Male Speaker: Good afternoon. Audience: Good afternoon. Male Speaker: On behalf of the Library of Congress, this is my great pleasure to welcome you all to this special finale event, actually. This is the Korean culture fan and drum dancing performance by Asian-American Arts Center, celebrating our 2008 Asian Pacific-American Heritage Month. Each year, actually, the Library has provided multicultural program around this time, but this year simply due to quite different stage layout as you can see here, we have to separate -- not the multicultural, but single culture each. So first one was done on Laotian culture program at the beginning of the month, and now at the end of the month we have a Korean culture program, so what a beginning and ending, actually. We would like to, of course, like to have many more other Asian culture programs next year and year after -- if there is one, hopefully. I have to get one thing get clear. I'm here not to give out a speech. I'm here to narrate this dancing program, dance by dance, but not to speech. We will have a beautiful speech by our own special guest tonight here. Anyway, the welcome and greeting will be addressed by our next distinguished speaker, Judy Lu, introduce her soon later. She, however, agreed with me to release a very simple numbers, statistical things, related to Asian Americans here in the United States and Library of Congress. According to U.S. Census Bureau this month, most recent reports, there are about 15.2 millions Asian Americans in the United States. I think that's about, just about little over five percent of the U.S. populations. And that number counts for -- actually, the ranking number three among diversity groups after Hispanics and blacks, and according to those numbers, those statistics, the Hispanics have about 45 and a half millions, which is a little over 15 percent, and blacks are a little under -- well, it's about 40 millions, but it's a little over 13.5 percent. So actually, we are and Asians are at a little distance, but it's a third in the ranking. But then, in the Library of Congress, we have -- how many we have? I think we have 255 Asian staffs here, according to the most recent data here, and that represents about 6.9, almost seven percent of the library workforce, ranking as a matter of fact a number two. It's a distance number two, not three, but right after about a 1330 black American staffs here. I think that's about 35% of the workforce here. And just incidentally, there are only 97 Hispanics. We need more. Actually, they are far underrepresented. So you see, the Asians have been increasing gradually, significantly, not only in numbers, but also more importantly in quality everywhere as a matter of fact. Again, I think I have been talking too much anyway. Let me introduce -- now, ladies and gentlemen, this is my pleasure to introduce Ms. Judy Lu, the acting chief of Asian division of library service. She will deliver a greeting message for us. Thank you. ^M00:04:41 [ Applause ] ^M00:04:48 [ Pause ] ^M00:04:55 Judy Lu: Doctor Wun Huang [spelled phonetically], President Sheila Tran [spelled phonetically] of the Library of Congress Asian-American Association, members of the Asian Pacific-American Heritage Month planning committee, ladies and gentlemen, as we have spent the whole month of May celebrating the significance of the Asian-Americans' heritage and achievements, followed the theme of leadership, diversity, and harmony gateway to success, today, we'll draw to the conclusion with the highly refined and exciting Korean fan and drum dance, which was originated in the ancient shamanistic rituals thousands of years ago. Today, we are lucky to have the very talented and artistic members of the Asian Art Center will perform for us, okay? The vision of Asian Art Center is threefold. First, they hoped to introduce Korean culture to the American society. Second, they hope to contribute the strong sense of diversity as an important feature of our nation. And third, they hope to promote peace, understanding, and morality in American. I believe this is also the vision of all Asian Americans. The Asian American and Pacific Islanders are vast and diverse in origin, and yet we are unified in this wonderful land. And our contribution to this wonderful country, as in all aspects of life, are noteworthy. The Asian division is grateful to have Congressman Mike Honda, who mandated Asian division to establish an Asian-American/Pacific Islander collection five years ago. And under the vigorous leadership of former chief of the Asian division, Doctor Wa Weh Lee [spelled phonetically], and the enthusiastic encouragement and support of Asian-American communities, on October 4th and October 5th of year 2007, last year, the Library of Congress hosted a national conference to discuss the establishment of such collection. With the support of several congressional members and the library-approved position of APA reference librarian last November, and then a new APA reference librarian was hired. Her name is Reme Grefalda, and she is an [inaudible], and Reme, please