2024 Korea Day in Liverpool

We are pleased to present the ‘Korea Day in Liverpool, a UNESCO City of Music’ to be held on 1 June 2024 in Mountford Hall in the Guild of Students at the University of Liverpool. This one-day event is organised in collaboration with the Korean Cultural Centre UK, the K-pop Society, the Korea Society and the Dept of Music in the University of Liverpool.

The Korea Day in Liverpool features a wide range of cultural and musical activities to showcase the dynamic contemporary Korean culture and its historical heritage, while celebrating Liverpool as a UNESCO City of Music. The programmes will be introduced by the MC Korean Billy, while DJ Junseok Kim will provide the soundtracks from a wide selection of Korean popular music throughout the day.

The Korea Day in Liverpool is programmed to encourage the participation of the audience. For example, participants can dress up in traditional Korean costumes which they may have only seen in historical Korean drama and films. They can also play some traditional Korean games, including the slap match game, featured in the Korean drama Squid Game, which was a 2021 global hit on Netflix. There will be some gifs and presents for the active participants and winners of these Korean games.

Two sets of talks and lectures are planned. The first set of talks are industry and educational presentations: the Korea Tourism Organisation London Office will introduce their educational and work experience programmes for students and recent graduates with funding opportunities. This will be followed by a music industry talk on K-pop promotion in the UK by Connor Cockbain from Warner Music.

Throughout the day, there will be dance and musical activities for the audience members to take part in. For example, two K-pop dance workshops will be offered to teach how to dance the latest K-pop hit songs and everyone can join in the K-pop Random Play Dance at the end of the Korea Day in Liverpool.

There will also be two K-pop band performances, each featuring a song by BlackPink (YG Entertainment) and Twice (JYP Entertainment) respectively. We also welcome the guest dance performances by the K-pop Society of the University of Central Lancashire, featuring songs by K-pop groups including: IzOne (Off the Record & Swing Entertainments), Kiss of Life (S2) and Red Velvet (SM).

The second set of talks will be two academic guest lectures on the Korean creative industries, and they are: ‘an introduction to the Korean Wave and K-pop’ by Dr Haekyung Um (University of Liverpool) and ‘an introduction to Korean films and Korean dramas’ by Dr Jae Ryu (University of Central Lancashire).

Finally, the Korea Day in Liverpool will close with a 30-minute long K-pop Random Play Dance which everyone can join. This is to celebrate the participatory culture of fans and audiences of the Korean Wave (Korean contemporary popular culture) in the UK context, especially in Liverpool, a UNESCO City of Music.