Hye-Won Hwang | Episode 3

Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts Author

04/28/2021 Added

13 Plays

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Hye-Won Hwang is an Assistant Professor of Practice in Dance. Hye-Won’s research and creative activity revolves heavily around expression of cultural identity. She discusses her formative experiences in dance and how her work with dance has been impacted by cultural identity.

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[00:00:01.219]Welcome to ArtsCast Nebraska
[00:00:03.434]a podcast about the
[00:00:04.819]creative activities and research
[00:00:06.552]of the faculty and alumni
[00:00:08.057]of the Hixson-Lied College
[00:00:09.391]of Fine and Performing Arts
[00:00:10.574]at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln
[00:00:13.484]I'm Chris Marks
[00:00:14.501]Associate Dean of the college
[00:00:15.906]and it's my privilege
[00:00:17.316]to share with you these
[00:00:18.399]conversations about the fascinating
[00:00:19.931]work that our faculty and alumni do
[00:00:21.960]in the fine and performing arts.
[00:00:23.673]In this episode, I speak with
[00:00:26.005]Hye-Won Hwang,
[00:00:26.888]an Assistant Professor of Practice
[00:00:28.605]in dance.
[00:00:29.593]Hye-Won's research and creative activity
[00:00:32.041]revolves heavily around expression
[00:00:34.031]of cultural identity.
[00:00:35.493]So I began by asking her
[00:00:37.416]about where she grew up
[00:00:38.420]and how she first encountered dance.
[00:00:40.449][Guest] So I was born in Seoul, South Korea.
[00:00:44.167]And one day
[00:00:46.044]I think I was 10 at the time
[00:00:48.774]I followed my friend
[00:00:52.083]who was going to a
[00:00:53.351]a local dance studio
[00:00:55.982]to take ballet class.
[00:00:57.133]I was just curious and I
[00:00:58.593]followed her. And
[00:00:59.962]when I saw this beautiful
[00:01:01.503]aesthetic form,
[00:01:02.268]I just had to, you know,
[00:01:04.686]beg my parents, you know,
[00:01:06.117]to let me enroll in the class.
[00:01:08.360]In a week, I
[00:01:10.321]was in, and
[00:01:11.432]that's how I started
[00:01:12.825]my journey as a dancer.
[00:01:15.685][Host] So did you
[00:01:17.347]know right away
[00:01:18.408]when you were that young age
[00:01:19.871]that this was what you wanted
[00:01:21.643]to do with your life, or
[00:01:22.640]did it take you a while?
[00:01:23.615][Guest] Actually, it's
[00:01:25.027]funny, I think
[00:01:26.205]I knew immediately
[00:01:28.968]that I probably
[00:01:32.714]wanted to be a professional dancer
[00:01:35.219]or a dance teacher
[00:01:36.766]I wasn't quite sure
[00:01:38.696]like you know at the time
[00:01:39.956]I didn't really crystallize
[00:01:41.942]my career, um, but I knew
[00:01:44.685]that I was going to do something
[00:01:46.121]in the field of dance.
[00:01:47.261][Host] My impression is
[00:01:48.960]that most dancers end up starting
[00:01:51.650]out with ballet and do a
[00:01:52.861]lot of ballet early on and
[00:01:54.340]I, um, wonder - you said you had
[00:01:58.112]traditional Korean dance
[00:01:59.823]Is that a normal part of
[00:02:02.789]a Korean's upbringing in
[00:02:05.796]dance, or not? How
[00:02:07.707]does that interface with
[00:02:09.320]the ballet training?
[00:02:10.894][Guest] I'm really glad that you asked
[00:02:13.008]that question!
[00:02:14.035]Because I, you know, like ballet was there
[00:02:18.103]like here, dance wasn't, um
[00:02:21.661]part of school curriculum
[00:02:23.987]in public school.
[00:02:25.158]So students had to take
[00:02:27.997]dance as after-school program
[00:02:30.943]so I'll just say mostly ballet
[00:02:33.701]were, you know, probably the popular one
[00:02:36.719]So really like when I
[00:02:40.384]came to the US or in the UK
[00:02:44.603]people were asking, like
[00:02:46.585]Oh, so you're from Korea, so
[00:02:48.165]can you dance Korean dance?
[00:02:50.196]And I was like, I, um,
[00:02:51.569]well, actually, my major was ballet,
[00:02:55.207]so I feel more comfortable
[00:02:56.648]dancing ballet, rather than
[00:02:58.006]traditional Korean dance.
