that had never been seen in Korea. As a direct result of seeing this performance, many of Korea's intelligentsia were for the first time drawn to the art of dance. It was the high artistic level of the dance that later led to the rise of sophisticated dance criticism by writers Kim Tong-in and Han Sol-ya and poet Chung Chiyong. One of the people who saw Ishihi's dance performance was a student of Sookmyung Girls Middle SchooL named Choe Sung-Mi. On the advice of her brother Choe Sung-il, a writer belonging to the Korean Artists Proletariat Federation (KAPF), the young girl followed Ishihi to Japan to study under his tutelage. A year later Cho Taek-won, a member of Korea's elite class, also entered Ishihi's dance studio. Choe returned to Korea after a year of study and became a star. Under her influence, the number of dance students rose and many of them went to Japan with the intention of studying with the master Ishihi. Thus it was such that Japan's greatest modern dancer played a vital role in the development of Korean dance, with his first performance in Seoul on March 21, 1926, marking the beginning of "new dance" in Korea. In truth, the first performance of Choe Sung-hUi upon her return failed to capture the attention of the public. So when Ishihi made a second visit to Seoul, Choe, who was then married to KAPF writer and critic An Mak, followed him back to Japan again. There Ishihi advised her to "do Korean dance." Heeding these words Choe began to incorporate traditional Korean elements in modern dance and became an immensely popular star both in Korea and Japan. Choe's success, however, was bound up with other factors including her celebrated beauty, the complicated political circumstances of the time and her controversial pro-Japanese stance. One point I would like to note here is that Choe first learned Korean dance from pioneer Han Song-jun. In his memoirs, Han recorded that Choe spent a week as his student and Cho Taek-won
Toward the end of the Chos6n Dynasty (1392-1910), dance was virtually the exclusive reserve of female entertainers, kisaeng, with the exception of mask dance plays and
the performances of wandering entertainers known as namsadang. Dance was, in short, only peiformed by society's lower classes. Court rituals and ceremonies were not regarded as dance but as something altogether different. 57