By Duane Vorhees

Last things first. The performance itself: Seven perfectly still figures across the stage in various lotus postures while the artistic and spiritual leader on and on chants, then one by one coming jaggedly to life, beginning with a choreography of fingers, as each in turn is struck by the bright spots: in the same manner the spring announces itself, serially, through blooming successions of flower species. At one point they clump together nearly motionless but rhythmically/hypnotically asway like sea anemone in waves. In one number they scuttle across the stage, an ethereal hybrid of crab and butterfly. And as the musics progress, dancers appear and disappear from the wings, sometimes seven sometimes none. The chant drones on.

"The lotus blossom is pure, but its roots are embedded in mud."

Such is the way Lee Sun Ock, creatrix-choreographer of Zen Dance, summarizes life, art, her Korean homecoming, and what she regards as the hidebound state of the local culture community.

Months earlier she is supervising her six-soon-to-be-seven- member troupe of dancers during a rehearsal at Sangmyung University. At this moment the half dozen young women are immobile, each standing on one leg, cranelike. But then movement begins to ripple through them as the sitar music in the background shifts to a pansori recitation and then to a jazz vocal and ultimately a modern classical viola-drum ensemble.

"Ignore the music, just concentrate," Dr. Lee, prancing across the dance floor, exhorts them. Later she tells me that different music is played at every rehearsal, since she doesn't want her dancers to become slaves to any particular movement. They must stay strong and free and make each moment their own.

She was born in North Korea and, as an infant, in the chaos of war, fled all the way south to the Pusan area. But her life as an artist began when she was nine years old. By then she was used to sneaking into the theaters to watch free movies, and subsequently enthralling her young classmates by recounting what she had seen. However, her budding career as a film critic took a sudden turn in a different direction when she saw "Red Shoes." >From that moment she knew she would be a dancer.

The intense, intent faces of the six mirror their taut, graceful figures. Some of them are now dotted across the floor like perfect T's, one leg planted firmly on the wood while the other goes out at a 90 degree angle, forming a straight line with the rest of the stretched, horizontal body. Others are planted in half-lotus postures, motionless but not still.

At first Lee took the usual road, training in ballet and modern dance. In 1957, she began her apprenticeship under Kim Paek-cho, the first Korean dancer to study in the United States under the legendary Martha Graham. By the time Sun Ock was 16, she was dancing professionally. After graduating from college with an English Literature major, she took off to New York University to pursue a graduate degree in dance. Gradually, out of the Martha Graham technique she had grown up with, she began to develop her own approach.

The dance unfolds in measures of separate clockwork. The performance can be observed holistically, as the members of the ensemble mirror and model each other, the way a jazz combo spontaneously, intuitively exchanges notes and harmonies in mutual improvisation. Or the focus can be narrowed to each individual dancer, as she responds to the movement and space of all the ones around her.

As a student and performer, Lee began incorporating traditional Korean dances and adding other ethnic Asian styles to her repertoir, while also becoming more spiritually attuned to Zen practices. From ordinary sitting meditation, she advanced to moving meditation (akin to tai-chi). The two motive forces in her life, dance and meditation, finally started to unite in 1972 in the creation of a new artistic form, Zen Dance.

By 1976, she had founded her own company, Son Mu Ga, and by 1986 had achieved a concrete choreography. Even so, she is quick to point out that her creation is still evolving, since she has not yet "overcome" the world. She is still practicing to deal with everyday problems and to achieve happiness.

The deception being practiced at the moment is that the girls' bodies are actually floating in the air, the strong foot grip on the ground has become nearly invisible. Arms and necks and the other limb appear as though being lifted up, up, as if attached to strings from the ceiling. The law of gravity is hereby repealed.

Lee insists that dance meditation has two separate aspects, one artistic and one therapeutic. "Healing dance" is an aspect of rehabilitation therapy via exercise, but it is based primarily on learning how to breathe. The process begins in the lower abdominal region, but, through dance, practitioners learn how to transfer the energy elsewhere in the body and eventually to incorporate it into their mind.

It is this aspect of her work that has been applied at the Wooridal Hospital Spine and Health Institute, of which Dr. Lee has been a director. So, for her, Zen Dance is "beyond religion, it manifests all of reality. It is an embodiment of meditation in motion, or movement creation," as well as spiritual practice and physical conditioning. But, like life, it is also ephemeral: "Dancing is painting on air."

Now some are leaping across the stage like so many Nijinskis, while others are tumbling and turning on their self- contained axes. And then the rapid, frenetic motion gives way once again to a sudden stillness. But the newfound quiet is also transient, soon giving way again to another round of quick strong activity.

