This study examines the historicity of the Sunday School Motion Song within the broader context of dance phenomena that emerged in the Korean Protestant tradition. The Sunday School Motion Song has been studied as an individual phenomenon within the c...
This study examines the historicity of the Sunday School Motion Song within the broader context of dance phenomena that emerged in the Korean Protestant tradition. The Sunday School Motion Song has been studied as an individual phenomenon within the categories of music, education and missionary work. However, this study first develops a complex understanding of each category and then focuses on the period when the concepts of dance begin to be recognised as ‘choreography’ in the Sunday School Motion Song. Firstly, this study examines the transmission of Korean Christian Sunday School Motion Song, which began in the late 1800s, through the first existing illustrated dance textbook that can be considered a dance notation. By examining the period when Sunday School Motion Song appeared as a dance textbook, we examine how the process of Korean modernization and westernization affected Korean gestures, including Sunday School Motion Song. Furthermore, by analysing the seven motion song works included in the 1960s Summer Bible School textbook, it presents the possibility of how the movement of Sunday School Motion Song can be discussed from the perspective of dance. This approach represents the most basic research into the realm of dance, which has rarely been addressed in dance studies compared to the long history of Sunday School Motion Song. Based on this study, more detailed follow-up studies should be undertaken.