전수산의 공연 활동에 구현된 20세기 초 한인 디아스포라 근대 여성의 표상

Abstract

This study examines diverse aspects of new women exemplified in Chun Susans life in early twentieth-century Hawaii, with a particular focus on her performance activities. Despite having no experience learning Korean music and dance in Korea, Chun taught and promoted traditional performing arts as a teacher of the Hyung Jay Club, the YWCA-affiliated Korean cultural organization. Second-generation Koreans of the club regularly participated in multicultural events that the Honolulu Academy of Arts, hosted for promoting a better understanding of cultures of different ethnic groups in Hawaii. Traditionally, the presentation of Korean traditional culture to general audiences was exclusively the realm of gisaeng in Korea. As an elite woman from a high-class family, Chun took the role of preserving and presenting the performing arts in Hawaii by transcending old customs of the traditional Korean music world. Her open attitudes toward Korean native music, regardless of religious origins, inclusion of men of different backgrounds in stage performances, and practicing Korean traditional percussion instruments, all deviated from long-established customs in Korea. Chuns cultural activities, alongside her well-known nationalist movements, aptly represent the life of modern women in the Korean diaspora.