ABSTRACT
Historically, performance has been used as a device for social activism that opens up room for alternative possibilities. Employing descriptive analysis and ethnography, this chapter analyzes community dance performances at the Candlelight Movement of 2016–2017 that led to the impeachment of former President Geun-hye Park. Instead of shooting, yelling, or setting fires, protesters chose dancing with candles. They revived shamanic folk dances, kut and salpuri, and offered a performance of ritual. Holding hands, they transformed from silenced victims to performers, externalized their memories, recovered their trust in each other and in the government, and rebuilt the democratic nationhood, reclaiming Koreanness against the neocolonial landscape of South Korea. Their bodies are living testimonies that revisit the history of dance that have fought against oppression. The public became contemporary shamans whose vulnerable dancing bodies blur the boundaries between sacred ritual and spectacle and the self and others. Unspoken trauma was spoken and turned into danceable pleasure and communal joy through their exposure of humanity.
