Author Lee Heung-gu Lee Heung-gu, title holder of Important Intangible Cultural Property No. 40, the Crane and Lotus Dance (Hak-yeonhwadaemu), was born in 1940 in Daecheon, Chungcheongnam-do Province. From 1955 to 1961 he studied dance at Gugaksa Yangseongso, an academy for training in the traditional performing arts, where his teachers included Kim Bo-nam, title holder of Important Intangible Cultural Property No. 1, Jongmyo Jeryeak, and Kim Cheon-heung, title holder of Important Intangible Cultural Property No. 39, the Dance of Cheoyong (Cheoyongmu). Lee served as director of the Korean Folk Arts Academy, standing dance and artistic director of the dance troupe at the National Center for Korean Traditional Performing Arts, advisor to the Korean Cultural Heritage Foundation, and professor of traditional dance at the Korea National University of the Arts. Currently, he is chairman of the board of the Daeakhoe Foundation, and chairman of the Foundation for the Preservation of the Crane and Lotus Dance, and is active in efforts to preserve and pass on traditional Korean dance. Twice annually from 1980 to 1999 he performed concerts reviving traditional dances in their original form and between 1987 and 1999 he published nine volumes in an ongoing series on traditional Korean court dance. In 2006, Lee was awarded the Bogwan Order of Cultural Merit.
Translator Cho Yoon-jung Cho Yoon-jung grew up in Australia where she studied architecture at New South Wales University and received a Master of Applied Linguistics from Sydney University. She is a part-time lecturer at Ewha Womans University Graduate School of Translation and Interpretation.