Seoul 2019: Cultural performances at Seoul Tower

While I was up in Seoul Tower I noticed that down in the plaza at the base of the tower there was now an area that had been roped off and some sort of cultural performance was being held. When I got back down to the plaza the show that I had seen from above had finished and another one had started. This one featured a group of musicians in traditional Korean garb and with spinning ribbons on their hats. At one point the leader of the group started balancing a spinning disc that he would throw into the air and then catch on a stick as the rest of the band continued playing their music. Towards the end of the show he balanced the disc on three sticks that he connected together while the disc was still spinning on top, and then he balanced the whole thing on his face.

The performance that came next was a group of guys showing traditional Korean martial arts involving weapons. For the first half of their demonstration they practiced with swords and spears—spinning, thrusting, and slicing in unison. In second half of the show they set up some straw and bamboo training posts and each person diced up their target with a different weapon. My personal favorite was a guy with the twin swords who spun around and quickly hacked through three separate targets. While watching these guys perform I noted that the Korean martial arts in this performance looked sort of like a fusion of Chinese and Japanese combat styles, and that would make sense given that Korea is situated between both nations and received influences from them during its history.