Cheonan 10th International Dance Festival

Our blog is moving up in the world! First, a version of our Korean Burn post was published in the October Edition of the The Daegu Compass (page 54) and then we were invited by Cheonan city to cover their 10th International Dance Festival! and what a wonderful time we had!

BLOGGERS UNITE
Expat bloggers represent!

The GPWT dispatch team met with event host Evan and a group of other English language bloggers residing in Korea at Seoul City Hall on Saturday, October 5. From there we took our private transport to Samgeori Park in Cheonan City to experience the penultimate day of the week long festival. There we met up with our guest photographer Kory to explore this wonderful festival of dance!

With over forty teams from different countries participating in the parade competition and more than two hundred and twenty there for the dance competition, let's just say we weren't the only ones trying to get past the white tiger.

Getting to see dance styles performed by people from all over the world was a wonderful experience. We got to check out dance teams from Poland to Malaysia, and of course some lovely homegrown acts. From Korea there was a samulnori group. Samulnori uses four percussive instruments: a two-sided drum called a janggu a gong called a jing, a one-sided bass drum called a buk and the leader, a loud handheld cymbal called a kkwaenggwari.

FULL FRONTAL VIEW
GPWT got the best seats in the house for the evening parade

A group from the Philippines did the dangerous tinikling or "bird-like" dance during the evening parade performances, for which we had front-row seats. The tinikling dance involves two dancers dancing around four sticks being hit to the ground and hit together in a specific rhythm while the dancers' feet are moving inside and outside the constantly moving sticks. This team was the winner from last year's parade and boy were they something!

Countries in attendance included Bashkortostan and Buryatia (federal subjects of Russia), Mexico, Georgia, Indonesia, China, Guam, Indonesia, Czech Republic, France, India, Japan, Philippines, Taiwan, Turkey, Malaysia, Poland, Thailand, Turkmenistan, Singapore, and the Republic of Korea.

"Sorry, you want a NOODLE?"
"No, a POODLE!"
"Okay, one noodle coming up!"
"POODLE! POOODLLLE!"

Leif, the clown of our group, wandered off. We found him at a balloon animal making tent (of course) where he was trying to figure out the Korean for "I challenge you to a duel!" Kory translated for the flabbergasted balloon sculptors, but they just laughed and gave him a lesson. Those ajummas really know their stuff!

BREAKING IT DOWN
Ashley won this round but the guy in pink was brought back in the
survival round and went on to take third place and roughly $300 in prize money

MUST BE SKANKIN'

Leif probably had the most fun,

pictured here with the lady in gold
who went on to be a runner up for the competition

After clowning around, we stumbled upon an improv dance competition. Of course, being the crazy foreigners that we are, we immediately signed up to compete and had a wonderful time. That said, the organization of the competition was poorly organized. After Ashley won the first round she had no idea where to go, where to wait, or when to get back in line to go back on stage. Oh well, even with all of the chaos the event ran smoothly and provided the contestants and spectators great entertainment.

A big part of the experience was the group of funky foreign bloggers we joined with. Most of the writers we met were American, including a couple from South Carolina and one from Connecticut writing for a blog called Seoul Mates.

We at Getting Past The White Tiger would like to thank Cheonan City and their representative Evan for the wonderful experience that we would not of had without their invitation to the festival. Having a chance to actually be a member of the press was an unique experience we are not likely to forget.

That's it for now! Enjoy the rest of the pictures by the wonderful Kory and check out his post on the festival here.