After a lengthy flight that required 24 hours, the Hansori group, which specializes in traditional Korean music with a fusion style, performed its own brand of Korean music for the first time in Havana, the capital of Cuba, in late November 2015.
Co-organized by the Asia-Iberoamerica Cultural Foundation of Colombia and the Korea Foundation, the performance of Hansori was put on stage in Cuba in conjunction with the Havana Contemporary Music Festival. Comprised of jazz pianist Kae Soojung, vocalist Ahn Jeong-ah, and piri player Lee Saem Yee, together with Kkocdooseh, a traditional Korean performing troupe that includes Kim Hyunhee, Kim Somin, Kim Donghwan, and Jang Woosang, Hansori presented a program of impromptu piano performances and traditional Korean performing arts, such as samulnori, jeongga, and pangut to the Cuban audiences.
In spite of a lack of familiarity with traditional Korean music, the Cuban audiences expressed a highly enthusiastic response. Chairman Guido Lopez-Gavilan of the Organizing Committee of the Havana Contemporary Music Festival attended both performances by Hansori. He called the performances a great success for presenting such sensational sounds that had never before been heard in Cuba. About 70 Cuban students who are learning Korean at the Jose Marti Cultural Center were invited by the Korea Foundation to attend the performances. Impressed by the performance’s vibrancy, the students remained at the performance venue long after the end of the show to congratulate the Korean performers.
Cuba and the Republic of Korea have not yet established formal diplomatic relations and so there is no Korean embassy in Cuba. As such, communication channels are quite limited. Under these circumstances, the promotion of the performance depended heavily on word of mouth. Fortunately, the favorable response for the first show on November 20 spread across Havana, and the tickets for the second showing were sold out, such that many of the overflow crowd had to watch the performance while standing in the aisles and back. For the finale of the second show, the samulnori performers led the audience to the lobby of the National Museum of Fine Arts, with everyone sharing in a sense of joyfulness and excitement.
Despite the lack of diplomatic relations, Korea participated in the International Book Fair of Havana in February and maintained a Korean pavilion at the Havana International Fair in November 2015, as tangible examples of Korea-Cuba cultural and economic cooperation.
To further activate Korea-Cuba cultural exchange, the Korea Foundation has arranged for the presentations of Korea-related play, ballet, opera, exhibition, and dance performances in Cuba since 2005, and supported the broadcast of Korean TV dramas, such as Queen of Housewives (the first Korean television drama aired in Cuba), My Fair Lady, Dream High, Secret Garden, and the Princess’ Man, via Canal Habana, the national TV broadcaster of Cuba, since 2013. In addition, the Foundation has provided support to the Jose Marti Cultural Center so that it can offer Korean language courses taught by KF visiting professors since 2012. As a result, 11 students completed the Korean language program in July this year, after the opening of the courses three years ago. In these diverse ways, the Foundation has been making efforts to enhance the friendship and understanding of Korea and Cuba.
