The Fan Dance, like the name suggests, uses beautiful fans to tell a story. The fans usually represent things like a blossoming flower, rippling water, birds or butterflies. The fans are usually quite large and are decorated with bright colors and patterns.
Like most cultures, Korea has many kinds of traditional dances — and they all have different meanings. For most of these dances, the performers wear bulky dresses with full sleeves. This helps them to portray things like flowers and birds that are often part of the dance.
Korean Folk Dances portray everyday life. These dances are very expressive and show a lot of emotion. They are very free flowing.
One popular folk dance is the Farmer’s Dance. It was originally used to entertain farmers and other working-class people. The music has some complicated rhythms to it, making it a quick paced and high-spirited dance.
The Kanggang-Suwollae is a beautiful dance celebrating the role of women when they helped protect the country from invasion. In this dance, young women in the village gather in open fields where they sing and dance under the light of the full moon.
Changgochum, also called the Hour-Glass Drum Dance, is usually a solo performance. The dancer includes skips, jumps, quick turns and fast steps in the routine — all while playing the drum.
A similar drum dance called the Five Drum Dance, has drummers beating different but complementary beats. The dance usually has five drummers, but there can be as few as three and as many as nine drums in this dance.
