Festival of Korea to Tour U.S. Cities Starting in Fall : Culture: Artworks, performances, films and family programs will be available in Los Angeles and six other cities.

Beginning this fall, a yearlong festival of Korean culture will bring to Los Angeles and six other U.S. cities an array of major artworks, performing companies, film series and family programs, representatives of the Asia Society announced Friday at a press conference at the Biltmore Hotel.

Planned as the largest sampling of Korean culture ever presented in the United States, the Festival of Korea will kick off in New York City the week of Sept. 25 with court music and folk dance-drama at Lincoln Center and an exhibition of 18th-Century art in the Park Avenue galleries of the Asia Society.

Co-organized by the Asia Society and the National Museum of Korea, that exhibition will be housed at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art from June 15 to Aug. 21, 1994.

Marshall M. Bouton, executive vice president of the Asia Society, said Friday in a telephone interview from New York that “the total cost of the festival nationwide is between $2 1/2 and $3 million.” To date all but $1.2 million has been raised, he said.

Bouton said the festival’s aim is to foster “an understanding of the distinctiveness and richness of Korean history and culture,” an understanding that he believes has been “inhibited by the American preoccupation with China and Japan.”

“Korea receives disproportionately less attention in American public opinion and understanding than it should given its political and economic importance in the region and, more recently, beyond the region,” he said.

The festival will offer the first complete performances of P’ansori (traditional folk opera) ever given in the United States, along with Samul-nori (farmer’s band music), rituals by women shamans from the island of Shindo, and demonstrations of the martial arts form tae kwon do.

Symposia on “Korea: Past and Present,” lectures and a film series are also planned, with a full national calendar to be available from the Asia Society this summer.

The festival project originated with the Asia Society in the late ‘80s, Bouton said. “The society has long been active in its public education programs regarding Korea,” and more recently Asia Society projects have included sending study teams into North Korea.

However, North Korea will not be participating in the festival since the United States currently has no diplomatic relations with North Korea and because the festival’s funding is exclusively from South Korea, according to Bouton.

“The issue, Bouton said, “is a practical one, largely involving problems of access.”

Nicholas Platt, former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan and new president of the Asia Society, said Friday that “there may be some North Korean involvement later on.”

Speaking in Los Angeles, Platt said, “The festival is designed to highlight for Americans the fact of Korea. . . . They have some idea of modern Korea, but I think it’s important for people to realize the richness of the traditional Korean heritage.”

He called the traveling exhibit of 18th-Century art treasures “the jewel in the crown” of the festival.

Earlier, however, Festival of Korea performers will visit Los Angeles for programs of court music and folk dance-drama at Royce Hall, UCLA, in early October, as well as other events to be announced.

Besides New York and Los Angeles, the festival will also be seen in Atlanta, Houston, Chicago, Seattle and Washington.

The principal sponsor of the event is Philip Morris Companies Inc., with additional support from the Korea Foundation, the Korean Foreign Trade Assn., the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Federation of Korean Industries.