ISLAMABAD, March 25: Senator Mushahid Husain Syed, chairman of the Senate’s foreign relations committee, said on Saturday that no country can make progress “without developing its culture”.

He made the assertion in brief remarks at the performance given by a South Korean cultural troupe of the country’s folk and martial dances.

Senator Mushahid, who is general secretary of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League, said the meteoric rise of the South Korean economy should be traced to its cultural strength.

Earlier, introducing the performers, South Korean Ambassador Kim Joo Seok spoke about his country’s traditional dances, its people’s love for music and the martial arts.

The performance of the Korean artistes was cast in the spirit of passion and thrill seen in the extraordinary frenzy of their movements.

Each dance began with solemn melody, perhaps borrowed from the Buddhist Shaman music, but then very soon turn colourful and vibrant with electric movements of limbs and body.

The first one offered a lesson in maintaining control over motion and the essence and vitality in achieving some thing in togetherness. Jang Hyo Seon performed the dance, with an ensemble of drummers, flute artistes and an artiste blowing the flute with mysterious notes to invoke the manly quality of dance.

A lively demonstration of serene pan guoot dances followed with five female artistes who gyrated to drum and cymbal beats with ribbons affixed to their headgear to create the impression of floating in the wind.

The Bamboo flute item dae gum sanjo, presented by Lee Kwang Hoon a male artist and also the Long swords dance done by male performer Jang Hyo Seon, demonstrated the virile character of marital arts.

This art has to be disciplined in a way that the performer must concentrate on the motion of the long sword without allowing any profane thought to enter his head.

The troupe performed more than a dozen Korean WeolKwangmoo dances and songs at the NIC auditorium, which was not the best venue for an action packed performance like this.

Pakistan National Council of the Arts Director-General Naeem Tahir acknowledged this limitation when he promised the artistes a bigger stage when they visited Islamabad next.

He informed the gathering that the troupe’s visit emerged from the cultural agreement signed by the two countries during Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz’s visit to Seoul last September.