[00:02:59.886]so I guess maybe, um
[00:03:01.876]to answer your question
[00:03:03.514]is, yeah, ballet was really common.
[00:03:07.459]In addition to Korean traditional dance,
[00:03:10.651]I chose ballet.
[00:03:13.355][Host] So, was that a
[00:03:15.282]typical part of a Korean
[00:03:21.106]cultural upbringing, to have
[00:03:24.281]such a kind of Western focus?
[00:03:26.754]I mean, was there not a
[00:03:28.462]sense of promoting Korean
[00:03:30.251]culture through some of the arts
[00:03:32.965]and other things?
[00:03:34.493][Guest] That's a really good question.
[00:03:37.911]So, the - we had the Korean War
[00:03:41.953]in 1950, right, and so
[00:03:43.750]'60s, '70s, and '80s, the nation
[00:03:47.694]was focusing on
[00:03:49.347]economic development.
[00:03:50.916]And, you know, didn't really –
[00:03:52.822]Art was important, but it wasn't
[00:03:57.069]really their focus
[00:03:58.495]to, you know, nurture.
[00:04:00.108]So parents, most parents,
[00:04:02.660]wanted their children to become
[00:04:06.268]a doctor, or a lawyer,
[00:04:08.144]or, you know, a, maybe some career
[00:04:12.428]that they can, you know, earn lots of money.
[00:04:15.552]So dance, you know, like other art
[00:04:18.540]like music and visual art
[00:04:20.781]weren't really, you know,
[00:04:23.888]there. So, I'll just say maybe in
[00:04:26.841]until '80s, it wasn't really, um,
[00:04:31.350]available. And '90s, when Korea
[00:04:34.714]started to open to the world
[00:04:36.402]and the economy, you know,
[00:04:38.303]was in good shape
[00:04:40.296]and, um, they started to maybe
[00:04:45.520]open to different cultures
[00:04:47.162]and there are many options
[00:04:49.291]that they could take
[00:04:51.149]rather than just ballet, modern
[00:04:53.425]and Korean traditional dance
[00:04:55.182]maybe perhaps a salsa dance
[00:04:57.670]or a hip-hop, and those became
[00:05:00.567]popular, probably since 1990s.
[00:05:03.848]And now, 2000s, you probably hear, like
[00:05:07.331]KPop. KPop is all over the place.
[00:05:10.643]And so, and now celebrities
[00:05:14.763]have been looked up by young, um,
[00:05:17.921]young adults, and, uh,
[00:05:21.216]those areas in the past
[00:05:23.753]weren't really, um, respected
[00:05:26.466]and so there are many reasons
[00:05:28.316]that probably dance wasn't popular
[00:05:31.935][Host] So you grew up, uh, and took ballet
[00:05:35.131]and you did a degree and you came
[00:05:37.206]to the UK and the United States
[00:05:39.550]and people asked about
[00:05:41.680]traditional Korean dance.
[00:05:43.250]So did you go back
[00:05:45.542]and fill that in, and
[00:05:46.933]learn about traditional Korean dance?
[00:05:49.224][Guest] Yeah, so, because I trained in
[00:05:51.951]ballet and modern dance, which you know
[00:05:54.187]are the forms from the West
[00:05:57.533]when I came out to study
[00:06:01.068]in the UK and US
[00:06:02.628]I didn't really feel
[00:06:05.172]you know, stranger
[00:06:09.061]but, because of how I'm viewed
[00:06:11.513]because of my skin color
[00:06:13.905]or my accent or
[00:06:15.601]you know, language barrier,
[00:06:17.282]they started to question, like, oh
[00:06:18.991]where are you from?
[00:06:20.279]And I said, Korea.
[00:06:22.394]And - oh, then you speak Japanese!
[00:06:25.106]And I was like, no, we speak Korean.
[00:06:27.559]So I wanted to learn about my culture
[00:06:30.675]more so I can inform them
[00:06:32.449]better, and one of the ways
[00:06:34.850]that - because I'm a dancer -
[00:06:36.719]one of the ways that I could maybe
[00:06:38.493]inform about my culture is
[00:06:39.757]through dance. So,
[00:06:41.184]each time I went home
[00:06:43.904]while I was studying outside,
[00:06:46.242]I started learning
[00:06:48.944]Korean traditional dance repertory
[00:06:51.190]seriously, and, um, that's how I
[00:06:55.165]kept, you know, developing my skills in
[00:06:58.522]that genre too.
