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A BBoy shows off a highly difficult technique.
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Some 40 tourists cheered and applauded on Thursday night as one of Korea¡¯s oddest phenomena, the enduring breakdance fanatics known as the BBoys, performed their antics in a formal setting at a show titled "The Ballerina Who Loves a BBoy." An audience of some 380 people was mesmerized when one of the boys windmilled on the floor of the Samjin Pharm building near Hongik University, a part of town long famous as a breeding ground of Korea¡¯s youth culture and, not least because of the breakdancers, who are now also becoming a growing tourist attraction.
The BBoys -- for ¡°backstreet boys¡± -- learned to dance by watching practitioners from the art¡¯s original home at U.S. army bases in the 1980s and 1990s and took their skills to the "mat" on streets near Hongik University and clubs in Itaewon. Now they have transformed themselves into a cultural product. They attract tourists with their certified skills after winning the "Battle of the Year" competition, a sort of World Cup of street dance, in 2002, 2004 and 2005 and are becoming widely known as the world¡¯s best.
The BBoy Theater at the end of December put on the first fully fledged theatrical performance, and the hall has been packed with visitors from Japan, China, America and Australia. They are riveted by the hair-raising difficulty of the moves, the spinning on one hand or the head, the ¡°electric¡± waves rippling through their bodies. ¡°I didn't realize Koreans are such great dancers,¡± an Australian tourist says. ¡°I want to see the performance again tomorrow.¡±
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Tourists from abroad cheer as a breakdancer performs at the BBoy Theater near Hongik University on Thursday.
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Most tickets for "The Ballerina who Loved a BBoy," running at 7:30 p.m. from Tuesday to Sunday, sell out every day, some 10 percent of them to visitors from abroad. According to the BBoy Theater, some 350 foreigners saw the performance in January, growing to 450 in February. Reporters from Taiwan, Japan and Germany have come to write up the story. The theater¡¯s director Choi Yoon-yeop says East Asia is full of BBoy fans, and many of them are drawn to the champions here in Korea.
The Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) and travel agencies are wise to the phenomenon and hope it will join other pop culture events that make up the Korean Wave sweeping the continent. KTO official Hahn Hwa-joon says even though the performance started a little over three months ago, the response from visitors has been much faster than for "Nanta" -- another dance performance now touring the world -- adding the KTO plans to foster BBoy performances as a strategic cultural product. One travel agency says it will start offering BBoy-themed packages starting this summer and looks forward to a ¡°groundbreaking¡± response.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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