London Korean Links

Covering things Korean in London and beyond since 2006

October events 2019

October events
Clockwise from top left: Bae Suah (Foyles) | Jiyeong Mun (Wigmore Hall) | Jay Park (Olympia) | House of Hummingbird (BFI LFF) | Jewellery by Misun Won (Goldsmiths Fair) | Kyungso Park and SB Circle (Purcell Room) | Bridging Borders (KCC) | Nam June Paik (Tate Modern) | Kim Doo-soo (Café OTO)

The annual Autumnal diary car crash is upon us, as K-Music, BFI London Film Festival and LEAFF vie for our attention, and that’s before we take into account some classy performers at Cafe OTO and the Wigmore Hall, some big exhibitions kicking off, Bae Suah at Foyles, and the ever-increasing number of K-pop events, including two dance cover competitions in the same month. The KCC’s artist talk to go with their big Autumn show clashes with their opening gig of the K-music festival, so that Shin Meekyoung’s opening the same night doesn’t get a look-in; Tate Modern’s talk to go with the new Nam June Paik retrospective clashes another K-music gig; the BKS’s annual Houses of Parliament shindig collides with LEAFF’s opening gala; LEAFF cannibalises its own documentary audience by scheduling two Korean documentaries against each other, while its two films from the DPRK go up against unmissable performances in the Purcell Room and The Place … it’s all very ugly. And I don’t see it getting much better before December.

LKL’s picks of the month? Hard to know where to start but a pansori workshop at SOAS, folk singer Kim Doo-soo at Cafe OTO, Kyungso Park at the Purcell Room, Lee Lee Nam’s video art at Tate Modern courtesy of LEAFF, Sung Im Her at The Place and the Real DMZ exhibition at the KCC are among them.

There are too many parties this month to list them all so I won’t list any of them. They’re on my Facebook events page if I know about them. So here goes with the rest.

Exhibitions

Music and Performance

Workshops and talks

Film

Everything else

  • The British Korean Society’s annual reception in the Houses of Parliament is on 24 October
  • The UK National K-pop Competition finals are on 26 October, organised by Korea-British Cultural Exchange as part of the Kingston Korean Festival. A rival competition organised by Korean Boy Woogie takes place on 20 October
  • Foyles Korean Culture Month includes a K-pop dance workshop, a hanbok fashion show and a screening of Memories of Murder, apart from Bae Suah’s appearance mentioned above.
  • Jambinai’s appearance in Canterbury on 4 October is part of a Korean evening which will also feature a projection by Yiyun Kang
  • There are Kpop dance workshops with the Kwon Twins, London 5 – 6 October; and a Mamamoo ‘Starry Night’ Chorus Dance Class, Cardiff 9 October
  • As noted in the opening paragraphs, there are plenty of parties in London and across the land. See our Facebook page.

Keep an eye on our official upcoming events page and our Facebook events aggregator for updates, and tell us about the ones we’ve missed via our event submission form.