The three-day weekend was quite busy between relaxing and playing jokgu as reported in an earlier blog, but my plan of seeing something new every weekend still hasn’t changed. This weekend: the City Hall area, or more accurately, the Hi Seoul Festival. The festival is 9 days long and is spread out across 8 different sites.

What I was able to see in one place in one night was incredible: three outdoor stages set across the Seoul City Park (also called Seoul Plaza), next to the City Hall and across the street from Deoksugung Palace (imagine that – a palace in the heart of downtown). Of course, the Dunkin’ Donuts across the side street from Deoksugung Palace took away some of the shine, but we’ll save American corporatization for another blog…

I arrived around 7:30pm to the Eight Color Ball (promoted as such, but no signs specifically saying it) with events, people, and music in full motion. It’s obvious this festival has been planned – and funded – quite well by the City of Seoul. An almost overwhelming array of color surrounds you – projected onto buildings, laser-show-like lights, and an overhead array with ever-changing colors that clatter in the wind (called a ‘Media Cloud’). It almost reminded me of a family-friendly rave of sorts.

The most fascinating feature was a sheet of water serving as a screen for a projection of either the show or another digital effect of some kind. No worries about screen-savers here!

The first act I followed was a group of belly dancers, along with a couple of fire breathers. Some great moves, and definitely unexpected was the candleholders on their heads! Most were lit to start, although they seemed to have gone out during the performance.

Next up were several singing and dancing performances – most of them surprisingly familar. They started with a montage featuring almost every major dance style of the 20th century – again, unexpected. The dancers were top-notch, and I was happy to hear a couple of Korean songs thrown into the mix as well. The picture above is from the 20th century montage – demonstrating a number of the different styles with a rag doll… Hilarious to watch, that’s for sure.

Musical numbers included ‘You’re the one that I want’ from ‘Grease’ (in Korean – definitely a fun one to watch), ‘Sandy’ (also from ‘Grease’) in English, the theme songs from ‘Fame’, ‘Dreamgirls’ and ‘Cabaret’, all in English, although some of the backup singers were singing in Korean – it was hard to tell.

Later on was a traditional Korean dancer on a different stage – emphasizing slower, more graceful motions. While traditional Korean dancing isn’t as widely seen, there are many styles of it to be discovered if you’re interested.

Wrapping up the evening were some contemporary dancers in the most neon outfits I’ve seen in my life – take a look for yourself.

I pictured blacklights exploding at one point… In any case, they danced to some modern Korean music, bringing the spectacle full-circle back to the here and now. After a couple dances on all three stages, they came down to dance on the grassy area amidst the audience to one of Korean’s hit pop songs – “Baby One More Time”… No, not THAT ‘baby one more time’, ANOTHER one… The one in Korea has a polka beat – you can’t possibly mix the two up. I was half tempted to find a polka partner and… ok who am I kidding? No one knows how to polka here 🙂

All in all, a fun night – and I’ll be back tomorrow night for swing dancing through the Korean Swing Dance Association 🙂