Sunday, April 1, 2012

Korean Cultural Festival Part II

Hi everyone!

This will cover the last part of the events of the Korean Cultural Festival (and Center). I'm glad I was invited since I had lots of fun and met some really nice people :)

The 2nd part started with Samulnori, for those who don't know what this is I'll explain it briefly, Samulnori is Korean Traditional instrumental music that's based on the "Pungmul" a type of percussion Folklore music that's part of the day to day life of farmers in Korea.
The 4 main instruments of Pungmulnori are:
Buk : Drums
Jang-gu : Sandclock shaped drums    
Jing and Kweng-gari (Hand drum).

With the Samulnori came the Jing Dance, this dance is formed by the wind-like movements that express the sadness of a woman missing her loved one. The Jing is the instrument used when performing this dance.

Jing Dance

After some very good music it was time to see the Taekwondo team, the K-Tigers. I must say I was really surprised by them, I was expecting a regular Taekwondo exhibition but turned out to be very exciting, with their choreographies and the music.
The K-Tigers are pretty good at what they do and even when some of them look very short (haha sorry!) they were able to jump pretty HIGH and it was (for me) the highlight of the night!.





 

Right after the K-Tigers it was the turn of the B-Boys... I don't know if I had high expectations for this show but the K-Tigers amazed me more :/ , then a battle Of Taekwondo vs Bboys came and what better than some pics for you to judge who was better.
 












 And last but not least....
A Pungmulnori presentation and Namsadag (Namsadangnori was name Human cultural patrimony by UNESCO and intangible Cultural Tresure #3 of Korea)


And then it was time for Bridges of Soul to perform again, this time it was with the song "Besame Mucho" a Mexican song written by Consuelo Velazquez, this was where Korea and Mexico met, a Mexican song sang by a Korean Popers trio with music by Korean performers... I have to say... Whoever thought them the song did a great job, their accent was pretty good and ended up with a very nice version of the song.
And to finish a great evening it came the time to perform Arirang, the most representative song of Korea that has been transferred from one generation to another, for this everyone who performed that night came on the stage and went down to get people from the audience to dance. It was a very emotive moment and a perfect way to end it.




I wish Mexico had more events like this and to have more diffusion, hopefully with the KCC in Mexico now the Korean Culture will have more diffusion to remind us that Korea is not only Kpop and Dramas.

-Gisela V.

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