The BoingBoing Article about the North Korean Arirang Festival
points to a page with some beautiful video and stills of the mass
games which opened the North
Korean celebration of the birthdate of the late Communist
leader Kim Il-sung (April 15).
The most striking thing, to me, is the absolute precision of all the
performers. From the card-holders (who clearly were drilled and
practiced extensively, in addition to having cards laid out on hinges
in the proper order) to the very young-looking dancers and gymnasts,
performing very difficult tricks in perfect synchronization.
It is amazing to me, and an indication of how hard and long they
must have practiced, that none of those little girls fell, or stepped
too early, or anything. Now, gymnastics (especially the types they
were doing–I noticed a bunch of what the Olympics now call rhythmic
gymnastics) is a pretty precise sport/art, but … I wonder how they
trained. Did they go to school with the other children? Did they have
special classes (there are certainly enough of them to support a
special school)? Does their education suffer because they were busy
training for this celebration?
Anyway, the result is beautiful, even if I have my suspicions about
the methods and am not a fan of the subject.
edit: Apparently there is a movie about the training of two of
gymnasts who performed in the 2003 mass games, called A State of Mind
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