several months, before she travelled back to Seoul and then eventually made her way
to Pyongyang in the spring of 1946 (“Cui Chengxi zuo” 1946; Jituoweiqi 1949). From
1946 to 1949, Choe did not return to China, and for a time she became the butt of
sharp criticisms in some parts of the Chinese press. An article published in 1946 in a
Shanghai weekly, for example, described Choe’s occupation-era collaborations with Mei
Lanfang as deceitful trickery, and it even went so far as to compare Choe’s interactions
with Mei to Japanese soldiers’ abuses of the Chinese people during the war (Yu 1946).
By the late 1940s, however, this assessment gradually changed, especially as deeper
connections developed between the leftist dance movement then emerging in China and
Choe’s dance activities in North Korea. Soon after she arrived in Pyongyang, Choe was
appointed head of her own dance school, which became the leading institution for dance
training in North Korea (Gu 1951; Won 2008; Kim 2017). In addition to Korean
students, some Chinese students also attended this school. One of these Chinese students
was Chen Jinqing陳锦清 (1921-1991), who would study at Choe’s school in Pyongyang
in 1948 (Dong and Long 2008: 731). Then already an influential figure in China’s
communist arts movement, Chen would later become a leader in the dance field in the
early People’s Republic of China, serving as founding Vice Director of China’s first
national dance ensemble and founding Vice Principal of the Beijing Dance School (Wilcox
2019). Jiang Zuhui 蔣祖慧 (b. 1934), the daughter of famed Chinese writer Ding Ling
and later herself an influential dancer, choreographer, and Vice Director of the Central
Ballet of China, studied with Choe in Pyongyang in 1949 (Dong and Long 2008: 528).
Likely informed by these exchanges and other cultural traffic between leftist groups in
China and North Korea, a positive narrative about Choe reappeared in Chinese writings
in the late 1940s. This suggested Choe was transcending her earlier association with the
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People’s Daily and Guangming Daily, two leading PRC newspapers, Choe’s initial return
occurred in December 1949. At that time, Choe attended the Asia Women’s Conference
in Beijing, and her North Korea-based dance company was invited to give a series of
high profile shows in Beijing attended by top cultural leaders (Chen 1949; “Wenhua”
1949). Shortly after this visit, the eruption of the Korean War provided a new context
for Choe to once again pursue a period of long-term work in China. In November
1950, Choe was invited back to Beijing, where she delivered high profile speeches on
Sino-Korean friendship and the urgency of the anti-U.S. war effort (Zhu 1950). While
appearing publicly in diplomatic events, Choe also used this opportunity to return to
the dance activities she had begun in the mid-1940s. Working not far from the site
of her former Oriental Dance Research Institute, Choe sought out old friends in the
Chinese opera scene and started once again to work on the project of creating a new
Chinese dance style on the basis of Chinese opera movement. Between November 1950
and February 1951, Choe collaborated with Peking opera actor Mei Lanfang and
Kunqu actors Han Shichang and Bai Yunsheng in Beijing to document and analyze the
basic movements used in the performance of various Chinese opera role types
(hangdang 行當). Specifically, they worked on movement vocabularies of the “virtuous
female” (qingyi 青衣) role, the “coquettish female” (huadan 花旦) role, and the “young
scholar” (xiaosheng 小生) role, in addition to movements for stage properties such as
the water sleeve (shuixiu 水袖) (“Guonei” 1951). In this new context discourses about
Sino-North Korean collaboration in the Korean War, not the idea of “Greater East
Asia,” now provided the ideological support for Choe’s cross-cultural artistic exchange
and dance research. According to a report published in People’s Daily during Choe’s
visit in 1950, Choe reportedly stated, “I want to create some dances to reflect the great
unity between the Chinese and Korean countries and reflect the Chinese people’s
enthusiastic feeling in the Resist American Aid Korea (Kang Mei yuan Chao 抗美援朝)
movement” (Bai 1950). Despite this change in political context and ideological discourse,
the substance of Choe’s artistic practice remained largely the same as it had been during
the mid-1940s. She continued to perform her own work, train Chinese students, study
with Chinese opera actors, and collaboratively research the movements of Chinese opera
with the goal of creating new dance forms that could express East Asian culture,
86 제51호
Figure 11. Choe Seung-hui’s article “The Future of Chinese Dance Art.” Published in People’s Daily 人民日報,
February 18, 1951. Reproduction provided by the People’s Daily image and text database.
dances, which remains an organizing principle in Chinese dance to the present day
(Wilcox 2011; Wilcox 2012). Additionally, she elaborates specific methods for pruning
and expanding the existing movement forms in Chinese opera, with the goal of
developing a training method for Chinese dancers that would be grounded in Chinese
opera movement. This process eventually led to the Chinese classical dance training
curriculum, a system developed under the leadership of Choe’s students that continues
to be used in China and many areas of the Sinophone world today (Wilcox 2019).
