'Red Road Dance Festival' Held in Hongdae This Weekend

Dance Crew HOOK, Soyou, Koo Jun-yup and Others Appear

DJ Koo is performing an EDM show at the Red Road Festival Boom-up Party held last May. (Photo by Mapo-gu)

Mapo-gu, Seoul (Mayor Park Gang-su) will hold the ‘2023 B-Boy World, Redroad Dance Festival’ on the 7th and 8th at the Hongdae Redroad area.

The district announced that this festival is being prepared for the first time this year to commemorate the official adoption of breaking as an event in the 2024 Paris Olympics and to wish for the success of Korean athletes.

The event will take place throughout the entire Redroad area, featuring street dance battles, celebratory performances by famous dance crews, a handmade crafts market, and various experiential programs to fill the entire festival period. The opening ceremony of the ‘Redroad Dance Festival’ will be held at 6 p.m. on the 7th at Redroad Plaza (R6), hosted by MC Dingdong. The ceremony will begin with a flash mob where the dance crew ‘Soulburns’ and about 1,000 citizens perform synchronized dance moves together.

The ‘Redroad Dance Battle’ will feature eight teams selected through preliminary screening competing in a one-on-one tournament-style dance battle. Dancers Jay Black, Woo Tae, and Koo Jun-yeop will serve as judges, conducting fair and professional evaluations. Five teams that win awards in the competition will receive a total prize money of 11 million KRW.

Additionally, as a special performance at the opening ceremony, the dance crew ‘HOOK,’ widely known from the popular program ‘Street Woman Fighter,’ will perform passionately along with Soyou, Koo Jun-yeop, and Kang Won-rae. The explosive EDM performance by DJ Koo will culminate the event, reaching the peak of the festival’s excitement that day.

During the festival, about 100 markets selling handmade crafts such as miniature props and pottery will operate on Redroad, along with various experiential programs including face painting, caricature drawing, and a canvas painting contest.

Also, at the R2 Plaza Stage (135 Eoulmadang-ro), the ‘Hongdae Redroad Youth Vision Festa’ will be held from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m., where visitors can enjoy indie band performances. At the R4 section (in front of Sangsangmadang), a street exhibition by emerging artists called the ‘Redroad Street Art Fair’ will take place, making the entire Redroad area a harmonious space filled with music, dance, and art.

Meanwhile, to commemorate the ‘Redroad Dance Festival,’ the ‘Redroad Hotpocha’ will make its debut at 5 p.m. on the 7th at the R5 section (58-1 Eoulmadang-ro). The ‘Redroad Hotpocha’ is a live stage facility that captures the emotional atmosphere of a traditional Korean street food stall (pojangmacha). The district plans to use it as a permanent cultural performance venue to provide various attractions for tourists visiting Redroad in the future.

Park Gang-su, Mayor of Mapo-gu, said, “With breaking officially adopted as an event in the 2024 Paris Olympics, dancers who once roamed Hongdae have now become national representatives raising Korea’s status. I hope Hongdae Redroad, full of culture, art, dance, music, youth, and passion, becomes a space where they can realize their dreams and a cradle nurturing future promising talents who dream of them.”