Happy New Year. And it’s a busier start to the year than usual with no fewer than six live K-pop / hip-hop events. But before I get to the list, here’s a rehearsal for the New Year’s Eve drone show at Gwangalli Beach, Busan. Pretty impressive, though apparently there was a glitch that postponed the actual event.
Happy Blue Dragon Year
Wishing you and your loved ones worry free healthy 2024💙 pic.twitter.com/ODP0irDyDr— 우리 인사하자 ᵇʸᵉ 아닌 ʰᵉˡˡᵒ~ (@HonSoolRapper) January 1, 2024
So now the list, with events from Exeter to Glasgow via London and Manchester:
Music
- The Garage at Highbury Corner hosts The Dial Music, featuring BIGONE, Dive, DOHANSE, on 7 Jan
- The boy band P1Harmony bring their Pioneer tour to the Troxy, 12 Jan
- The boy band MCND bring their Odd Venture tour to the Islington Academy on 25 Jan
- The girl band Rolling Quartz bring their Fearless tour to the Islington Academy on 26 Jan
- The boy band Xikers bring their Tricky House: First Encounter tour to the Shepherds Bush Empire on 28 Jan
- The girl band Everglow bring their All My Girls tour to the Shepherds Bush Empire on 30 Jan
- Sunwook Kim conducts violinist Clara-Jumi Kang in the Sibelius concerto with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in Poole and Exeter, 17 – 18 January
- Yoon-seok Shin gives a piano recital in Brixton on 28 Jan
- Cellist Su-a Lee participates in Celtic Connections in Glasgow performing her album Dialogues on 30 Jan
Stage
- The original stage version of the hit sitcom Kim’s Convenience comes to the Park Theatre in Finsbury Park from 8 January, with its author Ins Choi playing Kim.
Exhibitions
- Heecheon Kim’s Double Poser is at Hayward Gallery until 7 January
- Jukhee Kwon participates in the group show Transvangarde: Free Style Cipher at October Gallery from 18 January
- Min Woo Nam participates in the group show Within and Beyond – Looking into the Infinite, at gallery rosenfeld, all month
- Jane Jin Kaisen’s Halmang opens at Manchester’s esea contemporary on 20 January
- Screenings of her 2019 film Community of Parting will be held across town at SODA’s Modal Gallery, 11-25 Jan, with artist Q&A on 18 Jan
- The KCC’s exhibition 1883: A Journey Through the Archives lasts until 27 Jan
- The Seoul-inspired immersive video show, Delight, is in Borough Market until 28 January.
Movie screenings
- Apart from the Jane Jin Kaisen screenings mentioned above, the final movie in Kim Han-min’s Yi Sun-shin trilogy, Noryang: Deadly Sea, is in selected Odeon cinemas
Talks
- SOAS hosts the delayed talk by Derek J. Kramer, Emancipation and Erasure in Early Korean Accounts of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki Bombings, on 26 Jan
Books
- Until 3 Jan you can get free online access to Sheena Chestnut Greitens’s Politics of the North Korean Diaspora, published in December
- Expected this month is Andre Schmid’s North Korea’s Mundane Revolution: Socialist Living and the Rise of Kim Il Sung, 1953–1965
- Look out for a trio of novels coming out this month according to their publisher Open Letter (though Amazon is more sceptical): Ha Seong-nan’s Wafers, Kang Young-sook’s Rina and Hwang Jungeun’s Years and Years. Janet Hong translated all three.
- Check out our roundup of Korean translated fiction published in 2023 here.