The ‘16th Jeju Haevichi Arts Festival,’ which is Korea’s representative art market and cultural arts festival, will be held from June 12 to 15 (Fringe Festival scheduled to start from June 9) at the Haevichi Hotel & Resort Jeju and other parts of Jeju-do.

The slogan of this Jeju Haevichi Arts Festival, celebrating its 16th anniversary this year, is ‘PIONEER.’ Following last year’s slogan of ‘Over the Bridge,’ this year’s slogan shows its aspiration to act as a bridgehead for pioneering the domestic and foreign performing arts market from a country that consumes culture to one that produces culture through the K-Art Market.

The opening forum will be held at the Haevichi Hotel & Resort Jeju Crystal Hall at 7 p.m. on June 12. This year, instead of holding an opening ceremony mainly composed of concerts, an opening forum will be held to open a new chapter that aims to pioneer the global market on the theme of ‘performing arts exchange between domestic and foreign theaters and pioneering new markets.’

▲ This photo is from the 15th festival held under the slogan ‘Over the Bridge’ in 2022. (Photo = Jeju Haevichi Art Festival website)

With the endemic of COVID-19, this festival will be held at the largest scale ever with over 3,000 people from about 200 culture and arts centers, relevant institutes from Korea and abroad, and approximately 300 art organizations.

The Art Market that provides opportunities for distributing performing artworks focusing on domestic and foreign theaters will be made up of pitching repertoires, showcases, and booth exhibits.

The repertoire pitch scheduled on the 12th is a program for art organizations, which are suppliers, to promote works and propose co-production and cooperation of contents to culture and arts centers, which are its market.

Showcases will be held for two days on the 13th and 14th, and 24 culture and arts centers and private art organizations selected through contests will show off highlights from their performances. In the past, only art organizations participated, but the range of participation was expanded to strengthen the independent planning program capacities of the culture and arts center.

This year, overseas figures will participate in the reviews to offer opportunities for the outstanding programs of culture and arts centers and the works of art organizations to pioneer abroad sales channels. In particular, Korean Culture and Arts Centers Association (KoCACA) plans to cooperate with overseas theaters, etc. to help independently planned and produced enter foreign markets in the future.

Booth exhibits that will be held from the 12th to the 14th will be held by art organizations on the 12th and 13th and by culture and arts centers on the 14th. Unlike the past where art organizations and culture and art centers operated exhibition booths together, this year booths will be operated on different by culture and arts centers and art organizations to ensure more active two-directional networking.

▲ This photo is from the 15th festival held under the slogan ‘Over the Bridge’ in 2022. (Photo = Jeju Haevichi Art Festival website)

Furthermore, equipment companies related to theaters, reservation agencies, and institutes and companies related to theater safety and insurance will also participate, thereby raising anticipations for promoting exchange throughout the entire industry associated with culture and arts.

This year, the festival that used to focus on performing arts will be fully expanded into the exhibition, culture and art education, and academic sectors. Furthermore, it plans to expand the range of booth exhibition participation starting this year according to the mid-to-long-term plans to integrate and encompass the roles of culture and arts centers as cultural complexes.

KoCACA exchange and cooperation networking that will be held on the 13th and 14th will be made up of four domestic sections and two overseas sections in order to search for development plans through practical domestic and foreign information exchange and networking on pending issues of the culture and arts world and throughout the culture and arts industry.

Active exchange and discussions are expected to be held on themes such as ‘special lecture on new trends and technologies of theater art’ in the overseas stage technology section, ‘Korea’s theater and concert safety system’ in the theater environment section, ‘Value and spread of exhibits for activation of sustainable visual arts distribution’ in the exhibition section, ‘exchange between domestic and foreign performing arts institutes through art markets’ in the overseas section, ‘ESG management by sponsoring culture and arts’ in the culture and arts sponsorship activation section, and the 'value of working together beyond culture and arts education and spaces’ in the culture and arts education section.