The purpose of this thesis is to analyze characteristics of everyday movement showed in performances of Steve Paxton. A work of art has been realized as a special object enjoyed by high class people as high culture for a long time. Therefore, a gap between everyday life and art has been greatly existed, and the emergence of everyday elements in a work of art means that public awareness involving social change is changed. The postmodernism as the period when a boundary between art and everyday life is uncertain was a postwar society after the Second World War and a social situation that rapidly changes into a capitalistic society. Changes in this time made scholars gain access academically concepts related to everyday life, and affected artists as the spirit of the times of pluralistic postmodernism refusing totality. At the same period of the time, modern dance also faced a turning point as post-modern dance. After the Second World War, modern dance started to be evaluated as it reaches the limit, and at this juncture, headed by dancers including the Judson Dance Theatre. Acting as a dancer in a dance company of Merce Cunningham, Steve Paxton, one of founders of the Judson Dance Theatre, had a critical mind of the conditions of dance company with the social structure and the process that movement is made. This thinking is showed in early performances as an at tempt to realize everyday motion it self in performances. His early activity represented by a walking motion attracted attention as a simple motion that excludes all artful elements of existing dance performances and is possible to conduct by a person who is not a dancer. Although starting the use of everyday movement is regarded as an open characteristic of post-modern dance, advanced researches on this were rare, so this study started. In addition, studies related to Steve Paxton are skewed towards Contact Improvisation that he rose as an active practician. As the use of ordinary movement before he focused on Contact Improvisation, this study examines other attempts including Contact Improvisation as attempts after the beginning of his performances. Therefore, the study analyzes Satisfyin' Lover, Contact at 10th & 2nd and Bound that are performances of Steve Paxton, and based on this, draws everyday characteristics. In addition, related books, academic essays, dance articles and reviews are consulted to consider a concept related to everyday life and understand dance historical movement of post-modern dance. Paxton attracted attention because of his activity starting at critical approach of movement of existing modern dance. As walking of performers who are not dancers, a walking motion showed in Satisfyin' Lover gave esthetic meaning to everyday movement. After that, he was affected by Eastern ideas, so developed Contact Improvisation making a motion through energy of the natural laws. In addition, he had everyday things on his performances, and used a method to deliver various images by using mundane movement and impromptu gestures originating from relaxed body. Everyday movement of his performances represents change in awareness of performances of the art of dancing that are traditionally maintained including change of dance genre of an area. His activity with unprecedented attempt and experimentation should be highly evaluated as efforts to overcome the limit of modern dance.
Myogilsang on Diamond Mountain, signed and dated (2000) by Seon-u Yeong (1946-2009), is the first work by a North Korean artist to enter the collection of the National Museum of Korea (fig. 1a). The donor acquired the painting directly from the artist in Pyeongyang in 2006. In consequence, there are no issues with the painting's authenticity.This painting is the largest among all existing Korean paintings, whether contemporary or from the Joseon Dynasty, to depict this iconography (see chart 1. A Chronological List of Korean Myogilsang Paintings.) It is ink and color on paper, measures 130.2 × 56.2 centimeters, and is in a hanging scroll format. Since this essay is intended as a brief introduction of the painting and not in-depth research into it, I will simply examine the following four areas: 1. Seon-u Yeong's background; 2. The location and the traditional appellation of the rock-cut image known as Myogilsang; 3. The iconography of the image; and 4) A comparative analysis of Seon-u Yeong's painting in light of other paintings on the same theme. Finally, I will present two more of his works to broaden the understanding of Seon-u Yeong as a painter. 1. Seon-u Yeong: According to the donor, who met Seon-u at his workshop in the Cheollima Jejakso (Flying Horse Workshop) three years before the artist's death, he was an individual of few words but displayed a firm commitment to art. His preference for subjects such as Korean landscapes rather than motifs of socialist realism such as revolutionary leaders is demonstrated by the fact that, relative to his North Korean contemporaries, he seems to have produced more paintings of the former. In recent years, Seon-u Yeong has been well publicized in Korea through three special exhibitions (2012 through 2019). He graduated from Pyeongyang College of Fine Arts in 1969 and joined the Central Fine Arts Production Workshop focusing on oil painting. In 1973 he entered the Joseon Painting Production Workshop and began creating traditional Korean paintings in ink and color. His paintings are characterized by intense colors and fine details. The fact that his mother was an accomplished embroidery specialist may have influenced on Seon-u's choice to use intense colors in his paintings. By 1992, he had become a painter representing the Democratic People's Republic of Korea with several titles such as Artist of Merit, People's Artist, and more. About 60 of his paintings have been designated as National Treasures of the DPRK. 2. The Myogilsang rock-cut image is located in the Manpok-dong Valley in the inner Geumgangsan Mountain area. It is a high-relief image about 15 meters tall cut into a niche under 40 meters of a rock cliff. It is the largest of all the rock-cut images of the Goryeo period. This image is often known as "Mahayeon Myogilsang," Mahayeon (Mahayana) being the name of a small temple deep in the Manpokdong Valley (See fig. 3a & 3b). On the right side of the image, there is an intaglio inscription of three Chinese characters by the famous scholar-official and calligrapher Yun Sa-guk (1728-1709) reading "妙吉祥"myogilsang (fig. 4a, 4b). 3. The iconography: "Myogilsang" is another name for the Bhodhisattva Mañjuśrī. The Chinese pronunciation of Myogilsang is "miaojixiang," which is similar in pronunciation to Mañjuśrī. Therefore, we can suggest a 妙吉祥 ↔ Mañjuśrī formula for the translation and transliteration of the term. Even though the image was given a traditional name, the mudra presented by the two hands in the image calls for a closer examination. They show the making of a circle by joining the thumb with the ring finger (fig. 6). If the left land pointed downward, this mudra would conventionally be considered "lower class: lower life," one of the nine mudras of the Amitabha. However, in this image the left hand is placed across its abdomen at an almost 90-degree angle to the right hand (fig. 6). This can be interpreted as a combination of the "fear not" and the "preaching" mudras (see note 10, D. Saunders). I was also advised by the noted Buddhist art specialist Professor Kim Jeong-heui (of Won'gwang University) to presume that this is the "preaching" mudra. Therefore, I have tentatively concluded that this Myogilsang is an image of the Shakyamuni offering the preaching mudra. There is no such combination of hand gestures in any other Goryeo-period images. The closest I could identify is the Beopjusa Rock-cut Buddha (fig. 7) from around the same time. 4. Comparative analysis: As seen in