Busan City, Busan City Dance Company Performs Korean Traditional Dance in Sister City Panama City

Traditional Dance Performance at Panama Anayansi Theater on the Evening of the 18th at 7 PM

Promotion of 'Art and Culture City Busan' and the 2030 Busan World Expo Bid

On the evening of the 18th local time, Busan City will hold a traditional dance performance by the Busan City Dance Company at the Anayansi (ANAYANSI) Theater in the Atlapa Convention Center, Panama City.

Panama City on-site interview scene (from left: Vice Minister Gabriel Gonzalez, Deputy Mayor of Economy Seongkwon Lee, Minister of Culture Giselle Gonzalez, Ambassador to Panama Jinkyu Jung, Director Jung Yoon Lee).

This performance was specially planned as a follow-up measure after Mayor Park Hyung-jun visited Panama last October and received requests for continuous exchanges with Korea from the local Panamanian side.

Panama City, selected as the first performance location, has maintained human exchanges through a foreign local government official invitation training program since signing a sister city cooperation agreement with Busan in 2016. A delegation from the Panama City mayor’s office also visited Busan.

The Busan-Panama City sister city cooperation agreement was signed on September 28, 2016, at Panama City Hall. The invitation training program K2H (Korea Heart to Heart) was jointly hosted by our city and the Korea Council of Mayors and Governors, inviting overseas local government officials for training.

High-ranking officials such as Vice President and Foreign Minister Isabel de Saint Malo, Deputy Foreign Minister Marta Elida Gord?n, and Minister of Public Works Rafael Sabonge have visited Busan.

Panama, widely known for the Panama Canal, serves as a hub for maritime, aviation, transportation, logistics, and finance in the Latin American region.

Despite the global economic downturn, especially the overall economic deterioration in the nearby Latin American region, Panama has continuously developed with a high annual average economic growth rate of around 6% and shows great interest in Korea’s economic development experience.

Since 2002, Korean dramas have been broadcast on Panamanian TV, and K-Pop is also quite popular in Panama. Busan City expects that this performance will provide an opportunity to share the beauty and important values of Korea’s unique traditional culture.

South Korea is the fourth largest user of the Panama Canal worldwide, and Busan Port is the world’s second-largest transshipment hub port, handling an annual transshipment volume of 12.27 million TEU based on a network connecting over 500 ports in more than 150 countries.

Busan City has formed a performance team of the Busan City Dance Company led by Deputy Mayor for Economic Affairs Lee Sung-kwon, making this performance a vibrant cultural diplomacy event to leap forward as a ‘Global Hub City, Busan.’

Through meetings with high-ranking officials in Panama’s key economic and cultural sectors, in-depth discussions will be held on expanding human exchanges in logistics, ports, maritime affairs, administration, culture, tourism, health, finance, digital, and information and communication technology (IT) between Busan and Panama.

Additionally, the necessity of hosting the 2030 Busan World Expo will be directly promoted, and through the ‘Busan Initiative,’ Korea’s growth experience will be shared along with visions seeking solutions to various global issues such as digital divides, climate change, food problems, and talent development.

The repertoire that the Busan City Dance Company will present in Panama is titled ‘Dance: True Colors.’

‘Dance: True Colors’ is a unique repertoire of the Busan City Dance Company that reexamines ‘Korean dance, the inherent beauty’ by capturing the colors and beauty of nature, enhancing the value of dance performances, and is expected to promote ‘Busan as a city of arts and culture.’

The main program consists of Cheoyongmu, Taepyeongmu, Chunsuk, Dongnae Hakchum, Gohok, Jindo Bukchum, Sarangga, Pungnyujanggo, and Unmu, considered one of the most Korean and high-quality works among the Busan City Dance Company’s repertoire.

The performance is expected to be attended by about 300 high-ranking Panamanian officials, including First Lady Yazmin Colon de Cortizo and Minister of Culture Giselle Gonzalez Villarrue, as well as approximately 2,000 audience members.

Prior to the performance, on the 17th in Panama City, Deputy Mayor for Economic Affairs Lee Sung-kwon, Ambassador Jeong Jin-gyu of the Republic of Korea to Panama, Minister of Culture Giselle Gonzalez, and General Director of the Busan City Arts Dance Company Lee Jung-yoon held a press conference for the local media. The press conference reflected high expectations for the upcoming performance, and local media showed great interest in the high-quality traditional cultural performance from Busan.

Mayor Park Hyung-jun stated, “Over the past two years, while actively negotiating to host the 2030 Busan World Expo, many places have requested continuous exchanges with Busan.” He emphasized, “This dispatch of the performance team is not a simple one-time event but will be an important opportunity to directly showcase Busan’s unique cultural strength.” He added, “Starting with this Panama performance, we plan to dispatch performance teams to new sister cities in Africa. We will actively continue sustainable exchange activities using Busan’s cultural content as a medium.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.