By Chung Ah-young
Staff Reporter
Some 1,500 participants from 40 countries will take part in the third Delphic Games to show off their cultural and artistic diversity in Jeju City Sept. 9-15.
The Delphic Games was a competition of culture and arts among ancient city nations of Greece that ran for about 1,000 years from the 6th century B.C. to A.D. 394.
The Games were reborn after 1,600 years as an international festivity of arts and culture thanks to Dr. J. Christian B. Kirsch, of Germany, who desperately felt the need for a global celebration of culture and thus initiated the modern Delphic Games.
The 3rd Delphic Games 2009, in Jeju, will see art competition in six art categories and 18 disciplines ― Music and Acoustics arts, Performing arts, Craft, Design & Visual arts, Lingual arts, Communication and Social arts, Architecture and Ecological arts ― under the motto ``Tuning into Nature.''
There will be various festival programs, including a shamanism festival. Venues in the beautiful island of Jeju will include Halla-dom, Shinsan Park and Jeju Culture & Art Center.
The event is expected to create art exchange networks among various international arts organizations and participating nations, said You Hong-june, the Chairperson of the Organizing Committee for the 3rd Delphic Games in Jeju (former Administrator of the Cultural Heritage Administration of Korea) at a press conference.
The Jeju Delphic Games will widely embrace the sprit and goal of modern Delphi and serve as an opportunity to promote the cultural characteristics of the host nation. The Jeju event will add two more competition categories ― Communication & Social Arts and Architecture & Ecological Arts.
``The event is easily compared to the Olympic Games, with objective and figurative standards to measure competitors. But culture and art are essentially immeasurable. So frankly speaking, the jury might measure quality, and not quantity, based on subjective standards,'' executive director Lee Geon-yong, president of the Korean Delphic Council, said.
J. Christian B. Kirsch, the founder of the International Delphic Council, said that the event is intended to share the value of culture and exchange ideas and is beyond politics.
``Through competitions, we will boost creativity and perfection of art and culture while seeking diversity in the non-competitive categories,'' art director Shin, Sun-hi, former president of the National Theater of Korea, said.
Comedian and entertainer Kim Mee-hwa is a Delphic Ambassador. ``I've always been interested in various world festivals, so I'm very honored to be appointed as the Ambassador of the Delphic Games, which will be held on the beautiful resort island of Jeju,'' Kim said.
The Delphic Games were named after Delphi, in Greece, where the Temple of Apollo stands. While the Olympic Games presented sports contests as a platform for military drills, the Delphic Games dedicated a cultural festival to Apollo, the god of the sun, and featured various musical instruments such as the lyre, flute, ghitarra and songs, pantomime and drama.
The Delphic movement of the modern era was initiated by J. Christian B. Kirsch, who promoted the importance of global cultural understanding, the strengthening of identity and proposed artistic competition as an education element to facilitate international understanding. Thanks to his initiative, representatives of 18 nations founded the International Delphic Council (IDC) in Berlin, Germany in 1994.
With the IDC launch in 1994, the first Delphic Games were held in December 2000 in Moscow, Russia with participation from 27 countries. It was followed by the 2nd Delphic Games, held in September 2005 in Kuching, Malaysia, with participation from 21 countries.
Jeju City was decided on as the host city of the 3rd Delphic Games on March 31, 2006, at the IDC General Meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa.
For more information, visit www. www.delphic2009.com or call (02) 722-8711.