The significance of Choe’s reappearance in Beijing after many years and the status
of this new period as both a continuation and validation of much of Choe’s earlier
work in China was remarked upon by some Chinese writers at the time. In his 1951
book, for example, which was published to coincide with the Choe Seung-hui Dance
Research Course, Gu Yewen described Choe’s arrival in the PRC as a long-awaited and
triumphal return akin to the one imagined in the earlier 1948 New China Weekly
article. Gu writes,
“So much has changed over the past ten years. The whole world has changed; it is
hardly recognizable. Korea, which was at the time enslaved by Japan, has already gained
88 제51호
liberation. Choe Seung-hui, who previously had lost her native country, was now the
updated technique along with her. […] This time, she again returned to New China’s
capital, Beijing, where she once lived for many years, and now she is with even greater
Choe’s return to Beijing in 1949 and continued work through 1952 was not only
significant as a continuation and elevation from the perspective of her own biography,
but also in terms of the theoretical and practical applications of her artistic vision.
Through her work in the dance institutions of socialist China, especially the Choe
Seung-hui Dance Research Course, Choe was able to finally realize a creative project
she had first initiated with her early performances of Chinese-themed dances in
1941-1943, then articulated and expanded with her founding of the Oriental Dance
Research Institute and her study with Chinese opera actors in 1944-1946, and
continued to incubate through her establishment and running of a large-scale national
school in Pyongyang in 1946-1950. As Gu states above, she brought back “an updated
technique,” presumably referring to the matured form of her dancing and pedagogy
developed at her school in Pyongyang. As she had in her earlier statements recorded
in Shanghai in 1943 and 1945, Choe continued to argue that plentiful sources for dance
creation existed within Chinese opera and that a new dance form made from these
sources would have great value. What was different now is that she finally brought this
vision to fruition not just on her own body but on the bodies of an entire cohort of
Chinese students who would carry on her legacy in the years to come.
The Choe Seung-hui Dance Research Course lasted from March 1951 to October
1952 and included a group of young dancers who had been recruited from leading ensembles
and schools around China (Figure 12). During the Course’s opening ceremonies, Mei
Lanfang personally spoke to endorse Choe’s methods, marking an important continuity
in Choe’s personal relationships from the earlier period (Fang 1951). Apart from Mei,
a long list of Peking opera and Kunqu actors also took part as advisors to Choe during
her teaching of the Course, some of whom were artists Choe had worked with during
her earlier visits to China. In 2005, a commemorative book edited by Tian Jing and
Crossing Over: Choe Seung-hui’s Pan-Asianism in Revolutionary Time 89
6) The original quota was for 55 Chinese and 55 North Korean students. However, as of March 17, 1951,
only thirty North Korean students were enrolled. According to Tian and Li, of a total of 120 students, 85
were Chinese and 35 were Korean.
90 제51호
Ⅵ. Conclusion
In her 2013 article on Choe’s early career, dance scholar Judy Van Zile makes the
important point that when seeking to understand Choe’s artistic contributions to dance
history, it is important to recognize the persistent patterns in Choe’s work that go
beyond the confines of particular dance styles, political movements, or temporal periods.
When examining the arc of Choe’s work from the late 1920s to the late 1930s, for
example, Van Zile observes Choe’s enduring commitment to a modernist philosophy of
experimentation and individuality, even as she develops a distinct dance style that
92 제51호
emphasizes themes and materials clearly adapted from Korean cultural sources. Rather
than seeing Choe’s early career as a shift from “modern dance” to “Korean dance,” as
others have often done, Van Zile instead recognizes continuity manifested in Choe’s
ongoing commitment to fusing modernity with tradition and to developing her own
personal expression of Korean modernity through dance.
Similar to Van Zile’s observations, in this essay I identify yet another way in which
Choe’s early artistic commitments can be seen driving later periods of her artistic career.
In this case, I show how Choe applied her techniques for choreographic experimentation
and developing a modern style of Korean dance to a new set of cultural sources, in
this case those of Chinese operatic theater. In many ways, the artistic approaches and
philosophies Choe brought to her work in China were of a piece with those she had
developed in Japan and Korea earlier. When the escalation of Japanese imperialism had
made it dangerous for Choe to continue her artistic explorations of Korean dance, she
used the concept of Oriental Dance and its connection with pan-Asianist thought to
find refuge in China and in a new project of developing modern Chinese dance. Rather
than being confined to a particular political moment, this strategy of Choe’s proved
profoundly resilient and versatile. The project of modernizing East Asian cultural forms
in ways that emphasized their distinctiveness and resisted Western cultural assimilation
proved compatible with the ambitions of divergent political groups in East Asia during
the twentieth century. Choe pinpointed this critical convergence and used it to her
advantage as an artist, a teacher, and a cultural icon. By doing so, Choe was able to
adapt each new opportunity to the pursuit of her own creative ends, and she thereby
left her footprints on the dance histories of many distinct communities across the East
Asian region.
Acknowledgements
Research for this paper was funded by a Transregional Research Junior Scholar
Fellowship from the Social Science Research Council and by faculty research grants
from the University of Michigan’s Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, Institute
Crossing Over: Choe Seung-hui’s Pan-Asianism in Revolutionary Time 93
for Research on Women and Gender, and Center for World Performance Studies.
Earlier versions of this paper were presented at three conferences during the summer
of 2017: the AAS-in-Asia Conference in Seoul, South Korea; the 10th International
Convention of Asian Scholars in Chiang Mai, Thailand; and the Association for Asian
Performance Annual Meeting in Las Vegas, United States. I am grateful to Haeree Choi,
Judy Van Zile, Jongsung Yang, Engseng Ho, and three anonymous reviewers for their
helpful suggestions on earlier versions of this paper.
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국문초록
에밀리 윌콕스
(미시건 대학교)