N. Korean art troupe and cheerleaders appear in S. Korea to celebrate Olympics

By Lim Chang-won Posted : February 7, 2018, 12:12 Updated : February 13, 2018, 16:06

North Korean art troupe members wave their hands after visiting an art center in the eastern port of Gangneung for a concert. [Yonhap News Photo]


SEOUL, Feb. 07 (Aju News) -- North Korean musicians, singers and dancers maintained their nervous silence Wednesday as they walked through a tight police security line for rehearsal at an art center in the eastern port city of Gangneung after a secluded night aboard a ferry.

They faced South Korean journalists and greeters waiting outside the concert hall in a somewhat subdued mood, apparently conscious of a hostile anti-Pyongyang protest by conservative activists on Tuesday when the ferry carrying a 140-member art troupe sailed into a nearby port.

The first comer was female leader Hyon Song-wol, followed by female musicians wearing red coats, black fur hats, fur mufflers, and ankle boots as well as male musicians clad in black coats and fur hats. They were expressionless with many members laying their eyes down.

The art troupe members, who will perform in Gangneung on Thursday and in Seoul on Sunday, showed a different attitude, smiling and waving their hands, when they walked out of the concert hall for lunch.

In a demonstration Tuesday in the harbor, dozens of conservative activists waving U.S. and South Korean flags scuffled with riot police after torching a North Korean flag, Kim's picture and the so-called unification flag that will be used for a joint march at the opening ceremony.

In an angry commentary on Wednesday, the North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) blasted a "never-to-be-condoned farce of confrontation with fellow countrymen" when the art troupe arrived in South Korea for concerts congratulating the first Winter Olympics on the divided Korean peninsula.

"Worse still, they made no bones about besmirching the dignity of the DPRK (North Korea) supreme leadership and burning the flags of the DPRK and the Korean Peninsula," KCNA said. "In fact, they are no more than a group of benighted gangsters inferior to beast, human scum."

North Korea has reportedly selected top members from six or seven artistic groups, including the Moranbong girl band formed by Kim, to show off their world-class performance technique at rare concerts in South Korea.

The North had insisted on using the ferry to provide convenient accommodation for their best and decorated artists. The 9,700-ton ferry, which was put into service in 1992, transported the North's cheering squad for the 2002 Asian Games in the southern port city of Busan.

North Korean has agreed to dispatch a total of 22 athletes for the Olympics as well as hundreds of cheerleaders, performers, martial arts demonstrators and others. Twelve female ice hockey players have formed a unified hockey team.

Through a cross-border road north of Seoul, young and beautiful North Korean cheerleaders crossed the heavily armed border as part of a 280-member delegation led by North Korea's Olympic Committee President and sports minister Kim Il-guk. The delegation included four sports officials, 229 cheerleaders, 26 martial arts demonstrators and 21 journalists.

Dubbed "an army of beauties", North Korean cheerleaders, mostly in their 20s, often received widespread attention and media coverage when they sing and dance in the stands. Defectors say North Korea handpicks young cheerleaders with good ideological and family background.

The cheerleaders made their first appearance at the 2002 Asian Games in the southern port of Busan, followed by the second squad at the 2003 Summer Universiade in Daegu. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's wife, Ri Sol-Ju, was among the cheering squad at the 2005 Asian Athletics Championships in Incheon.
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