Wheaton senior wins Fulbright for cultural research

Wheaton senior Esther Jeong has been awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to research changes in traditional dance styles and the cultural shifts that have occurred as globalization has taken place in contemporary South Korea.

Fulbright scholarships are awarded for a variety of educational activities, including university lecturing, advanced research, graduate study and teaching in elementary and secondary schools. Participants are chosen based on their academic merit and leadership potential.

Jeong, an anthropology major from Queens, N.Y., is on the Dean's List and has been Class of 2008 president for the Student Government Association. She is a Posse Foundation Merit Leadership Scholar, a peer advisor for the Center for Global Education, co-founder of the SOLE (Wheaton's first step dance team), a Boston/Providence coordinator intern for the Office of Student Life and a senior admission intern.

She has had a lifelong interest in dance and cultural traditions. "I come from a home where Korean traditions are deeply rooted in our daily lives; my mother taught my siblings and I Korean dance-songs," she wrote in her Fulbright proposal. "It was through these family traditions that I embraced my dual identity. I am Korean and American; I am Esther and Eun-kyung [her middle name]. I live between two worlds."

Jeong's heritage as well as her upbringing in a multicultural community in New York inspired her interest in many cultures and a desire to travel and study abroad. During her junior year at Wheaton, she studied in Argentina where she solidified the Spanish she learned in high school and expanded it by learning to speak the Argentine dialect. She also spent a semester in India where she studied basic Hindi and kathak, Indian classical dance, and Rajasthani folk dance. "Although I lived in two very different worlds in my junior year, I discovered a common thread, the relationship and inseparability of dance and culture," she said.

Korea is a prime example of that. "Dance is both a cultural practice and a product of the society in which it is created. A symbiotic relationship exists between dance and culture. The modifications that have occurred in traditional dance within the past twenty years mirror the dramatic advancements in Korea's social and economic status in the world," said Jeong.

During the past two decades, Korea, which has become one of the world's most wired countries, has experienced many outside influences that have affected many aspects of life. Pizza is now a favorite among South Koreans. Fashions have a Western style. And even the Korean language has traces of English intermingled within it. Jeong wonders about the impact on traditional dance.

"In examining dance traditions of the past and present, my study will allow me to infer about the future of these dance traditions. As dance traditions continue to be modified, my study ultimately will seek to examine if these modifications will result in a loss of traditional significance," she said. "Will ritual dances lose religious significance? Will folk dances lose regional nuances? Will court dances become more stylized?"

Jeong plans to gather information through interviews and observational field visits as she explores the presentation of past and contemporary traditional dance. She will work with the Korean government's Cultural Asset Management program through the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, and collaborate with a faculty member in the School of Dance at the Korean National University of Art. The professor, who is trained in choreography, will be able to offer Jeong an understanding of similarities and differences in the teaching of dance throughout Korea.

She will also work with a cultural anthropologist from Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea, who has agreed to be her advisor. "Through her guidance, I will be able to examine how Korean identities are being shaped and reconstructed through traditional dance forms," said Jeong. "I also want to see the contrast between how older and younger generations view dance."

Julie Searles, Wheaton director of world dance and visiting instructor of music, said that Jeong's research will provide valuable insights. "Her focus on dance and dance ethnography is a fabulous approach to studying culture, to locating revealing sites for appreciation of expressive choices and change as embodied through movement," said Searles, who noted in her recommendation for Jeong that the senior is devoted to better understanding the ways in which individuals from all backgrounds can come together.

During her Fulbright year, Jeong said she hopes to improve the Korean language she has spoken and studied since childhood by talking with citizens and natives of the country. "This experience will allow a mutual exchange of knowledge as I gain a more profound understanding of the people and the culture of Korea."

After graduation, the first-generation college student plans to be involved in the arts. She plans to pursue performance studies in graduate school. "My hope is to eventually teach world dance in a college setting, and pass on to my students the importance of dance as a component of the cultural make-up of any given society."