WASHINGTON– An event full of festivities, including K-pop music, will be held here next month to help promote peace on the Korean Peninsula and raise the awareness of American people about the situation on the peninsula, organizers said Thursday.
The K-Peace Festival will be held on Nov. 5, around the Korean War Veterans Memorial at the National Mall in Washington. The one-day event is organized by the Washington chapter of the Peaceful Unification Advisory Council (PUAC) and partly funded by South Korea’s Ministry of Unification.
“The conditions on the Korean Peninsula are currently not moving toward peace but confrontation. The K-Peace Festival will be an event where we, as Koreans living in Washington, will show what those of us in the U.S. can do to help promote peace,” PUAC Washington chapter president Kang Chang-ku told reporters.
The day will begin with performances of Korean traditional percussion music, known as samulnori, and “Nanta,” one of South Korea’s most famous theatrical shows.
Visitors to the festival will be greeted by a photo exhibition depicting the history of the 1950-53 Korean War and long-lasting division of the peninsula, according to the organizers.
They said the festival will be full of events for people of all ages, such as face painting for young children and a chance to try on traditional Korean dress, hanbok.
For younger and more enthusiastic visitors, there will be K-pop music and K-dance performances.
The organizers said the event is expected to draw more than 1,000 visitors, who in turn will be asked what they know and think about the current situation on the Korean Peninsula, offering part of a basis for PUAC recommendations for the South Korean president on ways to promote peace and peaceful reunification of the Koreas when the presidential advisory council meets in Seoul next month.
Source: Yonhap News Agency