Korean Popular Culture show, tagged K-Pop Festival, held in Lagos last weekend. The yearly festival, which is organised by South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, attracted a host of participants ranging from singers, dancers and other genres of performative art.

Several budding talents competed for the cash prizes at stake. And it was interesting to see the contestants sing Korean songs as well as dancers swaying to the rhythm of Korean pop music.

In the singing competition, Joy Malik, from Ogun State, sang a song called You, by Taeyeon, while Joy Elo Ossai from Owerri, sang Child by Mark Lee and Olonade Victor Joseph from Ogun State, performed Eyes, nose, Lips also by Taeyang to the admiration of the audiences.

In the dance category, the Royals from Lagos performed Dynamite by BTS, while Team Switch from Kaduna performed Save me by BTS. Tryumphant X from Port Harcourt also performed another song by BTS titled, On.

At the end of contest, Team Royal placed first in the dancing category. The team got N500,000, while Joy Malik smiled home with the first prize in singing competition. She got N300,000 for her effort. Team Switch took home the N300,000 reserved for the second best dancing team, while the third place in dance went to Tryumphant X, which won the sum of N200,000.

Other winners include, Osai, who won the cash prize of N200,000 in singing competition, and Joseph, who went home with N100,000 in the same category.

The organisers confirmed that the first and second winners of the dance category would have a chance to participate in the 2023 K-Pop World Dance Festival in Changwon.

Popularity prize of 100,000 went to Limitless Supreme 6 (LS6) Port Harcourt. South Korean Ambassador to Nigeria, Kim Young Chae, said because Korean Cultural Centre in Nigeria is located in Abuja, their cultural activities such as, Taekwendo, Korean Language classes and workshops, as well culture expo, are done in Abuja, but they want to change the narrative by extending the events to Lagos.

According Chae, “we don’t have much cultural activities in Lagos and Lagos is the capital cultural centre of Nigeria, so, this is a way we want to reach out to Lagos citizens and connect more with them.”

Chae said, “Terra Kulture is our partner, when it comes to cultural cooperation. They have a very strong network in Lagos in terms of promoting Korean Culture.”

While saying Nigerian culture is beautiful, he said, “Nigeria has very famous musicians painters, designers and more. Nigeria is already very strong, but the question is, how do the two countries leverage on this?”