The Em­bassy of the Re­pub­lic of Ko­rea will host a Ko­re­an tra­di­tion­al mu­sic and dance per­for­mances, Sounds of Ko­rea un­der the spon­sor­ship of the Ko­rea Foun­da­tion and in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Min­istry of Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism, the Min­istry of Tourism and the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly on June 25 and 26.

The em­bassy has in­vit­ed a famed Ko­re­an per­form­ing arts group from the Ko­re­an Tra­di­tion­al Per­form­ing Arts As­so­ci­a­tion (KT­PAA) based in New York. KT­PAA has been suc­cess­ful­ly pro­mot­ing the Ko­re­an tra­di­tion­al cul­ture and artis­tic her­itage for the past 20 years in the Unit­ed States.

Its di­rec­tor, Sue-Yeon Park, was named as a Na­tion­al Her­itage Fel­low which is pre­sent­ed to mas­ter folk and tra­di­tion­al artists by the US Na­tion­al En­dow­ment for the Arts. Park will al­so be per­form­ing the lead­ing role in the Sounds of Ko­rea up­com­ing event.

The Sounds of Ko­rea will be a unique oc­ca­sion to ex­pe­ri­ence tra­di­tion­al Ko­re­an mu­sic, song and dance. One of the in­stru­ments that will be played is the Ko­re­an wind in­stru­ment, Saengh­wang which is con­struct­ed from 17 bam­boo pipes, each with a met­al free reed, mount­ed in a wind chest. Nowa­days, on­ly a few mu­si­cians are able to play this rare in­stru­ment.

There is al­so the fa­mous fan dance, Buchae-chum which in­cor­po­rates the tra­di­tion­al Ko­re­an fan and colour­ful cos­tumes de­pict­ing a gar­den of flow­ers through its shift­ing geo­met­ri­cal de­signs.

Oth­er per­for­mances in­clude the very pop­u­lar Ko­re­an folk song Ari­rang which was des­ig­nat­ed as the In­tan­gi­ble Cul­tur­al Her­itage of Hu­man­i­ty by UN­ESCO last year. In Sounds of Ko­rea, four dancers and three mu­si­cians will per­form for 90 min­utes, 11 dif­fer­ent acts re­veal­ing tra­di­tion­al cul­ture.

The em­bassy be­lieves that this will be a great op­por­tu­ni­ty to ex­pe­ri­ence the dy­nam­ic beau­ty of the tra­di­tion­al Ko­re­an mu­sic and dance in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the em­bassy hopes that this event will fur­ther pro­mote the cul­tur­al ex­change and mu­tu­al un­der­stand­ing be­tween Ko­rea and T&T.

The event is at the Lord Kitch­en­er Au­di­to­ri­um at NA­PA on June 25 at 7 pm and at the Sig­nal Hill Au­di­to­ri­um in To­ba­go on June 26 at 7 pm. Ad­mis­sion is free and tick­ets will be avail­able on a first-come first-serve ba­sis. Tick­ets can be col­lect­ed at the NA­PA Box Of­fice and at the Di­vi­sion of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment and Cul­ture, To­ba­go from June 17, 2013.

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