New Movement in Art: "Anti-Japanese guerrilla-style"!

I bet you always assumed that North Korean art must be a bit politicized. I bet you didn't imagine this kind of Bizarro World:

The working people of all strata of the DPRK are taking an active part in art activities as creators and enjoyers of art.

It is a precious fruition of the wise leadership of Kim Jong Il that the flower garden of Juche art is flourishing daily across the country.

His guidance to a performance of an art group of Samjiyon County in July, Juche 65(1976) marked a historical milestone in bringing a radical turn in the development of mass art in the country.

Saying that the activities of art groups must under all circumstances follow the anti-Japanese guerrilla style, he elucidated the essence of the Korean-style mass art activities and indicated detailed orientation and ways for carrying through the policy of popularizing art, drawing the masses into it.

The anti-Japanese guerrilla-style art activities expounded by him is mass art activities for giving militant and mobile performances of life-like and realistic stage pieces with simple popular musical instruments, not wedded to time and place, and amusing performances by actively developing talents of the masses.

Over the last three decades and more since then the Korean people have properly carried forward the revolutionary tradition established in the days of the anti-Japanese armed struggle and, with it as the model, briskly conducted mass art activities.

The mass art of the DPRK has reached a remarkably high stage in the Songun era.

General Secretary Kim Jong Il has always paid deep attention to mass art activities, inspecting the front and giving on-the-spot guidance.

At posts, he listened to songs of soldiers and, at factories and villages, he saw performances of workers' art groups and masque dance of peasants. The soldiers and people all over the country have grown to be true heroes of art.

Busy as he was in Songun leadership, he appreciated performances given by art groups of servicemen's families and pushed wives of servicemen to the foreground as second ranks of Songun buglers who have created the model of mass art in the Songun era.

Under his loving care servicemen's wives have lifted the mass art of the Songun era to a new height by their revolutionary and militant performances. And, in this course, they have grown to be admirable "composers and scriptwriters", "instrumentalists" and "actresses". [...]

The one alternative to anti-Japanese guerrilla style is, of course, re-education camp style.

Tags: North Korea, Juche-coupes, Kim Jong Il