Though centered in New York, Lee has taught and performed around the world, in France, Germany, Hong Kong, and India, where she was invited to participate in the celebration of 50 years of independence. Her work has graced the stage of such prestigious venues as Carnegie Hall, le Rond Point, Avery Fisher Hall, LaMaMa ETC, and the Olympic Festival in Seoul. For 22 years, she was a resident artist for the Asia Society of Performing Arts, and in 1993 she founded the Asian Contemporary Dance Festival.

Currently, in addition to her other duties, including dancer, choreographer, and professor at Sangmyung University, she is also the international co-ordinator of APPAN, the Asia-Pacific Performing Arts Network, under the patronage of UNESCO. Her goal is to make the organization the premier center for sharing artistic information and experience, through workshops, seminars, publications, performances, and so forth. "Maybe someday an APPAN Award will be like a Nobel Prize for performing artists."

Before dismissing that ambition as something grandiose, beyond the capacity of "an old woman," one should take heed that one of her admirers once bestowed the epithet of "Dandelion" upon her. "Step on a dandelion and it will be pressed down, but it always pops back up." Her Zen Dance technique is designed to bring out individual desire and self-expression, through dedication and will. But the lesson is not confined to dance alone, it is intended to apply to all of life as well.

The illusion of ethereality is momentarily shattered; group concentration gives way to sudden, relaxed giggles as the dancers work through an awkward lapse. From the sidelines, Lee good- naturedly hectors them, showering them with renewed strength and encouragement. The moment passes. It's back to serious business again.

In 1997, after global success as a dancer and teacher, Lee returned to Korea. "Every human being yearns for the homeland, just like in nature. Salmon return to their place of birth to die." In her case, she had decided to share her insights with her own people, and wanted to export them from Korea rather than the U.S. She retains her American connections, but has "moved the factory to Korea," as she puts it.

Even after giving the transfer a great deal of thought, she did not anticipate what lay before her. "In 28 years, a lot had changed. I was different and Korea was different. When I left I was still a college student and the country was still very undeveloped."

Despite the economic alteration of her native land, however, she does not see much internationalization or globalization in its arts. She quotes Kandinsky to the effect that artists are the food for other artists, and adds that too many Koreans are on a diet.

From her perspective, the majority of her countrypeople in the arts are too self-conscious, they are not open to the rest of the world. They are either too unwilling or too insecure to accept collaboration. They do not want to share their artistic experience, or to learn from others, not only Westerners but other Asians as well.

Arms out, hands nearly touching, the human wave advances in a straight, rigid line, an indomitable curtain of unrepressed energy. And the dance ends in unsion with a prolonged bow from the waist, executed by six perfect hinges.

The problem with art in Korea starts with the education in the schools--even professors who have studied abroad are too provincial and sterile, she claims. "They are still doing the same things I did 30 years ago. The costumes are more colorful, and there are more dancers on the stage at the same time--but all change here has been only quantitative. The creators are mere copiers, with no sense of originality, no sense of indigenous identity."

Clanship is all-pervasive. There are no professional dance companies that do not have their own school lineage. If dancers seek to participate outside these confines, they are not only shunned by their own group but not welcomed into any others. While this situation may promote strong, intimate kinship, it does not allow for generative cross-fertilization. "It is like traditional wedding customs. If your marriage is arranged, can you really date?"

The present incarnation of Son Mu Ga consists of students from the Sangmyung University Dance Dapartment, including one who has just graduated. Two of them have only been in the company for three months, but already they have become quite confident in the mastery of the difficult, diversely Yin-Yang demands of the discipline.

Another rehearsal, in preparation for a television appearance; unlike the show that was held a week earlier, this time their stretching and warming up are uniform, nonindividualistic. Lots of slow arm movements, deep rhythmic breathing, faces masked in concentration. Outstretched like helicopter blades straining for lift-off, but silent as gliders they hover, straining for grace.

Now the experience is drawing to a close. The CDs are being put away, shoes and jackets donned, and dancers and irrepressible leader are returning to "real life" for another night. Laughing among themselves, they prepare to join friends and family, to eat or study. But the girls who leave the room are not the girls who entered it, their dance has added dimensions.

After years of travel and teaching, Duane Vorhees received his doctorate in American Cultural Studies from Bowling Green (Ohio) State University before returning to Korea to teach English at Seoul National University. He is the author of THE "JEWISH SCIENCE" OF IMMANUEL VELIKOVSKY and numerous poems, essays, and scholarly studies, the translator of THE COMPLETE POETRY OF YUN DONGJU, an editorial contributor to the LET'S TALK series of instructional books, and co-host of the longest-running Open Mike gathering in Seoul. Currently, he teaches American Literature and History, Sociology, and Political Science for the University of Maryland Asia Division.