May is shaping up to be a fantastic month. London Craft Week brings some lovely things to town, plus it’s a stand-out month for performance: as well as the Festival of Korean Dance, which tours to Bournemouth, Salford, Newcastle and Glasgow, there’s the opportunity to see the holders of intangible cultural property no 82-1 in Durham as they showcase East Coast shamanistic music. There’s a Korean musical in Southwark, and in the Queer East film festival there’s a documentary on female changgeuk performance (along with two other Korea-related films). Best month since the festival season last autumn.
Food
- The Jung food festival takes place at King’s Cross Canopy Market, 1 – 4 May
- Capital City College holds a kimchi workshop as part of its series of classes in conjunction with the KCCUK, 23 May
- Six by Nico has a specially developed Korean tasting menu in Fitrovia and elsewhere across the country until the end of May
London Craft Week
- The KCCUK’s exhibition of Icheon ceramics continues into early June
- The Cherry Blossom Project continues at the Garden Museum until 21 May
- Soluna Fine Craft hosts Origin of Materials, with five artists, in Mayfair 8 – 17 May
- One of a Kind Edition hosts Tabled, with seven artists, in Wigmore Street 11-16 May
Other exhibitions
- Cafe 63 High Street hosts 4482 Sasapari’s Gachi (가치/같이): Surroundings and Companions in New Malden until 17 May
- Ceramic Art London comes to Olympia with 14 Korean ceramic artists, 8-10 May
- The Coronet Theatre hosts an exhibition of the work of architect Byoung Soo Cho for a week starting 29 May
Performance
- Daegu-based indie band Inaekkum perform at The Shipping Forecast at Liverpool Sound City on 3 May
- Classical violinist cum jazz vocalist Danny Koo performs in Brighton’s i360 (10 May); Brasserie Zedel (11 May); Cadogan Hall (14 May) and Aldeburgh (16 May)
- The Korean musical The Last Man comes to the Southwark Playhouse, Elephant, from 8 May
- Sung Im Her performs Tomorrowisnowtodayisyesterday in Brighton, 10 May
- The 2026 Festival of Korean Dance comes to
- The Place, London, with Abyss / Ekah by 99 Art Company, 13 May; GRAVITY by Ryu and Friends, 15 May; and Voyage / Hakkō by Korea National Contemporary Dance Company, 29-30 May
- The Tramway, Glasgow, with GRAVITY by Ryu and Friends, 13 May
- Pavilion Dance South West, Bournemouth, with Burnt Offering by 99 Art Company, 15 May
- Dance City, Newcastle, with Burnt Offering by 99 Art Company, 18 May
- The Lowry, Salford, with Voyage / Hakkō by Korea National Contemporary Dance Company, 26-27 May
- Durham University hosts some East Coast shamanistic ritual performance in Songs beneath the Sacred Tree, 27 May
- Yunchan Lim plays Schubert and Scriabin in a sold-out recital at the Wigmore Hall, 29 May
- For K-pop fans there’s
- El Capitxn’s Who Killed El tour at the Courtyard Theatre, Hoxton, 2 May
- One Pact’s Outshine tour at the Islington Assembly Hall, 18 May
- Xdinary Heroes’ The New Xcene tour at the O2 Ritz Manchester, 31 May
- Alternatively you might find a K-pop tribute act in a provincial theatre
Film
- Queer East screens one of my favourite films from last year, 3670 (7 May), plus two documentaries about (a) a queer Korean adoptee (28 May) and (b) female Gukgeuk performers (8 May) and some shorts (28 May).
- Look out for the next in the KCCUK’s season of restored classic films toward the end of the month
Talks
- David W. Kim talks about The Philosophical Encumbrance of Sarim in the Kimyo Literati Purge, SOAS, 8 May
Books expected
- The Minjung Art Movement: Decolonization and Democracy in South Korea, by Sohl Lee pub Duke University Press
- If We Cannot Go at the Speed of Light, by Kim Cho-yeop tr Anton Hur pub MacLehose Press / Simon and Schuster
- Narrow Rooms, by Choi Sungmin tr Janet Hong pub Drawn + Quarterly
- Teddy Bears Never Die, by Cho Yeeun tr Sung Ryu pub Run For It
- Shift, by Cho Yeeun tr Jung Yewon pub Honford Star
- Behind Five Willows, by June Hur pub Wildfire