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.
For the seven American-Korean musicians of the New York Philharmonic playing at a landmark Pyongyang concert tonight, the visit has brought a range of emotions, from worry and doubt to hope and pride.
"It's exciting, but I also have mixed feelings," said Lisa Kim, associate principal second violinist with the hallowed symphony orchestra making a rare diplomatic gesture in the isolated communist state of North Korea.
"It's great to be part of this, but the fact that this country was united and now is divided is sad," said Kim, who grew up in South Carolina to parents who had lived through the 1950-53 Korean war.
Speaking at a Pyongyang welcoming dinner last night, she said her family had been "a bit concerned because I would be in the spotlight. They felt a little worried, but now they feel proud like any parents.
"It was a very heartfelt experience when we touched the ground," she said, the 105-member orchestra having flown from Beijing to the North Korean capital yesterday.
Any change resulting from the concert "will not come overnight," she said, but added: "I hope that our gesture and this type of event will gradually warm things up and lead to a better future for all of us.
"We share our enthusiasm for music, we share our warmth and love for music. Music has no boundaries, it's the best way to communicate."
Jung-sun Yoo, 31, also a violinist, who moved to the United States from Seoul at age 17 to study at the Manhattan School of Music, said her father and several uncles had fought in the Korean war.
Growing up in South Korea, she said, she felt about the North that "we were in the same country, but it was separated. Of course I felt sad, but I didn't know how to approach it. We had no contact.
"I never thought I would be here. I thought they would be different people, but when I talked to them today, they were the same people, very warm-hearted. So I might bring home some warmer feelings."
She said "some people would be afraid or scared, but my family was very excited. The visit is being broadcast in South Korea and they will all be able to watch it. It's a historic moment.
"I'm very proud of myself. I never thought I would be here in my life."
Another South Korean-born violinist, Soohyun Kwon, 31, who moved to the United States in 1995, said: "So far it's been great and a very welcoming atmosphere. It's great to see the other half of my country.
"When I was young, the image of North Korea was very dark and scary. I hope the concert will open the door for more cultural exchanges."
For now though, she said, North Korea remains a different country.
"We have different ideas about things, even though we are the same people," she said. "Hopefully some day soon it will be reunited again."
On their first night in Pyongyang, the orchestra was treated to a performance of traditional music and dance.
It was devoid of politics except for the final routine called The Snow is Falling. It was reminiscent of Swan Lake except that the lead dancer in the North Korean version was playing the role of a communist revolutionary fighter.
The concert will open with the orchestra playing the national anthems of the two countries to an audience expected to be made up of top cadres and generals who dominate the tightly-run state. It is not known whether North Korean leader Kim Jong-il will attend.
The rest of the music selection for the New York Philharmonic's concert is steeped in irony.
George Gershwin's An American in Paris, the famed piece about a foreigner discovering the "the city of lights" will be played in an impoverished country which does not produce enough electricity to light its homes at night.
Antonin Dvorak's Symphony No. 9 From the New World, highlights an immigrant's discovery of America's music. It will be played to in a country that forbids most of its citizens from leaving and reportedly executes many of those caught escaping.
At night, energy-starved North Korea lit the streets of Pyongyang for the motorcade of buses carrying some 350 people from the orchestra, its entourage and media covering the event.
As the buses pulled away, a few street lights went out behind them and through the rear-view mirror, one lit sign could be seen, which read: "Crush the American imperialist aggressors".
SEOUL -- Today in Pyongyang, the New York Philharmonic, the most prominent U.S. cultural institution ever to visit North Korea, performs live on state TV and radio. Many observers have cautiously dubbed this a prelude to a thaw between Washington and Pyongyang. But for North Koreans, a very real thaw, unseen by the musicians, has been transforming life for years.
A famine that killed a million people in the 1990s has driven fundamental societal changes in North Korea. As people struggled to survive, they were forced to defy many restrictions imposed by the state, which has consequently lost much of its control.
Before the famine, North Korea could plausibly be called a hermit kingdom. Citizens had no source of information but state media and were banned from traveling outside their immediate area of residency, except for family weddings and funerals. The state intelligence agency tightly monitored people. Most important, the state dominated food distribution, control that kept people subservient and immobile for fear of losing their only access to sustenance.
Things changed in the early 1990s. After decades of government mismanagement of the agricultural sector and years of natural disasters came the collapse of the Soviet Union and, with it, an abrupt end to barter trade. North Korea's chronic food shortage grew into a full-fledged famine. At least 1 million of the state's then-20 million citizens starved to death while waiting for rations to resume.
But not everyone followed the state's orders. A massive number of North Koreans -- possibly in the tens of thousands -- sold their belongings, packed their bags and left the cities for the countryside, where food was more readily available. Most of them of course lacked permission to travel. But with even police officers out hunting for food, the authorities were unable to stop the widespread relocations. The state's restriction of movement began to break down.
Hundreds of thousands of North Koreans escaped to China throughout the 1990s to find food and work. Tens of thousands of them were arrested and repatriated as "illegal migrants," while others voluntarily returned home to feed their families and use their new knowledge or skills to make money. These people inevitably brought back news from the outside world, information undistorted by the government's propaganda machine.
Markets began to spring up all over North Korea, replacing the ration system -- now defunct -- as the main source of food. At first, markets operated on the barter system, where desperately hungry people could exchange anything valuable for food, but they gradually developed into places where people bought and sold items to make a profit. Today, in Pyongyang and beyond, the country is teeming with bustling markets. North Koreans are engaged in all kinds of businesses, selling homemade noodles, running express buses and real-estate development, both legal and illegal.
Echoing the words of many other North Koreans, a 60-year-old woman from Wonsan told me, "In North Korea, people now only care about making money."
Some activities motivated by profit-seeking have led to greater access to information: Consider, for instance, the roaring trade in pirated and smuggled CDs and DVDs of South Korean soap operas and movies. After years of watching these stories, many of the North's urban residents have learned that South Korea is far richer and freer than their own country. It is increasingly common knowledge that South Korea is the world's 13th-largest economy and a democracy, while North Korea remains a poor dictatorship.
About a decade ago, most North Koreans "knew" that South Korea was a desperately poor country and that its capital, Seoul, was filled with prostitutes and beggars. They also "understood" that North Korea was a "workers' paradise" going through temporary difficulties because of U.S. sanctions.
Of course, not all is different or rosy in North Korea. Kim Jong Il's government still holds unchallenged power, and it continues to run a prison-camp system that enslaves tens of thousands, including young children. Periodically, it publicly executes people for offenses such as stealing state property or other "anti-communist" behavior. North Koreans also complain of the ever-rising level of corruption and extortion by officials.
But whatever the North Korean government does to return to its pre-famine society, for many North Koreans the changes set in motion by the famine are irreversible. In fact, many North Koreans that I have met, especially the young, say they want more change. They have survived the country's worst disaster in half a century. Compared with their parents, they are far more informed, open-minded and unafraid. And therein lies hope for North Korea's future.
Kay Seok is the North Korea researcher for Human Rights Watch.
