ACC Asia Culture Week Opens on the 15th... Experience the Diverse Cultures and Passions of Asia

- A total of 21 diverse programs including performances, exhibitions, and experiences at the Cultural Center
- From the 15th to the 24th, 10 days around the Cultural Center... Focus on realizing the 'Asia Community'

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism's National Asia Culture Center (ACC, Director Lee Kang-hyun) announced that the "2023 Asia Culture Week," themed "Asia Together, Walking Together," will be held from September 15 to 24 around the ACC. This is the only Asian festival in Korea where visitors can experience the diverse cultures and passions of Asia, attracting significant attention as it takes place at the National Asia Culture Center.

Through Asian performances, exhibitions, international conferences, and forums, visitors can glimpse the lives of Asians and experience the cities of Asia and the cultural scenes within them. During Asia Culture Week, ACC will present cultural events and various experiential programs that embody the passion for cultural exchange among Asians.

First, around the Asia Culture Plaza, more than 50 experience booths from 13 Asian countries and booths related to Youth Week will be operated. The Asia Art Market, expanded in scale compared to last year, will be richly composed of various experiential programs for communication with visitors and traditional Asian performances. Experience events themed on Asian cities and environments will be held with artists Yang Kura and Han Seok-gyeong, and market artisans and vendors from Chiang Mai, Thailand, will be invited to recreate a local market. In cooperation with the Kyrgyzstan Embassy, the traditional portable tent house called a yurt will be introduced, and visitors can explore the cultures of various Asian countries by experiencing Indian chai tea and Thai-style coffee.

Unique performance stages will also be prepared to captivate the audience’s eyes and ears. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Korea and Indonesia, the "All Day Indonesia" event will be held on the 17th. At night, the "Asia Traditional Orchestra," composed of traditional musicians from Korea and the 10 ASEAN countries, will perform in Indonesia for the public. The film "Bali: Heavenly Resonance," which documents the collaboration between Indonesian traditional gamelan craftsmen and Grammy-winning singer Judith Hill to promote Bali’s music and dance, will be screened on the outdoor stage of the Art Theater.

During the festival, the Asia Dance Community will hold screenings of screen dance, Bangladeshi folk dance performances, and a symposium. The "Asia Screen Dance," which allows audiences to enjoy Southeast Asian and South Asian dances rarely encountered in daily life through video, will be showcased from the 22nd to 24th at the Media Wall and Theater 3.

On the 23rd and 24th, the curtain will rise on the ACC international co-creation and production performance "Husbandless Wharf" at Theater 1 of the Art Theater. This performance, jointly prepared by ACC, the Korea Performance Producers Association, and the Vietnam National Theater, is based on the Vietnamese novel "Husbandless Wharf" and depicts human will to move forward toward a better life despite the pain after war. This work, which has attracted much interest both domestically and in Vietnam, uses actual water to stage the "Dinh River," the setting of the performance, and represents Vietnam’s nature with dreamlike visuals and colors. The stage production will also feature live performances blending Korean jeongga and traditional dance, piano, cello, violin, gayageum, and Vietnamese cheo.

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Korea and other countries, artists from India and Indonesia have been invited to present "Asia Panorama," which highlights the characteristics of each country’s works while completing them through collaboration among the artists. This will be exhibited as a 60-meter mural in the Bamboo Garden until the 24th. Participating artists include Hwang In-sook (Korea), B. Ajay (India), and Indigerilla (Indonesia), and the exhibition will welcome visitors with their new works during Asia Culture Week. Special programs featuring Bangladeshi folk dance and Indian dance will also be held at Theater 3.

Outdoors, the exhibition "Hani Landscape," which explores aesthetic practices in the era of environmental destruction and climate crisis, will be held. At the Culture Creation Center Complex Exhibition Hall 6, the exhibition "Daily Blossoms," focusing on everyday landscapes and highlighting 20th-century masters from Korea and West Asia, will be on display. In the lobby of the Art Theater, the ACC open call exhibition "When the Gap Speaks to Me," themed on "gap," will offer a fresh perspective and interpretation of ACC’s internal public spaces.

A venue to enjoy Asian literature has also been prepared. First, the "2023 Asia Literature Forum" will be held on the 16th in the International Conference Room. This forum, aimed at citizens interested in literature to help understand Asian literature and increase participation and interest, will offer the joy of literature to the public under the theme "Meeting Asian Cities, Literature, and Young Writers," with Asian writers and translators from Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Japan, and China, as well as publishing professionals.

On the 18th, the "2023 Asia Traditional Music Committee Meeting" will be held privately. At this meeting, government officials and experts from Korea and the 10 ASEAN countries will gather to share the current status of sustainable exchange and cooperation projects under the theme of "Asian Traditional Music" and explore future cooperative projects. Following this, on the 19th, the "Asia Dance Community Symposium" will be held. This academic event will discuss mask dances from Korea, Thailand’s Khon, as well as examples from Nepal and Bangladesh. Following the inclusion of mask dance in UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list last year, the symposium will examine the value and significance of mask dance as a unique common practice in Asia.

From the 19th to 22nd, ACC will invite 25 officials from the Ministries of Culture of Kyrgyzstan and Laos to hold a joint capacity-building workshop on the use of the Digital Cultural Resource Management System, which ACC supports as part of its aid projects. ACC digitizes tangible and intangible cultural resources from museums, art galleries, and libraries of Asian countries that have been preserved in analog form and helps develop cultural content based on digital resources.

Lee Kang-hyun, Director of the National Asia Culture Center, stated, "This year’s Asia Culture Week, themed 'Asia Together, Walking Together,' has prepared a rich variety of programs where people can experience and empathize with Asia’s diverse cultures, arts, and everyday life in Asian cities." He expressed his hope that "visitors will check the schedules of various programs and fully enjoy the events taking place throughout the Culture Center to create a united Asian community."

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