Korean Night, presented by the East Asian Studies Center, will take place Saturday at the Willkie Auditorium. The annual event will feature Korean foods from Sobon and Korea Restaurant, music and cultural activities. Badi, a South Korean music ensemble, is a featured performer.
Young Hwang, the graduate student in charge of the event, said Korean Night gives people unfamiliar with the culture a chance to experience it. The center wants people to experience the food, music and culture of Korea, Hwang said.
“It’s hard to experience some Korean cultures in Bloomington,” she said.
The event will begin earlier in the day with a lecture at the Global and International Studies Building. Events in the Willkie Auditorium will begin at 2 p.m. with Korean activity tables hosted by IU clubs and teachers from outside the university community. Some of the teachers in attendance have participated in Korean studies through the center, such as the National Consortium for Teaching about Asia, which sent teachers to Korea last summer.
The day will continue with an opening ceremony featuring the Samulnori Korean Percussion Ensemble, and various speakers, including the Consulate General of the Republic of Korea in Chicago. The event also features a Korean buffet, community performances by members of Korean student groups, martial arts and Taekwondo clubs.
Samson Lotven, a program assistant at the East Asian Studies Center, said this event is the largest community-building event they host. Korean Night is their Korean flagship event of the year, he said.
The bulk of the center’s programs are smaller events, Lotven said. These events throughout the year focus more on specialized aspects of the culture, such as book workshops and movies.
“These are all different ways for us to be able to help people to interact with East Asian content and be able to give people things that are going to be interesting to them in a way that adds to their worldview,” he said.
The featured performing group, Badi, is a neotraditional Korean music ensemble made up of six men. The group is from South Korea, but will be here for the event.
Badi has redefined the Korean culture of music for the current generation, Hwang said. The group performs the Pansori genre of music.
Hwang said this event is beneficial for Korean student groups, as they can contribute to the event by hosting information tables or by performing on stage. This event also gives different Korean groups the opportunity to interact with each other, something that they don’t often get to do.
Lotven said Korean Night brings people from different communities together to interact and share culture. The event is important for the center because so many different groups benefit from it, he said.
The center aims to have an exchange of cultural understanding in a big event like this, he said. Part of the goals of the center is to build a community not only with IU, but with the Bloomington community. He said the event brings together student groups and community members with activities, performances and special guests.
“With a big event like this, we can make this world smaller,” he said.
