Red Velvet, Girls' Generation's Seohyun To Perform In K-Pop Concerts In North Korea
K-pop group Red Velvet and Girls' Generation former member Seohyun will join the delegation of Korean musicians who are set to perform in a series of shows in North Korea. The concerts will take place from March 31 to April 3. This will be the first time South Korean artists will perform in Pyongyang after more than a decade.
Apparently, North Korea extended an invitation to South Korean music artists and taekwondo demonstrators to visit Pyongyang when the South's special envoys met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un earlier this month. Seoul said the invitation is to keep the will for peace and reconciliation between the two countries. The North and South began talking again prior to the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics last month.
Seoul has agreed to send a total of 160 performers to Pyongyang for the four-day K-pop stars' visit. This is to reciprocate the North's gesture of sending its own art troupe to the South to celebrate the PyeongChang Winter Olympics. The North's 140-member Samjiyon Orchestra staged two performances during the Olympics.
During the press briefing for the event, Baik Tae-hyun, the spokesman at the Ministry of Unification, had admitted that South Korea had consulted the U.S. over the planned K-pop performances. Baik said this is to prevent their preparations from interfering with the international sanctions on North Korea.
K-Pop Artists' Lineup For North Korea's Concerts
The concerts in the North will be top billed by the five-member group Red Velvet and Girls' Generation alum Seohyun. Contemporary Korean pop legends Cho Yong-pil and Choi Jin-Hee, as well as other local singers. Jung In, Ali, Lee Sun Hee, and Yoon Do Hyun will also join the group.
Aside from performing, Seohyun will also reportedly serve as the concert host. It is unclear, however, if she will MC the K-pop artists' performances alone or the entire event including the North Korea Art Company event.
The South Korean art troupe is scheduled to do two concerts at the 1,500-seat capacity East Pyongyang Grand Theater, and at the Ryugyong Jong Ju Yong Gymnasium, which can accommodate about 12,000 people, Yonhap news agency reported. The K-pop concerts in the North come ahead of an inter-Korean summit slated for late April.
Meanwhile, the setlists for the scheduled shows were not revealed during the press briefing. According to composer Yoon Sang, who was named as the musical director for Seoul's art troupe, they need more time to decide on the setlist as it is not easy to select songs that will be acceptable to both South and North.