Abstract
Performance costumes are an important element in the stages which set the tones and embody characters in the performances. This study focuses on Gisaeng's costumes in folk dance performances when Korea experienced modernization from Joseon Dynasty, and aims to examine the features of the costumes as well as how the costumes both influenced, and got influenced by, the rapidly changing society. Gisaeng had been legal entertainment performers of the government in the Joseon Dynasty and, despite careful training and talents, had inferior social status in Joseon's social hierarchy system. In the modern society, a new system of Gisaeng emerged and the first public theater opened. The advent of theaters changed performance stages and the ways performances are conducted. This study investigated Gisaeng's performance costumes by the type of folk dances, such as monk dance, palace dance, Salfuri dance, Jangu dance, and Ip dance. The study brings light to three conclusions. First, as folk dances which had been performed by civil dancers were spread to Gisaeng, Gisaeng's costumes absorbed the costumes of civil dancers. Also, royal costumes appeared in folk dance performances. This can be viewed as mixture of royal and folk dance costumes, resulted from interactions between Gisaeng and civil art performers associated with the modernizing society and the weakening of the old hierarchical class system. Second, as performing arts on stages were modernizing, performance costumes changed accordingly. Thirdly, Giseang's costumes in folk dances also adapted the introduction of the western culture, which largely influenced the fashion trends of people in the early modern society in Korea.
