Ashraf AboArafe
The Korean Cultural Center is preparing to launch the Korean Culture Week “Korea Live”, on Friday, September 8, at the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization at 7:00 pm.
The annual festival will offer a variety of musical, cultural and artistic events and activities that will run until September 14th.
At the opening ceremony, the audience will enjoy live performances that combine traditional music and dance. In addition, they will have the opportunity to discover unique Korean music through various musical instruments such as gayageum and daegeum.
The Korean troupe will perform pansori – a traditional Korean opera – which is listed on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list, a narrative song usually performed by a singer, accompanied by the bok drum, a double-sided drum.
The group will also perform samolnori, a type of traditional percussion music. Samolnori is played with four instruments, each symbolizing an element of nature: the janju, an hour glass-shaped drum that represents rain; And the Facebook that represents clouds. jing, a large bell representing the wind; and “Kueng Ari”, the small portable bell that represents thunder.
Among the activities is the Korean Heritage Exhibition, which includes traditional Korean musical instruments, items of daily life in ancient Korea, and hanji, which is the traditional handmade paper also called “white paper” as it represents the pure heart and strong spirit of Koreans.
The exhibition will include a virtual reality pavilion, where the audience will have the opportunity to enjoy the stunning scenery and the wonderful heritage of Korea.
Festival-goers will enjoy the experience of wearing the traditional Korean costume – hanbok – which has become an integral part of Korean life for centuries, and has evolved to enter the world of fashion in the modern era.
Korean literature will be strongly present, through the Korean Books Pavilion, where visitors can pursue their passion for exploring Korean cultural identity through literature
In a special ceremony, the famous Korean novelist, Jeong Yoo-jeong, will present her novel “Seven Years of Darkness,” which was recently published in Egypt in Arabic. Korean writing will also review its work and the general literary atmosphere in Korea.
Moreover, Korean gayageum player, Choi Jin, will give a lecture at the Academy of Arts on traditional Korean musical instruments and techniques for playing this unique instrument.
At the end of the week, Egyptian youth who participated in the Korean Traditional Music Workshops – Kojak Academy – and K-Pop Academy, will perform a fusion concert at the closing ceremony of the Korean Culture Week.
Yesterday, the two workshops organized annually by the Center at the Academy of Arts were inaugurated, with the participation of 160 Egyptian youth over a period of two weeks.
Oh Seung-ho, director of the Korean Cultural Center, said that the selection of the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, which includes a collection of Egyptian antiquities from different eras, to host the Korean Culture Week is of great significance in terms of enhancing mutual cultural understanding between South Korea and Egypt.
He added that strengthening cooperation between the two countries in the creative and artistic fields is the cornerstone of cultural relations between the two countries, which are rich in history and precious heritage.
Oh Seung Ho expressed his hope that the activities of the Korean Culture Week would meet the aspirations of the Egyptian public and contribute to expanding their knowledge about Korea.
