Swirling dancers and musicians beating traditional drums welcomed the New York Philharmonic to North Korea Monday for a historic cultural exchange between countries that have been technically at war for more than a half-century.
In a burst of musical diplomacy notably devoid of propaganda glorifying leader Kim Jong Il or attacks on U.S. policy, North Korean dancers balanced water jars on their heads or twirled pink and green fans to entertain the celebrated American orchestra - which gave them a standing ovation.
But on Tuesday the political crept into the visit when the orchestra's music director noted that a Philharmonic concert played in the Soviet Union was part of that country's opening up to the outside world that eventually resulted in the downfall of the regime.
The Philharmonic is the first major American cultural group to visit North Korea, an isolated communist nation, and the largest-ever delegation from the U.S. to visit its longtime foe.
As part of its 48-hour trip, the 106-member orchestra was to play a concert Tuesday that will be broadcast on state-run radio and TV, where the U.S. is the target of daily condemnation.
On Tuesday, the orchestra held a full dress rehearsal for its performance at the East Pyongyang Grand Theater set for later in the day, playing the U.S. and North Korean national anthems while both members of the orchestra and an audience of North Korean musicians remained respectfully standing. Flags of the two countries stood on opposite sides of the stage.
The concert's program will also feature Antonin Dvorak's Symphony No. 9 in E Minor - popularly known as the "New World Symphony" and written while the 19th-century Czech composer lived in the United States - and George Gershwin's "An American in Paris."
Orchestra musicians will also give master classes to North Korean students and play chamber music with members of the North's State Symphony Orchestra.
Speaking shortly before the Philharmonic was to take the stage, music director Lorin Maazel noted the Philharmonic's 1959 visit to the Soviet Union planted doubts in people's minds about what their government was telling them.
"The Soviets didn't realize that it was a two-edged sword, because by doing so they allowed people from outside the country to interact with their own people, and to have an influence," he told journalists in Pyongyang on Tuesday. "It was so long-lasting that eventually the people in power found themselves out of power."
When asked if he thought the same could happen in North Korea, he said: "There are no parallels in history; there are similarities."
On Monday, Maazel had downplayed the political overtones of the visit.
"I am a musician and not a politician. Music has always traditionally been an arena, an area where people make contact. It's neutral, it's entertainment, it's person-to-person," Maazel said.
He said if the music moves the audience, "we will have made whatever contribution we can make to bringing our peoples just one tiny step closer."
But before the American orchestra was to take the stage, it was the North Koreans' turn.
At the 500-seat Mansudae Art Theater, North Korean performers played traditional instruments such as the kayagum, a type of zither, and sang about their country's natural beauty.
Like all parts of society under the authoritarian North Korean regime, the arts are viewed as a means to instill loyalty and bolster Kim's personality cult.
Still, only the last number was overtly political: A woman dressed as a guerrilla and brandishing a red scarf performed a dance dramatizing Korean resistance to Japan's colonial occupation before World War II, which according to North Korean official history was led by late founding ruler Kim Il Sung, father of current leader Kim Jong Il.
Dancers in flowing white robes swept across the stage, symbolizing the harsh winters suffered by the fighters. At the triumphal end of the performance, the backdrop picturing the Korean peninsula's tallest peak, Mount Paektu, morphed into a stylized Pyongyang skyline where the windows of every building were filled with light.
Even the privileged residents of the North Korean capital suffer regular blackouts, but as the orchestra drove through the city, the streets were illuminated with neon propaganda slogans atop buildings and five-pointed stars dangling from streetlights. One billboard showed a fist crushing an American soldier. However, some anti-American posters were torn down before the U.S. musicians arrived, a diplomat based in the North Korean capital told orchestra members.
After the concert, Maazel presented the lead dancer with a bouquet and later praised the performers for their dedication.
"Through our music, through our art, we will be able to express our friendly feelings to North Korean artists and the North Korean people," he said in a toast at a lavish banquet in the People's Palace of Culture that featured roast salmon, crab au gratin and pheasant ball soup accompanied by an assortment of North Korean alcohol, from beer to ginseng liquor.
Michelle Kim, the South Korean-born assistant concertmaster of the Philharmonic, said the North Koreans' performance featured traditional elements familiar to all Koreans.
"As I was listening to the concert, I didn't think of it as North Korean or South Korean but just Koreans," said Kim, a naturalized American citizen. "That's our traditions, we're the same people."
For the Philharmonic's visit, the North Korean government allowed a delegation of nearly 300 people, including musicians, staff and journalists.
It was not known whether North Korean leader Kim would attend the Philharmonic's concert. Philharmonic spokesman Eric Latzky said the group had not directly invited him.
On the streets of Pyongyang, North Koreans said they were aware of the orchestra's visit. But the trip was not yet front-page news here: A picture of the orchestra's airport arrival to the North Korean capital was printed on page 4 of the main Rodong Sinmun newspaper, along with brief stories on the event.
In one boisterous classroom in the capital, teacher Jeon Hyun Mi led students through an English lesson using materials from "Family Album U.S.A.," an American-designed program. As she questioned them, students enthusiastically shouted out "yes" or "no" answers and brief replies.
Jeon said they believed learning English was important to their jobs and they appeared to be catching on quickly despite having only starting lessons last month.
The teacher said she welcomed the orchestra's visit as a way to bring the people of the two countries together, implying it was only the governments that harbored differences.
"We think we have good relations, people are very close," Jeon said. The trip "is a gesture of improvement" in ties between the U.S. and the North.
Kim Kwang Chol, a 24-year-old computer technician, was searching a catalog at the Grand People's Study House, the country's largest library, for a photo of the peninsula's tallest peak, Mount Paektu, that he said he would use in a multimedia presentation.
"I think it is a very good phenomenon that the New York Philharmonic is coming," he said in Korean. "I think that this visit will help the relations between the United States and North Korea improve."
The Philharmonic accepted the North's invitation to play last year, with the encouragement of the U.S. government, at a time of rare optimism in the long-running nuclear standoff involving the two countries.
After successfully testing an atomic bomb in October 2006, North Korea shut down its main nuclear reactor in July and has been working to disable it in exchange for aid and removal from U.S. terrorism and sanctions blacklists.
But disarmament has stalled this year because of what Washington says is North Korea's failure to give a full declaration of its atomic programs to be dismantled, as Pyongyang promised to do under an international agreement.
The musicians said they hoped their performance might help overcome difference between the two countries, whose troops face off across the Demilitarized Zone that has divided the peninsula since the 1953 cease-fire that ended the Korean War.
"I think it's important to reach people through something other than politics," said Stanley (nyse: SXE - news - people ) Drucker, the orchestra's principal clarinet and its longest-serving member, who joined the ensemble in 1948 at the age of 19. "What we do is universal. Music is pure in itself; it's what you make out of what you hear."
PBS-TV's "Great Performances" will air the concert on Thursday night in most of the United States (check local listings). In New York, it will be broadcast Tuesday at 8 p.m. EST.
