Mayor sees Anseong as a livable culture town

City to host Folkloriada 2012, an international folk arts festival

Following are excerpts of an interview with Mayor Lee Dong-hee of Anseong and NewsWorld.
Question: As a third-term mayor, you have been steering your policies to make Anseong a center of culture and arts. What are your philosophy and beliefs as mayor?
Answer: I tuned the city's policies toward making Anseong truly a city where people want to come and live and therefore, we focused on the development of arts and culture in the city. We will be satisfied if the city's population grows to 300,000 and plan to build cultural and arts facilities in the city as a survey showed us that material affluence is not all the people want in their lives.
Culture is something that fills the vacuum in the lives of the people. Anseong used to be an agricultural town, but now it has changed a lot with only 20 percent of the population engaged in farming.
An old saying "Fit Like Anseong,"the age has changed from mass-production farming to the age of a tailor-made Anseong to develop the city as a cultural and arts town where the spirit of artisans still live.
















The city used to be where farm products were assembled leading to the development of traditional farm music in the form of the "Namsadang Band."When Gyeongbok Palace was being built in the late 19th century during the waning period of the Jeoseon Dynasty in Seoul, they invited the Namsadang Band of farm musicians to perform at the palace construction site to entertain the tired workers.
Regent Daewon-gun gave them the title "Okwanjua"equal to the rank of deputy provincial governor at the time in recognition of its cultural contribution, the "Namsadang Band"now was called the Anseong Namsadang Band to distinguish the band from others around the country.
Anseong wanted to take advantage of its ancient traditional arts and culture. In 2001, the city launched an annual festival with its municipal traditional performing group. In 2004, the group participated at the Athens Olympics and the World Cup finals in Germany in 2006. The traditional musical group toured various countries in 2007 including the United States, Hungary, Germany and France, followed by Japan and the Middle East the following year under the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade Korea International Cultural Exchange Foundation.
Q: What will be the direction of municipal policies you will be pursuing in the future?
A: Anseong has the Saturday permanent performance, which is in its seventh year, the exclusive performance stage construction and the Namsadang Pungmul Group have a non-market value of 36.8 billion won. Anseong has many traditional cultural properties and therefore, has been trying to show them off along with the national traditional culture.
We will build a traditional-style open-air market to recall the lifestyle from way back. It would be able to attract tourists both at home and abroad. At the present time, a permanent stage for Korean traditional culture is being built at Bokpyung-ri in Anseong so that the city would equal such historic structures as Gyeongbok Palace, South Gate, East Gate, Itaewon and the Bulguk Temple as an art and cultural city.
In 2012, Anseong will host the Folkloriada, an international folk arts festival, in which some 60 cultural arts performance troupes from 50 countries are slated to perform. Anseong has the Bau Dok Festival, which began in 2001 and the Namsadang Pungmul Saturday Permanent Performance to showcase at the global traditional performance festival.
The five-day festival attracts some 1 million tourists every year. The Saturday Permanent Performance was designated as the Saturday tourism commodity by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and has been attracting some 1,300 tourists per week. Anseong's Namsadang culture was well introduced in the movie "King's Man"and draws many tourists. In 2004, it was included in the Korea Mission and its value was confirmed as a traditional cultural heritage to be passed on to the next generation.
Such traditional cultural background has helped Anseong to get the right to host the World Folklore Festival for 17 days in 2012. Some 1,500 traditional musicians and dancers from 50 traditional art troupes will perform with domestic folk art performers of 10 troupes totaling 300, making the total number of performers around 2,000. They will perform dynamic music and dance combined with the indigenous talents that created "Anseong Fit,"truly a festive stage for all humankind.
The realization of such dreams will transform Anseong into a global city with worldly traditional arts and culture where artisan's breathe, to show the world that the folk culture of Anseong Namsadang is still alive.
Anseong City obtained the approval to hold the global folk arts festival in May 2007 as an international art event to be held in Korea, which enabled the city to get financial support from the government. The Anseong City Council passed a law to set up an organizing committee for Folkloriada. The city held an explanation session in front of some 150 representatives among the city residents to entice their support for the international event. In May 2008, the Organizing Committee, made of 30 experts and representatives of various social levels, was launched officially.
I never think that the festival will create the general format for a model with only dreams and romantic feelings. All of those involved and citizens should unite together to achieve what the global art event is designed to create.
Never should look at only data and forms, hold out only economic theories and a large scale of event. It should be. nw

A scene of Namsadang Pungmul Nori Band, which made Anseong famous and the bed of ancient culture and arts.

Anseong City Mayor Lee Dong-hee, Photos of sites that made Anseong famous including a view of Namsadang Pungmul Band at play, an aerial shot of Anseong, a view of an orchard and a nearby lake.

A poster of the World Folklore Festival Anseong City will host in 2012.