[00:07:00.631][Host] So you went on to do a PhD
[00:07:05.331]in critical dance studies, and
[00:07:08.248]maybe people don't think about dance
[00:07:11.988]as a PhD and as an academic degree.
[00:07:15.460]So talk a little bit about that
[00:07:17.524]work that you did and how dance is
[00:07:20.425]an academic discipline.
[00:07:22.223][Guest] Yeah. That's about, you know,
[00:07:24.208]studies about dance. Um, but the
[00:07:26.890]critical dance studies that I
[00:07:30.651]learned at UC Riverside,
[00:07:33.987]was looking at or doing
[00:07:37.640]like conducting innovative research
[00:07:39.916]in, um, field of cultural, political,
[00:07:43.644]and historical studies of dance
[00:07:45.662]and oftentimes, critical dance studies
[00:07:50.767]distinguishes it from let's say
[00:07:54.012]performance studies, theatre studies,
[00:07:56.740]or cultural studies.
[00:07:58.653]And it brings interdisciplinary approach
[00:08:02.363]to dance scholarship
[00:08:04.050]and a lot of critical dance studies
[00:08:06.323]scholars engage with a variety
[00:08:09.765]of methodological approaches, including
[00:08:12.253]maybe critical race theory,
[00:08:15.096]feminist studies, gender and sexuality,
[00:08:17.617]political economy, and so, um
[00:08:20.504]theories or maybe cultural studies, too.
[00:08:22.610]So theories that are also used in other fields.
[00:08:26.638][Host] You talked about KPop
[00:08:28.167]a little while ago and you
[00:08:29.240]seem to have a scholarly,
[00:08:31.890]at least scholarly interest in KPop,
[00:08:34.125]I don't know if it's also coming out
[00:08:35.782]in your creative work or not, but
[00:08:37.204]talk a little bit about how
[00:08:39.883]KPop fits into your world right now.
[00:08:42.937][Guest] So, uh, one of my research interests
[00:08:47.530]lies in this global circulation of
[00:08:52.424]dance or bodily practice
[00:08:54.988]and, um, I look at it through the lenses
[00:08:59.279]of gender, sexuality, cultural policy
[00:09:03.285]institutions, and globalization, and again
[00:09:06.796]identity, too. So
[00:09:08.998]now looking at KPop,
[00:09:12.148]it was developed in South Korea,
[00:09:17.711]and now it's cirulated across the globe,
[00:09:22.155]and became so popular
[00:09:25.941]and I was really curious about
[00:09:27.898]looking at dance choreography
[00:09:32.837]in the KPop, because, you know,
[00:09:34.581]that area has not been
[00:09:36.151]really fully deveoped or
[00:09:39.559]not really explored much
[00:09:41.535]in American scholarship
[00:09:44.020]People talk about music a lot
[00:09:45.078]but not really the dance part
[00:09:46.609]because dance, I mean, you know
[00:09:48.195]like if you look at the KPop
[00:09:49.556]I don't know if you have seen,
[00:09:50.768]BTS or Gangnam Style, you know
[00:09:53.244]piece and dance is always involved.
[00:09:56.279]but has not been fully explored, so
[00:09:58.895]my interest is looking at the dance part
[00:10:02.868]and the dancing bodies, and
[00:10:05.965]put those elements at the
[00:10:09.133]center of discussion
[00:10:10.290]of global, cultural globalization
[00:10:13.485]gender, sexuality, and some this
[00:10:18.704]neoliberal capitalism.
[00:10:20.581][Host] Dance is often viewed as an inclusive
[00:10:24.515]art form. A safe space for diverse
[00:10:27.274]performers, collaborators, and audience
[00:10:29.584]members. I asked Hye-Won to talk more
[00:10:32.170]about this aspect of dance.
[00:10:34.528][Guest] So, dance is a live experience
[00:10:38.939]that anybody can enjoy, like, you know
[00:10:40.826]regardless of race, gender, ethnicity
[00:10:45.309]age, um, or body ability, body type,
[00:10:51.637]so it welcomes anyone because
[00:10:56.359]this is a, maybe a form of
[00:11:00.185]human expression. The
[00:11:02.535]importance of dance, or the
[00:11:04.777]beauty of dance is that it
[00:11:08.346]connects body, mind, and soul.
