Two Koreas hold first-ever joint taekwondo demonstration in Pyongyang
PYONGYANG, April 2 (Joint Press Corps-Yonhap) -- South Korea's taekwondo demonstration team gave a joint performance with a North Korean team in Pyongyang on Monday, the first of its kind to be held in the North's capital.
The 22-member team from the South held a joint 60-minute performance with a North Korean team in front of an audience that packed out the 1,200-seat Pyongyang Grand Theatre.
Also on hand for the event were high-ranking North Korean sports officials such as Choe Hwi, chairman of the North's National Sports Guidance Committee; his deputy Ri Il-hwan; and Kim Kyong-ho, chairman of the North's national taekwondo committee. The South's culture and sports minister Do Jong-whan also attended.
The taekwondo team is as part of South Korea's 190-strong artistic delegation that flew into the North's capital for a four-day visit. It includes 160 artists who made a successful debut in Pyongyang on Sunday and are set to stage a joint performance with North Koreans on Tuesday. On Sunday, the South's taekwondo players had an exclusive 60-minute show at the Hall of Taekwondo before the first art performance.
Each team performed for about 25 to 30 minutes and then held a joint demonstration for five minutes.
The cheerful and speedy performance by the South's taekwondo practitioners and the North's powerful and wild demonstration spurred plenty of enthusiasm from the crowd.
When the South and North Korean taekwondo practitioners bowed and waved their hands toward the spectators after performing "poomsae," or attack and defense patterns in the Korean martial arts, together for about five minutes, the audience all stood up and gave a long standing ovation.
"I realized that taekwondo is the same whether South Korea or North Korea, except that their content is slightly different," a North Korean audience member said in an interview with South Korean reporters after watching the show.
A member of the South Korean delegation who attended the joint demonstration said: "The South's performance is diverse and is reminiscent of a musical with storytelling, while the North's feels more like practical martial arts, and I can feel some strength from it."
This marked the first time in 16 years that South Korean taekwondo practitioners have performed in the North Korean capital. In 2002, South Koreans held two taekwondo demonstration performances at the Hall of Taekwondo in Pyongyang following minister-level talks.
The South's taekwondo performance in Pyongyang reciprocated an earlier visit by their North Korean counterparts during the Feb. 9-25 PyeongChang Winter Olympics and is also considered a pre-event for a historic inter-Korean summit scheduled for April 27.
A North Korean taekwondo team from the International Taekwondo Federation (IFT) held four shows in South Korea, including a joint performance with South Korea, during their shows ahead of the Olympic opening ceremony on Feb. 9.
The South's taekwondo team was organized by Seoul-based World Taekwondo (WT), the official international taekwondo governing body recognized by the International Olympic Committee.
The South's WT and the North Korean-led ITF have moved closer to each other in recent years after they signed a "Protocol of Accord" in August 2014, a landmark agreement dealing with the exchange of demonstration teams and other matters of cooperation.
The two organizations kicked off with a joint performance during the 2015 WT World Championships in Chelyabinsk, Russia. It was the first time that the ITF taekwondo demonstration team performed at an event organized by the WT.
The ITF later sent a demonstration team to the WT World Taekwondo Championships in Muju, 240 kilometers south of Seoul, last June. It was the first instance of inter-Korean sports exchange under the new Moon Jae-in administration in the South.
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