Photos from the Thames Festival | London Korean Links

It was a perfect day in More London, by Tower Bridge, and the crowds were out in large numbers to enjoy the Thames Festival. The Korean contingent had taken possession of The Scoop for the weekend, and over 70 performers had come over from Korea to entertain the festival-goers.

Reflecting the current marketing push to promote Korean cuisine, the food tents from some of the best Korean restaurants in central London were supplemented by two from the Institute of Traditional Korean Food, offering the opportunity to make desserts and taste various dishes.

Of the performers, possibly Sorea were the headline act. Their best known track, In Panic, is accompanied by breakdancers from Extreme Crew in their music video.

But for their London appearance the musicians had four green spirits known as the Jammers. Part acrobat, part comedian in the best Jump / Nanta tradition, these entertainers were a strange choice to mix with the established popular fusion band, who seemed ill at ease with the need to respond to the action.

The show, entitled Monsters Theatre, is an established stage show in Korea, and perhaps it is unfair to judge on the basis of the extracts we were seeing.

But there was much to enjoy, and the crowd gave the performers an enthusiastic reception.

The fan dance is always a popular one with the audience, and there were numerous other dances performed as well.

Taekwondo demo – the big kick 1

Taekwondo demo – the big kick 2

Taekwondo demo – the big kick 3

The third main performance was the impressive Taekwondo demonstration team from the Korea National University of Sport, who are about to embark on a tour of England.

The Thames Festival is a great day out. If you didn’t make it today, make sure you go tomorrow, when there will be a repeat of today’s performances. And I’m told that the parade at the end of the Festival will be the best yet.

More photos below.

Taekwondo demo – the big kick 1

Taekwondo demo – the big kick 2

Taekwondo demo – the big kick 3

3 thoughts on “Photos from the Thames Festival”

Jo: Liked it so much I’m going again!
Adrian: The interpreter for the food demonstration was hopeless…hilarious.
Claire: oooo the “interpreter”. like nails down a black board. Sorea were odd.
Philip: Sorry I missed the food demo! I wasn’t too impressed with their printed materials though – why go to the trouble of printing something if you don’t get someone who can speak English to correct the Konglish?
And Claire, I think Sorea are better without the monsters. I didn’t think it worked at all, though Colin (LKL’s Edinburgh Fringe / Performing Arts correspondent) thought it worked very well.
Jennifer: It went on a tiny bit too long but we thought most of it was great fun. Would have liked more music and more of the somersaults! The crowd seemed really happy.
Alina: I definitely agree with #3 and #4. I ended up watching Sorea, but it didn’t exceed my expectations at all…
It would have been so much more exciting if they had bboys with the performance.
My best friend was dragged up to the centre stage and made to dance in front of everyone haha ~
Philip: Shame we weren’t told in advance that Dr Yoon Sook-ja was going to be there supervising the main food tent: http://bit.ly/17YOGd
Claire: I don’t remember hearing anything about what she was going to be doing or even that it was her going. There was a massive interest in her stall actually and the food she was handing out got a very positive reaction but the cookery demo fell flat with no screen and a translator that didn’t actually speak English and had the most grating accent ever.
Philip: The TKD demo was great though! And everyone seemed to enjoy the dances as well.