stand up and let people to recognize you. [ Applause ] Reme has already rolled up her sleeves and has organized existing APA collections in the Library of Congress, for example, Dr. Betty Son's [spelled phonetically] collection. And she has been identifying other valuable APA collection in the nation. I'm also so proud of the fact that the Library of Congress plays the leadership role for the establishment of the Asian Pacific Islander collections in the nation. The contribution and achievements of 15.2 millions Asian Americans finally will be recorded, and will be preserved and utilized by many researchers for generations to come. Today, I would like to invite all of you to join the effort for building up this APA collection. Help Reme to identify any material that would record the stories of you and your ethnic community's hardship, struggle, contributions and achievements in the United States. So you can reach her by calling 76096, or by email her at regr@loc.gov, and I'm sure that they will be very, greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time, and enjoy the program. Thank you. ^M00:09:33 [ Applause ] ^M00:09:41 Male Speaker: Thank you, Miss Judy Lu for the nice, generous speech for us. I think we're ready. Let me see if -- yeah, I think we're ready for the first program. It's called, what, "Drum Festival." There will be big drum festival. It is actually Korean traditional percussion instrument, including all sorts, all kind of drum, including as you see there, there large grand drums, small drums. There are so many names here, let me name here. Small fork drums, vocal drum, hourglass and hand gong drums -- I don't even know what it is until I see that. They are anyway to make orchestrated and more harmonized, heartening, and jubilant sounds and songs. Well, actually, here they are. Come on in, and actually, led by director Joe Soon Yong [spelled phonetically] and their group, come on in, one by one. ^M00:10:50 [ Applause ] ^M00:11:00 [ Pause ] ^M00:11:15 [ Music ] ^M00:18:25 [ Applause ] ^M00:18:42 Male Speaker: Well, this sure beats my heart. It's pounding. [laughter] I think, instead of me presiding and narrating these dance by dance, which I don't know much, I think I rather beat the drums also. Anyway, the next program in there is a sword dance. We have some story about this. Because the words were used in "sword," we have some problem to go through the security. [laughter] For that, we have to get special permission. You know [inaudible], several days ago. So I had to bring them up. I brought some sample of those sword, dancing swords, and finally got the permits. Without it, it could've been skip today, so we had one less [inaudible]. Now, for that, let me see, for sword dance, it's led by Yung Hyang Lee [spelled phonetically], and Bab Maria [spelled phonetically], Kim Sang Sung [spelled phonetically], Kang Sui Ha [spelled phonetically], and Yi Chung Sa [spelled phonetically]. ^M00:20:01 [ Applause ] ^M00:20:09 [ Pause ] ^M00:20:30 Male Speaker: Keep an eye on what kind of sword it is. ^E00:20:33 ^B00:20:44 [ Music ] ^M00:23:44 [ Applause ] ^M00:24:04 [ Pause ] ^M00:24:19 Male Speaker: Well, that's a threatening sword, isn't it? The next program is called "A Drum Dance." I think it's a solo by our leader, President Su Soo Ni [spelled phonetically]. This drum dance is a basic Korean traditional drum, with slow beginning beats, dancers move gracefully with their silky skirts embracing their body. A tempo increases, the dance becomes faster and livelier, rather it becomes sensual. Here is Ms. Su Soo Ni. ^E00:25:03 ^B00:25:20 [ Music ] ^M00:28:48 [ Applause ] ^M00:29:03 [ Pause ] ^M00:29:11 Male Speaker: That was a beautiful drum dance. We'll have the next item called "Small Drum Dance." Actually, this drum has been commonly used by Korean farmers. It's not quite musical totally, but it is mainly for dance music. It usually brings out excitement and urge to dance among audiences. That's what it says. And please shout "Hey!" at eighth beat. That's what they want. I'm not sure if I can do that when players make slight rounding movement. And also actually immediately follow this, without I guess a gap, it's called a "12 Meter Hat Dance" also. Actually, it says 12 meter, but it's not really a hat. It's supposed to use some kind of 12-meter ribbon and it makes a big round, together looks like -- everything has a meaning of it. 12 means, apparently it signifies 12 months, 12 doors, 12 skirts. I don't know why these, but it represents health and abundance. The circle drawn with a long ribbon supposed to represent the universe and the earth. Let's see what it looks like, and make us remember tolerance and harmony and devotion to wellness of the mankind. That's most important meaning of it, so let's welcome the dancers: Ms. Yung Hyang Lee, Bab Maria, Kim Sang Sung, and Yi Chung Sa. ^M00:30:45 [ Applause ] ^M00:30:56 [ Pause ] ^M00:31:09 [ Music ] ^M00:34:08 [ Applause ] ^M00:34:19 Male Speaker: Wow, that is 12 meters, right? I think it is 12 meters. ^M00:34:29 That's exciting, really exciting. And