Korean Cultural Center Hosts Opening Ceremony of K-POP Academy

The Korean Cultural Center in Egypt successfully held the opening ceremony of the 2021 K-POP Academy event at The GreEEk Campus on September 22.

The 2021 K-POP Academy will run for two weeks from September 26 to October 7. This year's K-POP Academy event is more meaningful as it supports the establishment of a self-sustaining K-POP community in Egypt in line with the cultural and artistic trends that have changed according to the COVID-19 environment.

Usually in K-POP Academy instructors were invited from Korea to conduct lectures. However, reflecting the cultural and artistic environment changed by COVID-19, the winners of the K-POP WORLD FESTIVAL held at the Cultural Center in July this year will serve as instructors.

People with passion and stage experience for K-POP will become instructors and share their accumulated know-how during the academy. Through this, a self-sustaining and sustainable K-POP community was established to provide a foothold for Hallyu fans to continuously communicate and exchange.

A total of 11 instructors will teach songs from famous K-POP idol groups such as TWICE and BTS. Despite the limited number of students to 56 due to Egypt's high K-POP fever, 120 people applied for the event, showing a high competition rate.

The 56 selected students will learn a dance song over the next two weeks. Mwada Alaa Eldeen (17 years old, living in Cairo Giza), who participated as an instructor at the event, said, "Honestly, when I was invited as an instructor at the K-pop Academy, I was surprised and very happy that something like a dream came true. As much as I'm happy, I carefully selected dance songs and prepared hard for the lecture to do my best at this academy, he said. "There are different expectations from the existing K-pop academy because the winners of the K-pop competition participate as instructors." I hope all the students participating in this academy enjoy this course together," he said.

Oh Sung-ho, director of the Cultural Center, said, "As K-POP is already loved by Egypt, it is very meaningful to unite sporadic activities to build a self-sustaining K-POP community and actively support it." He also said he hopes to provide more expatriates with experience in cultural exchange in the future, deepening their mutual understanding between Korea and Egypt.