The performance of famous Korean martial-arts group ,,K-Tigers ” at the Montenegrin national theatre in Podgorica, organized to mark the tenth anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Republic of Korea and Montenegro, delighted the Montenegrin audience and the diplomatic corps.
Each choreography was a story in itself, and yet perfectly integrated into the one-hour performance. It was an art of movement. Each board breaking, each stunt, performance of youngest ,,K-Tigers ” ,,Little tigers”, but also a part that is related to the problem of school violence, was greeted with applause and filming with mobile phones.
Members of ,,K-Tigers” showed that taekwondo skills are for men, women and children.
The audience was filled with children. They enthusiastically commented with their parents everything they saw on stage.
It was, in addition to beauty and art, evening that linked not only Korea and Montenegro as countries, but families as well.
Very impressive was presentation of bullying. While young man in an improvised classroom at the stage was bullied, taken food and money from,, when two boys were throwing his bag at him, beat him, threw garbage from garbage can at him, no one from the classroom reacted. Moreover, in order to show the evil that technological society, You Tube and social networks bring, they ,,revived” the scene in which classmates only recorded the two bullies with mobile phone while they were exercising violence over their classmate. Even when he was by himself, alone on the street, no one wanted to help him when he asked for help. He would be pushed away by all. Help arrived with ,,K-Tigers” who taught him taekwondo and therefore he learned to defend himself.
The youngest members of ,,K-Tigers” then took the stage, thrilled the audience with their skills and melted their hearts. The caused the laughter in the audience when later they entered through the hall to the stage with masks, and when audience heard the famous line ,,I'll be back” that was spoken by Arnold Schwarzenegger in the movie ,,Terminator”.
Everyone in the hall had great fun during direct interaction with one of the ,,K-Tigers” members.
– What? Break all seven boards? – he said in English pointing to his leg in a manner that it would hurt.
However, all seven boards were broken easily. Volunteers from the audience were then invited to come up on stage and rehearse some moves with them. The lady from the audience learned how to focus her energy by shouting and the gentleman learned how to break a board. For this great presentation lady and gentleman received badges as gifts.
The audience had the opportunity to, in addition to this beautiful ancient art, learn more about traditional music and modern Korean pop music which ran through performance.
The end was accompanied by raising of all the audience on their feet, greeting of ,,K-Tigers” by the Ambassador of the Republic of Korea on the stage, ovation and long applause.
All members of ,,K-Tigers ” are high-ranked masters of taekwondo with black belt who are trying to elevate the martial arts of taekwondo at the level of performance art. As a result, the world sees a unique and inimitable performance of martial arts that combines a variety of elements and genres such as K-pop dance, acrobatics, gymnastics and b-boying to create an energetic and dynamic expression of taekwondo. Their philosophy is to show the best of taekwondo in the manner in which the audience of all ages can enjoy, while retaining the principle and spirit of taekwondo which are woven into the very core of the performance.
B. R.
Photo: Boris Šekularac