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North Korean performers - Source: Reuters -
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North Korean experts were in Vietnam this week to advise the government on - no, not uranium enrichment - choreography for an extravaganza celebrating Hanoi's 1,000th anniversary, state media said.
The delegation was led by Song Pyong Won, deputy director of the Arirang performance department in North Korea's Ministry of Culture, and included experts in mass performance, stage design, sound and lighting, reported the website of the newspaper Saigon Tiep Thi (sgtt.com.vn).
"This is the advance team that will make preparations for the various art performances, including card flipping to make images and words, as well as stage design, sound and lighting for the opening ceremony," the newspaper said.
Hanoi will mark its 1,000th anniversary on October 10 this year.
Song hoped "through this visit the delegation would gain a precise grasp of the basic material conditions in Vietnam, like human resources, so that the staged programme can be the most unique and best possible," the article said.
The group met representatives of Vietnam's Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and planned to visit various anniversary event venues, including the 40,000-seat My Dinh Stadium. It would also visit other sites, such as Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum, it said.
Impoverished and isolated, North Korea has little to export and its tourism earnings have been hit by political wrangling with South Korea over the North's military threats to the region and nuclear weapons programme.
The Arirang mass games are part dance show, part circus and part communist propaganda spectacle involving tens of thousands of tightly choreographed performers. They feature massive flip-card animation routines.
