The Way to Preserve Korean Intangible Cultural Assets

Abstract

Korean traditional music and dance have a history of over 1,500 years. We intend to proceed with the process of preserving and digitizing these intangible cultural properties, especially in the traditional Korean music and dance. In this work, we connected gyroscopes and accelerometers to human joints. In order to save the characteristics of Korean dance, which is important for every single finger movement. We also installed a capture device that uses a small sensor on each finger. The stored data is applied to the 3D character in the computer so that it can be observed anytime and anywhere. Particularly, we implemented the experiment through the concert using the technique acquired in the research. In the future, we believe that the preservation of Human Cultural Assets in this way will be a good chance to store traditional cultural heritage of Korea if it is applied not only performances but also to other intangible cultural properties.

1 Introduction

The percentage of music and dance performances in Korean cultural arts activities are 45.7% based on the data of the government in 2016. Among the 21,056 cultural performances, the number of Korean traditional performances is only 1,507, accounting for only 7.2% of the total [1]. In contrast, Western-style performances such as classical performance accounted for 9,907 cases, accounting for 47.1% [2].

Korean traditional music and dance have a history of over 1,500 years. However, domestic and international awareness is very low compared to its history. Particularly, efforts to preserve and develop it continue, but it is getting weaker. We are making a lot of efforts to save Korea’s traditional cultural performances, which are becoming less popular (Table 1).

Table 1. Number of performances by genre in performing arts in Korea [2]

In Korea, there is a unique intangible cultural property protection system, Human Cultural Asset, to overcome this phenomenon. Cultural properties often refer to types of objects or buildings that have a long historical value. But within the category of culture, music and dance are included. In Korea, there is an effort to preserve this cultural heritage through Human Cultural Asset system. However, this method, which consists of only recording and human manipulation, causes many problems in terms of accuracy. The side effects are very serious. Many human cultural assets are selected by the relationship between man and man rather than skill and tradition. And by the passage of time, many variations of traditional dance and music have been created and many waves have been created due to the transformation. In terms of rediscovery of a new culture, it is a wonderful situation in the name of development. But it was a very difficult situation to preserve the original shape correctly.

We have tried motion capture that we have never tried in traditional dance. The goal of the research is to apply the ultra high density sensor to the traditional dancers. The data received from the movement is stored in the computer under the name Cultural Preservation.

2 Related Works

We have looked at a number of methods that have attempted to develop traditional performances in other studies. One of the typical examples of this was a performance performed with projection mapping. A Study on the Revitalization of Korean Traditional Dance Using Projection Mapping, which was studied for the purpose of education, plans the performances different from the existing traditional dance. However, we already use projection mapping in many performing arts fields. Performances such as performances in accordance with pre-produced videos are far from Korean traditional arts, which emphasize autonomy and improvisation [3].

Ensemble Sinawi is a leader in traditional culture that makes new attempts. It is popular not only for projection mapping, but also for realizing the sound interaction with music. It is famous for trying the latest trend with aggressive attitude such as selling CDs by using crowdfunding [4].

We have already been studying motion recognition pertaining to music several years ago and researching games that combine motion and sound. These studies can be used to digitize traditional Korean arts and further interact to create new content [5, 6].

3 Production Process

We prepared to collaborate with an artistic team that is credible for this study. We found Namwon National Center for Korean Traditional Performing Arts. Namwon is located in the southwestern part of Korea and has an excellent traditional culture and arts. First, we selected which music and which dances are suitable for storage. To do this, the upper body and the lower body must be separated, and they should be clear and there should be no problem in data generation. “Didim” is a dance that fits these requirements [7].

The sensor we used is Perception Neuron. It uses a miniaturized gyroscope and an acceleration sensor to measure and calculate the joints of the body [8]. The measurement sensor used the method of measuring the whole body by wearing rather than using the existing camera. A small module connected to the wifi transmits all the information of the sensor to the computer. Motion capture, reception, and storage were all created using Unity (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1.

Perception Neuron saves Korean traditional dance with Unity

We go through a process of filtering out unnecessary parts of the incoming information. One of the disadvantages of this sensor is the absence of position information. In this case, the characteristic of the dance is analyzed and the data is automatically moved to the expected path. As you can see in the picture, the action is saved by the music. Dance has a close relationship with music, and especially musicians and dancers perform improvisation through tuning during performance.

4 Evaluation and Conclusion

Storing dance as data is not a simple task. In particular, many attempts failed to save the same behavior each time. The reason is the improvisation that is characteristic of Korean traditional dance.

We used data that was stored successfully and loaded it into a 3D dummy object and played it back. The animation was provided to three professional dancers, including the dancer participating in the experiment. The boundary between fast and powerful motion and slow and smooth motion is ambiguous, and it is commonly evaluated that this system cannot be done yet. However, the evaluators advised that this system has another possibility for the popularization of Korean traditional dance. It is an interaction. Recent trends in the performing arts, there have been occasions when performances involving interactions have been most successful by the mysterious techniques (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2.

Compares the dancing image with the computer generated animation.

It is still a long way to go as an early stage of research. However, we discovered new possibilities based on the technology that emerged during the process of researching on the theme of the preservation of Human Cultural Asset in Korea. In the future, we plan to save dance movements that require more complex operations through fine-tuning of sensors and diversification of measurement methods. We will also use the stored data to develop new genres of Korean traditional art performances.