The world's largest festival for university sports, the 27th Summer Universiade is being held in Kazan, Russia, under the theme 'U are the World'. Over 13,500 athletes from 170 countries are participating in the event for 12 days, until the 17th of this month.
This coming 17th at 10 p.m local time, at the closing ceremony of the Kazan Universiade, 2015 Gwangju Summer Universiade Organizing Committee (hereafter GUOC 2015) will be handed the Universiade flag and hold various cultural performances, making Gwangju known to the world.
The flag-handover ceremony officially shows the world that "the next host city is Gwangju" and is commenced at the closing of the 27th Kazan Universiade games, signaling the start of the next Universiade.
Kang Un-tae, the mayor of the Gwangju Metropolitan City, will attend the closing ceremony as the mayor of the next host city and receive the Universiade flag, which will have been returned by Kazan city mayor, Ilsur Metshin, from Claude-Louis Gallien, FISU president.
Following the flag-handover ceremony, Mayor Kang will present a speech to those in attendance and promise a successful Universiade with the values of eco-friendliness (Eco-versiade), peace (Peace-versiade), IT technology (IT-versiade), and culture (culture-versiade).
Next, a cultural performance introducing the culture of Korea and Gwangju will follow. The performance will be divided into four acts, consisting of a blend of K-pop and Korean traditional performances. The cast includes Korean classical musician, Park Aeri, Hallyu (Korean wave) group EXO, Gwangju Municipal troupe, and local Koreans residing in Kazan.
The first act will start with beautiful Korean traditional singing by Park Aeri and dancers will unfold dance performances, showing "Gwangju's desires" for the successful accomplishment of an EPIC vision.
The second act, with the theme 'Light of Creation, Light of the Future', will convey the image of light with dancers in LED illuminating costumes, performing dynamic dance moves.
The Hallyu group 'EXO', who is currently on top of the k-pop charts in Russia, will perform to a medley of hit K-pop songs and enhance the excitement of the audience, which is in line with the theme of the third act, 'the excitement of Korea'.
* EXO: boy group of 12 members, SM Entertainment
- Hit song "The Wolf and the Beauty", Russian K-pop chart #2 / top ranking in 3 major broadcasting stations in Korea
The final act will invite all to the joyous event happening in Gwangju 2015 with the theme "Invitation to Gwangju", where the entire cast will appear on stage and sing a traditional Korean folk song 'Quejina chingching nanae' to end the performance with a colorful finish.
Kim Yoonsuk, Secretary-General of GUOC, commented, "In order to effectively show the traditional culture of Korea and introduce the Gwangju Universiade to the people of the world in such a short time, we have prepared a performance which will leave a deep impression on the viewers."
After receiving the flag from Kazan at the closing ceremony, GUOC will devote fully to the preparations for the 2015 Gwangju Universiade.
For more information, please contactsarashim@gwangju2015.com
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