"Received Reports on Buchaechum from Around the World"
"Concerned Buchaechum Might Be Misunderstood as Chinese Dance"
Concerns have been raised as China introduces the fan dance as its own on the global stage. On the 19th, Professor Seo Kyung-deok of Sungshin Women's University shared on his Facebook, "Recently, I have received many reports about the 'fan dance' from various parts of the world," and presented several cases.
Professor Seo pointed out that a photo of the fan dance on a French travel agency website introducing the recently concluded global festival 'Nice Carnival' was captioned as 'Chinese dancers.' He also noted that at a large parade held last month in New York's Chinatown, Chinese performers danced the fan dance in front of foreign tourists. Additionally, he highlighted a performance at the Denver Nuggets' home stadium in the U.S. during the Lunar New Year last month, where Chinese performers introduced as a 'Chinese dance team' wore hanbok and performed the fan dance.
Professor Seo expressed, "Since this is happening continuously around the world, I am very concerned that the 'fan dance' might be misunderstood by foreigners as a 'Chinese dance.'" He added, "China's largest portal, Baidu Encyclopedia, is distorting our fan dance by labeling it as a 'Chinese folk traditional dance.'" He further noted, "Last year, the official social media of the Hong Kong Palace Museum posted a photo of people dressed in hanbok performing the fan dance, introducing it as 'Chinese Dance,' which caused a major controversy."
Moreover, Professor Seo emphasized, "The fan dance is a Korean dance that primarily uses fans as its main element. The most splendid and internationally renowned version is the Kim Baek-bong style fan dance, created and presented by Kim Baek-bong in 1954." He stressed, "Rather than only being angry at China's distortion, we will produce multilingual videos about the history of the fan dance in the future to widely inform people around the world that the fan dance is a 'Korean dance.'"
The 'fan dance' was created by veteran dancer Kim Baek-bong and was first presented on stage at the Sigonggwan Theater in Seoul from November 26 to 28, 1954. It later became a representative Korean dance work, performed as a group dance at the 1968 Mexico Olympics. It was designated as a masterpiece in 1992 and was registered as the third intangible cultural asset of Pyongannam-do, Kim Baek-bong's hometown, in 2014.
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