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Dance

처용무

CheoyongmuSouth Korea

Inscribed by UNESCO as “Cheoyongmu” (RL/00189) · register entry
checked against the register by Akshay KR Singh on 4 October 2026

Cheoyongmu (Korean: 처용무) is a Korean mask dance based on the legend of Cheoyong (처용; 處容), a son of the Dragon King of the Eastern Sea. It is also the oldest surviving Korean court dance created during the Unified Silla period.

Cheoyongmu, Traditional Dance of Korea
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The tradition & historical record

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Cheoyongmu (Korean: 처용무) is a Korean mask dance based on the legend of Cheoyong (처용; 處容), a son of the Dragon King of the Eastern Sea. It is also the oldest surviving Korean court dance created during the Unified Silla period. Cheoyongmu has also been considered as a shamanistic dance because it was performed to drive off evil spirits at the end of the year. The dancer's movements are usually majesty and vigour. It also depends on the style & tempo of music, which punctuated by various lyrical song recitations. The dance is always performed by five dancers, and its costumes and masks are noteworthy. It is inscribed in UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List from 2009 and enlisted as South Korean Intangible Cultural Property from 1971.

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Cheoyongmu”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence.

Cheoyongmu is Korean dance of Cheoyong, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. 1

The source record links this tradition to 3 external registers, which can be verified through the citation. 1

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