Seungmu

Seungmu

Seungmu is often said to reflect the essence of Korean dance. There have been various opinions on its origin: that is, from an apostate monk’s drum dance repenting his previous offense against Buddhist commandments, or from old Buddhist monk’s dance included in Korean Mask Dance (Talchum). However, the most reasonable assumption is that it derived from Buddhist ritual dance performed by monks as a religious offering to Buddha. Seungmu seems to have been adopted as an effective means to propagate Buddhist doctrines to common people after Buddhism was prohibited to upper class in the middle of Choson Dynasty. Later, it came to be performed by professional dancers, which resulted in its rapid secularization and sophistication. Seungmu is composed of 10 minor repertories within 20-30 minutes. Ranging from a solemn religious mood and slow, elegant movement patterns, this dance includes fast and the most intense movements and rhythms. The last piece of the repertorie is slow, circular movements that are performed to calm down the emotional excitement after drum beating is stopped. Seungmu is tightly composed to deliver the religious enlightenment of Buddhism to spectators. Seungmu is now designated as Korea’s Important Intangible Cultural Treasure No. 27.