NIKOREA: A toast to bilateral relations
The cultural centre of the Korean Embassy in Abuja has held a cultural gala night to celebrate Nigeria’s Golden Jubilee.
The September 29 event attracted members of the diplomatic corps and friends of Nigeria and Korea from the public and private sectors attended the night, the grand finale of a month-long of activities the Koreans put together to commemorate 30 years of bilateral relations with Nigeria.
The audience was treated to performances of Korean and Nigerian traditional folk theatre and dances at the occasion. The all male Korean troupe presented Samullori and Seoljanggu, folk percussion ensembles; Hallyangmu and Salpuri, folk dances and Korean traditional folk theatre. Nigeria, represented by the Federal Capital Territory cultural troupe, also put up a stunning dance drama.
An interesting piece on the night was Pangut, a total form of art that involves play and formation of various group dispositions; while the latter part is devoted to showcasing individual feats such as the sangshoe nori, seoljanggu nori, and sogo nori. Yeoldubal sangmo, where the dancer spins a very long ribbon; and sori gut, in which the performers sing folksongs – excited the audience.
Citing a Korean proverb, ‘Seeing once is better than hearing 100 times’, the Korean Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism said, “Watching this type of performances is the most effective way of exchanging cultures. In the past, because of the great geographical distance, people of the two countries had few opportunities to satisfy their curiosity about each other. Now, we have a chance to actually see and feel the culture of the other side through exchanges of stage performances like this one and deepen understanding and friendship between our two nations.”
The Abuja Choral group also rendered a special performance on the evening. Another FCT based troupe, led by Kayode Aiyegbusi, an assistant Director at the Art Council, also performed in far away Seoul, for the same reasons as the Abuja event.
Speaking at the event, Chung Un-chan, a former Prime Minister of Korea who is in Nigeria as his country’s special envoy for Nigeria’s Golden Jubilee celebration observed that Korea and Nigeria have moved along same path of national development. “Even though there is a slight time gap, our two countries have been moving along similar course of national development since independence. We both achieved a peaceful change of administrations after an era of military-led governments and have been making progress in all sectors, including politics and the economy.”
A fictional name, ‘NIKOREA’ was also coined at the event during the cutting of a giant cake donated by the Embassy. Patrick Omo Otoro, an Abuja based compere asked the audience: “how shall we cut this cake – after the spelling of Nigeria or Korea?” The audience unanimously thundered ‘N-I-K-O-R-E-A!’
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