actually, next item is, let's get here, "Fan Dance." Now we've been so far ahead on drum dance. Now it's fan dance we're going to have. This actually was developed from the fork ritual, in which the fan is employed in a dance. Dancers wear a costume skin to that worn by dancers of royal courts with a flower crown, and the most striking feature of this dance is actually revealed when the rhythm quickens and dancers form a large, fluttering cluster. So I guess this fan dance by Yung Hyang Lee, Yi Chung Sa, Bab Maria, Kim Sang Sung, and Su Soo Ni. Please welcome them. ^M00:35:30 [ Applause ] ^M00:35:35 [ Man speaking Korean] Male Speaker: Ah? Oh, okay. [speaks Korean] ^M00:35:45 Apparently, they're just trying to change their clothings from drum to fan. I mean, apparently, that takes a little time. So. Okay. All right, looks like -- I thought I was going to give a little speech, but they won't let me. They say they're ready, so. Okay. Let's go. [ Laughter ] ^M00:36:18 [ Applause ] ^M00:36:27 [ Pause ] ^M00:36:44 [ Music ] ^M00:42:28 [ Applause ] ^M00:42:36 Male Speaker: That's a beautiful fan dance. Due to this small size of stage, we had only four dancers. It could've been, you know, 15 dancers dancing together, but next time we have a chance we'll use a theater, not here this time. Okay, we have one more final program here. It's called [Korean], or actually, I can translate into the "Instrument Ensemble." It's Korean ensemble instrument. This is of four traditional musical instrument including large gong and side drums and another large drums. It sounds from these instrument provides harmonious symmetry of tension and relaxation under the influence of a yin/yang principle, and I really don't know what that principle is, but we going to have to see that. The ordering law and order of this universe, the explosive sounds of metal, which is gong as a matter of fact, and proceeding staccato of leather symbol symbolize the sounds of heaven and earth. They represent the rain, clouds, wind, and thunder of nature. The music with its suitable rhythmic mixes of fast and slow, loud and soft, refreshes and enlivens the audience. Let's see how this musical instrument ensemble looks like. I guess these final program is led by again our director, Mr. Choy Hyung Ju [spelled phonetically], and the President Su Soo Ni, and Yi Chung Sa, Bab Maria, and Yung Hyang Lee. See if they're ready. ^E00:44:48 ^B00:45:04 So, ready? ^M00:45:09 [ Music ] ^M00:54:59 [ Applause ] ^M00:55:26 Male Speaker: What a fantastic dance, huh? Fantastic. Here, let me introduce one by one from there. Here, actually these AAAC represented by the president, Su Soo Ni. There she is. Okay. And actually, we have only one male dancer here. He is a director of this AAAC, Choy Hyung Ju [spelled phonetically]. It's random order here. Let me see who first. Pack Ok Sung [spelled phonetically], there she is. And our assistant director here, Yung Hyang Lee. There she is. And then here I guess I have to pronounce it Kim Sung Soo [spelled phonetically], there she is. And I have Elizabeth Lee. There she is. Beautiful name. And then here Lee Sung Ju [spelled phonetically], thank you. And Chung Yong Je? Yong Je? Female Speaker: [inaudible] Male Speaker: Oh, she's not here. Okay. Well, I should have been in there, then. The Kathy Ko, Chung Wan Ko, Ko Chung Wan [spelled phonetically], where is she? ^M00:56:58 [inaudible] There she is. She's the administrator. Am I right? Yeah. And Chong Mostela [spelled phonetically], there she is. And Lee Hot Rottweiler [spelled phonetically], were the few who danced. Thank you very much, AAAC. ^M00:57:22 [ Applause ] ^M00:57:28 Before, actually, we close down, okay, thank you very much, we have one final program. It'll be presided by the closing remarks done by Sheila Tran, the president of the Library of Congress Asian-American Associations. By doing that, we'll close this event today. Here we go. Sheila Tran. ^M00:58:04 Sheila Tran: Good afternoon, everyone. As you already know by now, I'm Sheila Tran, the president of the Library of Congress Asian-American Association, and on behalf of the APA committee, I'd like to express my gratitude to all the performers for such a splendid performance today, wasn't it? Please give them another [inaudible]. ^M00:58:23 [ Applause ] ^M00:58:27 Sheila Tran: Thank you, thank you very much. Actually, I have prepared a five-page speech, but after the performance, I think it was so magnificent, I think the performers really capture my mind, my soul, and also my heart, so I totally forgot what I'm supposed to say. But I just want to also special thanks to Ms. Judy Lu for such a wonderful message, and thanks to Kim Shillington [spelled phonetically] for providing the parking service to all the performances. And also, today is the conclusion of our celebration, and especially, I would like to thank each and every one of you for attending all the events during the month of May. Your continued support means so much to all of us. Thanks again, and have a wonderful afternoon. ^M00:59:16 [ Applause ] ^M00:59:18 [ Music ]