• Journal of the Korean Society of Costume
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• v.64 no.1
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• pp.152-164
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• 2014

Korean people have revered the white color and enjoyed wearing white clothes. Various kinds of white clothes have been worn by the Korean people, ranging from everyday wear(便服), and scholar's robe(深衣) for the upper class, to religious costumes like Buddhist monk's robe(僧服), shaman costumes(巫服) and costumes for ancestral rites(祭服), or mourning(喪服). There have been many differing opinions by historians regarding the background of this Baekeuihosang(白衣好尙, the preference for white clothing) tradition and even now, it is frequently being discussed. This study aims to consider and discuss the background of this Baekeuihosang tradition, focusing on Chang-seon Yoo's Baekeuigo(白衣考, the consideration of white clothing), which was published in Dong-A Ilbo in 1934. The purposes of studying literature such as the Baekeuigo is to analyze the arguments on the origin of Baekeuihosang, to analyze Chang-seon Yoo's claim of its origin, and to discuss the culture of Baekeuihosang. Chang-seon Yoo claimed that the existing discussions on the background of Baekeuihosang based on the lack of dyes, or undeveloped technique, economic privation and national control strayed from historical facts, according to literature review. It is not worth discussing the farfetched arguments such as the use of costumes for ancestral rites as everyday wears, or the nation of sorrow. Baekeuihosang tradition mostly originated from the effects of many religions and the taste for innocence, or naturalness. White clothes were infused with the sorrow and emotion of Korean people and were also worn to show resistance to foreign power as symbols of ethnicity. Therefore, there should be a new view of the discussion of white clothes and Korean aesthetic sense, away from the logic distorted by the Japanese colonial view of history.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Costume
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• v.41
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• pp.207-223
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• 1998

The purpose of this study is to abstract the image from black dress, which has been favored by many people regardless of the times and examine it throughout the history of drss and thereby clearly define the images that black limplies in dress. Color image is a visual symbol, an image that forms through a combination of visual stimulus created by color, coupled with all the external factors related to it. Black is a one-dimensional color, of which the impact is subjective to its energy, which depends on light reflected on the object, and its texture. Therefore, black projects different images, depending on its surroundings. In general, black has had negative connotations in the Western culture. In dress, however, it has implied other various images different from the general negative ones. By combining general images of black and those exprssed in dress, major images of black were categorized into dignity, elegance, eroticism, asceticism and tragedy. Dignity is a category similar to the sublime. Dress with dignity has sharp contours and is generally made of velvet or silk which can be characterized by their splendor and voluminous-ness, exaggerating the body of a person wearing it. Such costume is mostly found in powerful countries in history such as Burgundy Court in the 15C, Spain in the 16C. Netherlands in the 17C. Elegance evokes grace and beautifulness. It includes elegance, grace, beauty and dandyism as subcategories or silk. Good examples are dandies' black costume and Ladies black and white dressees in the 19C. Eroticism is an image which expresses sexual attractiveness. Costume with eroticism is made of velvet or silk, which project sumptuousness through reflection. Such costumes expose parts of the body or are tightly tailored in order to emphasizes body contours. Asceticism means restraint from physical and mental desires. Costume with asceticism makes a person wearing it look smaller by covering the whole body. Puritan's black dresses and Bourgeoisie's black suit are good examples. Tragedy is anguish. sorrow. Black costume with grievous feelings such as mourning dresses is made of lusterless textile concealing most of the body except for the face.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Costume
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• v.54 no.4
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• pp.41-53
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• 2004

The significant role of colors in fashion design is not enough to emphasize in terms of one of the important design elements and its influences on the behaviors of the people. The purpose of this research is to examine the traditional Chinese colors and its ways of color combinations to appreciate the Chinese culture and its people. The Chinese traditional costume of Ching Dynasty were investigated through historic records, historic nobles, costume accessories and so on. The results of the study were summarized as follows： (1) The Blue was the most favoured color for clothing among men and women during Ching dynasty and various blues in terms of hue, value and intensities were used. (2) The bright Yellow which had been a symbol of Emperor were prohibited being used among people. Though, the late period of Dynasty, the regulation became not to strict and various shades of yellow families were adapted among People. (3) The Red which had been preferred during Ming Dynasty were constantly favoured for the formal wears of auspicious events such as weddings. (4) Dark color groups were loved for the clothing which were used as a ground colors against the flamboyant patterns revealing strong visual effects through value contrast or primary color combinations. (5) The White had a symbol of mourning and there were some intentions to adopt pale color groups such as mint, jade, gray, moon whit,. silver white to make up for white. (6) Contrast color combinations were one of the basic ways of color combination in Chinese traditional costume. Therefore Chinese color combinations has a strong visual effect and easy to draw attention of people by the contrast of the hue, value or intensity of color. (7) Multi-color combinations were another characteristics of Chinese costume in the formal wears which bears many surface designs. The surface decorated with full of motifs, were appreciated by the people expressing their longings and hopes through the auspicious meanings of patterns and striking visual effects of color combinations.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.38
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• pp.29-63
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• 2015