[00:11:10.876]and offers space for them to
[00:11:16.274]express you know their ideas, values
[00:11:21.404]and I think maybe, I don't know,
[00:11:25.310]how many places can you really communicate
[00:11:28.386]with your full body, and we do a lot of
[00:11:32.010]communication through movement, and
[00:11:36.238]with this bodily movement,
[00:11:38.712]and we listen to each other through,
[00:11:40.518]you know, body contact,
[00:11:42.720]and we become more patient,
[00:11:44.899]we try to understand each other
[00:11:46.823]through this fully embodied, you know,
[00:11:49.799]moment, and I think that's how we
[00:11:54.692]started to open our mind
[00:11:57.455]and started to listen to what others
[00:12:00.862]have to say and through this
[00:12:03.079]beautiful aesthetic form that
[00:12:04.999]we are creating with
[00:12:06.347]probably some message that they
[00:12:07.945]are bringing in, it's more
[00:12:09.538]accessible, so maybe that's my,
[00:12:14.736]based on my experience, as a
[00:12:17.753]person who grew up in Korea
[00:12:19.825]and started to you know dance
[00:12:22.355]with friends from all over the place,
[00:12:24.796]it was certainly scary, and I felt
[00:12:28.876]so intimidated, but at the same time
[00:12:31.717]there was some excitement
[00:12:33.007]that I wanted to know about
[00:12:35.072]others, through the, you know,
[00:12:38.097]this beautiful aesthetic form that
[00:12:39.822]they are creating in space and time.
[00:12:41.910][Host] Let's talk about your
[00:12:43.639]scholarship around cultural identity.
[00:12:47.531]Um, tell me a little bit about
[00:12:50.748]how cultural identity
[00:12:54.355]is expressed in dance.
[00:12:56.256]and what your scholarship is
[00:12:59.093]in talking about that.
[00:13:01.190][Guest] You know, identity has been
[00:13:05.025]always something that I have
[00:13:08.497]been negotiating and especially
[00:13:10.485]I'm living, you know, out of the
[00:13:14.066]culture of origin, and how I
[00:13:17.528]identify is different from how
[00:13:20.115]people identify me, or
[00:13:21.955]how I'm perceived.
[00:13:23.708]So, as I said, you know, the dancing
[00:13:27.968]Korean traditional dance, is a way
[00:13:31.406]to claim my culture of origin
[00:13:34.337]although I am modern dance teacher
[00:13:39.429]or, you know, contemporary choreographer
[00:13:42.931]but I bring those cultural elements
[00:13:45.932]into the choreographic maybe approach
[00:13:50.345]or choreographic, um, process.
[00:13:53.196]I also bring those elements in
[00:13:56.988]my teaching, like how we you know
[00:14:00.666]bring body and mind together
[00:14:02.789]more like somatic way to
[00:14:04.867]understand our body, body as a
[00:14:07.747]site of inquiry rather than, um,
[00:14:10.974]something to objectify.
[00:14:15.319]So, but , you know now I feel like
[00:14:19.946]I can't really put myself into one
[00:14:23.146]culture category,
[00:14:24.446]because I've been moving
[00:14:25.990]here and there like I
[00:14:27.859]grew up in Seoul, Korea,
[00:14:29.455]but I moved to the UK
[00:14:31.213]and studied there and also
[00:14:32.727]I came to the United States
[00:14:35.500]and East Coast and West Coast
[00:14:38.055]and Midwest, and there's totally
[00:14:39.241]different cultures. And so I would just say
[00:14:41.953]when I say "cultural identity" also
[00:14:43.942]like include subcultural identities
[00:14:47.587]and plural there, and when I
[00:14:50.634]visit my family and friends in Korea
[00:14:53.195]I love seeing them but at the
[00:14:55.659]same time I feel like, oh,
[00:14:57.008]I want to go back home.
[00:14:59.109]So I feell like sometimes I
[00:15:02.043]don't really belong there, but
[00:15:04.318]I also don't belong here, so I
[00:15:05.776]always feel like I'm in between,
[00:15:07.187]like rootless. So maybe this
[00:15:10.345]kind of third identity or
[00:15:12.731]identities, like multiple identities
[00:15:15.605]are something that I have been
[00:15:19.141]negotiating, just with myself
[00:15:21.564]but also in my choreographic process
[00:15:23.962]but also research process.
[00:15:25.904]as a researcher.
[00:15:28.257][Host] So how does that multiple
[00:15:29.980]cultural identity come out
[00:15:32.575]in your choreography and your dancing?
