Alan Road reported on the return visit to Britain of the ‘graceful dancers of Korea’, having been a big hit in 1972 (‘East Side Story: Korea Brings on the Dancing Girls’, 4 September 1977) in an early example of its soft power, long before K-pop .
The 45-strong National Dance Company had appeared in 50 other countries. Tongue in cheek, Road described them as ‘a Korean export that should meet with no tariff barriers in Europe’.
‘The posy of beautiful girls seen in Seoul’s Kyung-Bok Palace are releasing a flower dance for London audiences,’ he wrote. ‘With their feet hidden by long dresses they seem to glide across the stage in undulating ripples like colourful caterpillars.’
This was very much the traditional side of a rapidly changing country. ‘Traditional music is provided by flutes, drums like hour-glasses, a kind of harp that is a veritable cat’s cradle of strings and an instrument that sounds like someone opening and closing a door with a rusty hinge.’ Perhaps tariffs had prevented the export of WD-40 to Korea.
Underneath all that polish lies years of hard work. Dancers began training from the age of six and would go on to study ‘the centuries-old mysteries of the three traditional forms – the court, religious and folk dances’.
The performers at Sadler’s Wells had been rehearsing for five months. ‘Even in a practice room like a huge warehouse, where the temperature is in the high 80s and the taped music is inclined to hiccup, the graceful performers generate a certain magic with their hypnotic movements,’ wrote an enchanted Road.
‘European audiences may not catch the significance of every side-long flashing glance or the sadness in the outstretched fingertips,’ he concluded, ‘but the sheer beauty of the girls, the colour of their traditional costumes and the vitality of their dancing should not go unappreciated.’
