By Chung Ah-young
Staff Reporter
JEJU ― The 3rd Delphic Games, an international competition and festival of culture and arts, kicked off its seven-day run at Halla Gymnasium on Jeju Island Wednesday. Some 600 participants from 54 countries took part in the opening ceremony and marched around the gymnasium.
The international event will see art competitions in six categories and 18 disciplines ― Music and Acoustics Arts, Performing Arts, Craft, Design & Visual Arts, Lingual Arts, Communication and Social Arts, and Architecture and Ecological Arts ― under the motto ``Tuning into Nature.'''
The festival will be held at various venues including Halla Gymnasium, Sinsan Park and Jeju Culture & Art Center.
At the opening ceremony, Kim Tae-hwan, Jeju Governor and prominent actress Ko Doo-sim, the cultural ambassador of the Jeju Delphic, exhibited a combining ritual in which two waters ― from Beangnokdam, the lake on the peak of Mt. Halla and some collected from the Castalian Spring at Delphi ― were mixed together to celebrate a successful opening.
Similar to the Olympic torch relay, the holy water combining rite was regarded as the sanctifying offering of the Delphic Games of Ancient Greece.
``We're glad to host the international event on this island which is home to a site designated as a UNESCO World Natural Heritage. We will make every effort to help visitors appreciate the values and characteristics of the island on this occasion,'' Kim said in a welcoming address.
Traditional performances including a court dance, crane dance and regional folk dance hit the stage to celebrate the opening of the event.
As the opening ceremony closed at the indoor gymnasium, about 2,000 performers took to the streets to go to Sinsan Park, accompanied by ``gilnori,'' or traditional Korean folk music and dance.
At the outdoor venue, more than 1,000 kites ― representing human dreams and harmony in nature ― were flown high in the sky to celebrate the opening.
Concerning growing fear of influenza A (H1N1) rapidly spreading, the organizing committee prepared preventative measures with such a large number of people gathered at the venue. Sanitation services have been provided at every venue and visitors who symptoms can have a brief check-up on the spot.
Winners will be given gold, silver and bronze medals and lyre and laurel awards. The event will continue through Sept. 15.
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 and flute, songs, pantomime and drama.
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 festival 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.
Kirsch has promoted the importance of global cultural understanding and the strengthening of identity, and proposed the artistic competition as an educational exercise 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, the first Delphic Games were held in December 2000 in Moscow, Russia with the participation of 27 countries. It was followed by the 2nd Delphic Games, held in September 2005 in Kuching, Malaysia, with 21 countries taking part.
Jeju City was selected as the host city of the third Delphic Games on March 31, 2006, at the IDC General Meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa.
For more information, visit www. www.delphic2009.com