[00:15:35.410]Does it communicate to an audience
[00:15:37.752]and do you do that intentionally?
[00:15:39.974][Guest] Sometimes I do it
[00:15:40.828]intentionally, like I'm using Korean
[00:15:44.089]movement vocabulary and combine
[00:15:46.409]that with modern dance
[00:15:48.558]vocabulary, so some kind of
[00:15:51.207]cultural hybridity is happening
[00:15:53.970]in terms of movement
[00:15:57.359]in terms of content or idea,
[00:16:01.017]like these issues of layers
[00:16:03.543]or multiplicities of identities
[00:16:06.747]that you know people like me
[00:16:08.578]might, you know, are struggling
[00:16:11.192]to find or maybe let it go.
[00:16:14.939]Yeah, so - unconsciously, I'm sure it's
[00:16:20.465]there, I don't know whether
[00:16:22.585]always, you know, my audience
[00:16:24.581]would read it explicitly.
[00:16:27.949]And the modern dance choreography
[00:16:30.962]that I have been creating has been
[00:16:34.042]very abstract and sometimes
[00:16:36.556]I don't want to be too literal
[00:16:39.089]to express that and
[00:16:41.040]leave, you know, those interpretations
[00:16:45.384]open so like just leave room
[00:16:48.711]for the audience to interpret
[00:16:50.428]how they want to interpret.
[00:16:52.412]So it's more like post-modern sense
[00:16:54.185]I'm not the author who gives
[00:16:56.907]a fixed answer or "this is the truth"
[00:16:59.565]it's there and the meanings could
[00:17:05.233]be interpreted differently based
[00:17:08.182]on how you see it.
[00:17:09.488][Host] So then, if I'm watching
[00:17:12.971]one of your performances,
[00:17:14.846]either as a dancer or choreographer
[00:17:16.696]or both, what do you hope
[00:17:18.401]that I will take away from it?
[00:17:19.633]What do you want the audience member
[00:17:21.168]to experience and remember?
[00:17:23.921][Guest] Just have that experience
[00:17:25.768]you know, in that moment. I don't
[00:17:27.356]whether it's going to be the visual form
[00:17:29.499]that this person is perceiving
[00:17:31.130]or the sound or the texture
[00:17:33.876]of the chair, or you know just
[00:17:36.417]being there with other audience
[00:17:38.740]members, but you know those
[00:17:40.870]experiences probably will, will
[00:17:44.878]be there or maybe you might
[00:17:48.037]memorize or maybe something
[00:17:51.127]that you might remember
[00:17:53.143]or recall those memories when you have
[00:17:57.697]similar experiences in the future.
[00:18:00.023]So, yeah, I mean that's really hard,
[00:18:02.731]because a lot of times, if
[00:18:04.431]an audience in the Midwest
[00:18:07.134]don't have a lot of experiences
[00:18:09.638]in modern dance and came to
[00:18:11.926]our concert and, well, it was great,
[00:18:14.321]but I don't know how to explain it! and so
[00:18:16.798]we say, it's okay, like, you know, it
[00:18:20.319]is experience and you know, you are
[00:18:21.887]probably will have more experience
[00:18:26.472]and you might have different
[00:18:30.327]perceptions or different ideas
[00:18:32.152]when you watch it again next time
[00:18:34.232]and you can create your own
[00:18:36.138]imagination based on what
[00:18:37.632]you saw tonight. So, I mean,
[00:18:40.168]that's kind of the first step that
[00:18:41.788]I offer to the audience who
[00:18:44.448]is not famiilar with the form, particularly.
[00:18:47.626][Host] You've been listening to
[00:18:49.802]ArtsCast Nebraska,
[00:18:51.661]a podcast production of the
[00:18:53.245]Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts
[00:18:55.765]at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
[00:18:57.868]This episode was recorded and edited
[00:19:00.339]by me, Chris Marks,
[00:19:01.778]with technical assistance from
[00:19:03.351]Jeff O'Brien at the Johnny Carson
[00:19:04.978]Center for Emerging Media Arts.
[00:19:07.112]Special thanks to Kathe Andersen
[00:19:09.443]and Ella Durham.
[00:19:10.900]For more information about the college,
[00:19:12.912]please visit arts.unl.edu.
[00:19:16.354]Thank you for listening and remember,
[00:19:18.196]to support the arts.

Hye-Won Hwang | Episode 3

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Hye-Won Hwang | Episode 3

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