This paper attempts to re-read Tennessee William's A Streetcar Named Desire from a non-Aristotelian perspective, particularly focusing on the audience performativity. In Chapter 6 of the Poetics, Aristotle says that tragedy has a final purpose or end (telos) and that is to inspire a catharsis (literally "purification") of pity and fear by means of representation and to give pleasure from experiencing their relief. However, a dramatic theoretician Augusto Boal argues that Aristotelian catharsis is not to get rid of pity and fear through their vehement discharge; rather, the basic function of catharsis is the purging of antisocial elements from the social body and the restoration of order because catharsis occurs when the spectator, terrified by the spectacle of the catastrophe, is purified of his "hamartia" which looks similar to the tragic flaw of the hero in the play. Thus, Boal asserts that Aristotle's coercive system of tragedy manipulates the emotions of the passive spectator. By contrast, in non-Aristotelian aesthetics, tragedy functions not as legitimation for a particular political configuration but as the performance of ethical acts-through which all the participants, including not only the actors but also the audience, communicate more actively about practical problems and actively work in order to make sense of themselves, others, and society. Here, the audience is required to restore and reinforce his/her capacity to think and to act; thus, an unquestioning, passive, indifferent attitude is not allowed. In these contexts, this paper explores how Tennessee William's A Streetcar Named Desire involves the audience in the responsibility for what occurs on the stage, in order to urge the audience's ethical judgements and responsible acts. This paper argues that what this play asks of us is not catharsis, the purging of pity and fear, but empathy toward the other's pain, beyond pity and fear, to carry out our responsibility of sharing in and caring for the other's suffering. That is to say that it will be an ethical way to "re-member" Blanche DuBoi-the iconic Williams victim "dis-membered" by traumatic memories and open wounds and is thus unable to complete her grieving and mourning-as one of us, not as the other. It will be the only way to remember right regarding her tragedy.

• (The) Research of the performance art and culture
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• no.25
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• pp.253-289
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• 2012

Dasiraegi is a traditional funeral rite performance of Jindo located in the South Jeolla Province of South Korea. With its unique stylistic structure including various dances, songs and witty dialogues, and a storyline depicting the birth of a new life in the wake of death, embodying the Buddhism belief that life and death is interconnected; it attracted great interest from performance organizers and performers who were desperately seeking new contents that can be put on stage as a performance. It is needless to say previous research on Dasiraegi had been most valuable in its recreation as it analyzed the performance from a wide range of perspectives. Despite its contributions, the previous researches were mainly academic focusing on: the symbolic meanings of the performance, basic introduction to the components of the performance such as script, lyrics, witty dialogue, appearance (costume and make-up), stage properties, rhythm, dance and etc., lacking accurate representation of the most crucial element of the performance which is sori (song). For this reason, the study analyzes the music of Dasiraegi and presents its musical characteristics along with its scores to provide practical support for performers who are active in the field. Out of all the numbers in Dasiraegi, this study analyzed all of Geosa-nori and Sadang-nori, the funeral dirge (mourning chant) sung as the performers come on stage and Gasangjae-nori, because among the five proceedings of the funeral rite they were the most commonly performed. There are a plethora of performance recordings to choose from, however, this study chose Jindo Dasiraegi, an album released by E&E Media. The album offers high quality recordings of performances, but more importantly, it is easy to obtain and utilize for performers who want to learn the Dasiraegi based on the script provided in this study. The musical analysis discovered a number of interesting findings. Firstly, most of the songs in Dasiraegi use a typical Yukjabaegi-tori which applies the Mi scale frequently containing cut-off (breaking) sounds. Although, Southern Kyoung-tori which applies the Sol scale was used, it was only in limited parts and was musically incomplete. Secondly, there was no musical affinity between Ssitgim-gut and Dasiraegi albeit both are for funeral rites. The fundamental difference in character and function of Ssitgim-gut and Dasiraegi may be the reason behind this lack of affinity, as Ssitgim-gut is sung to guide the deceased to heaven by comforting him/her, whereas, Dasiaregi is sung to reinvigorate the lives of the living. Lastly, traces of musical grammar found in Pansori are present in the earlier part of Dasiraegi. This may be attributed to the master artist (Designee of Important Intangible Cultural Heritage), who was instrumental in the restoration and hand-down of Dasiaregi, and his experience in a Changgeuk company. The performer's experience with Changgeuk may have induced the alterations in Dasiraegi, causing it to deviate from its original form. On the other hand, it expanded the performative bais by enhancing the performance aspect of Dasiraegi allowing it to be utilized as contents for Performing Arts. It would be meaningful to see this study utilized to benefit future performance artists, taking Dasiraegi as their inspiration, which overcomes the loss of death and invigorates the vibrancy of life.

• Women's Studies Review
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.73-109
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• 2010

The cultural pluralism on which more and more emphasis is put in the globalized cultural environment, takes local identity as a crucial index for the cultural exchange on the global level, but at the same time it results in transforming individual regions/places into a homogeneous space, as it forces the local identity itself to fit into the standardized global perspective. In this context I focus on two art projects that are related to 'Dongducheon', a town that houses the U. S. Second Infantry Division. These projects attract specific attention due to the fact that Dongducheon is a significant place with very 'thick' cultural identity: it reveals that modernization in Korea took place in intersection of nationalism, patriarchy and gender/sexuality postcolonial (military) culture. With these two Dongducheon related art projects (Donglyung Kim) and (Eunyoung Jeong) as excellent examples of site-specific art practice, this paper asks what it means to keep the historicity of disappearing local space/place in the global era. And how is it possible to 'represent' an extremely gendered/sexualized place like Dongducheon. This should be examined from a postcolonial feminist perspective. Since emancipation from Japanese occupation Dongducheon has been an island or an outside space in the nation-state Korea. This becomes more complicated, as now mostly women from the Philippines or former Soviet countries are working in the nightclubs in Doungducheon. and are feminist activist experiments to make the place with its residents to be seen and heard in proper a way of mourning, recognition and communication. shows the 'new' kijich'on women as those who are daring to be on an 'Odyssey' for a better life as they run everyday life in Dongducheon, working in clubs, doing laundry, bearing children, going to mass; tries to help them to be heard and felt, while it gathers sounds on the street or at mass and shows the doors or narrow alleys which lead to the their rooms. It aims to mourn the dead kijich'on women and to represent the precarious life of the present migrant kijich'on women, as it shows no faces.