Hongdae’s Walking Street looks for new street performers

As the harsh winter season is gradually coming to an end, fresh spots are opening up on the street corners of Hongdae, Seoul, for those who can sing, dance and are ready to perform in front of crowds this coming spring.

The Mapo-gu district office’s tourism department said Monday it will begin recruiting artists for the event, “2021 Hongdae Culture Tour - To Hongdae, to culture, and to tourism,” to be held at the Walking Street in the popular district.

The categories for this year’s recruitment are, independent music (self-composed music, pop, hip-hop, jazz, etc.), traditional art (Korean traditional music, samulnori, pansori, etc.), and performance-based art (magic tricks, mime, Nanta, bubble arts, etc.). A total of 21 teams will be selected, with 7 teams in each division.

Selected artists will be given 30 minutes each to hold their own performances in a designated spot every Thursday from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. from April to November this year.

Participating artists will be provided with up to 400,000 won per performance, depending on the number of team members.

“Foreigners are welcome to join, as long as they can send us the online applications in Korean,” an official at the Mapo-gu district office told The Korea Herald.

The official added that all performances will be carried out following strict disease prevention guidelines, and that the concert will be streamed online in case of social distancing rules that prohibit large gatherings outdoors.

Interested artists can download and fill out the application form from the Mapo-gu website (www.mapo.go.kr), and send it along with a short performance video to Mapo office’s tourism department email (ina21@mapo.go.kr) by Feb. 26. The recruitment results will be announced on March 12.

By Kim Hae-yeon (hykim@heraldcorp.com)