The Pongsan Masked Dance, the Precious National Cultural Heritage

The great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung and Comrade Kim Jong Il put forward the policy to inherit and develop the national cultural heritage from our own point of view and newly found out many national cultural heritage which were hidden in the history and ascertained its historical evidence and let people enjoy these cultural heritage as national treasures that demonstrate ancestor's wisdom and talents and glorified it as the precious treasure that connects the history and the blood of the nation.

The Pongsan Masked Dance, which is one of the national cultural dances, is one of the representative masked dances of Hanghae Province which was discovered under the leadership of the great leaders who attached great importance to the protection of the national cultural heritage and glorified our time-honored history and brilliant culture. The dance is the famous dance which was born in the period of Koryo dynasty and enjoyed its golden age from the late 19century to the early 20th century.

The Pongsan Masked Dance consisted of "Sangja Dance", "Palmokjung Dance", "Saja Dance", "Sadang Dance", "Rojang Dance", "Ryangban Dance", and "Mudong Dance" etc. The dance is strong with satire and joke and also scorns sharply towards aristocrats and priest.

Especially, there are many expressive dancing movements such as moving the knees up and down, throwing two arms while sitting down and standing up, covering the mask and pushing it up, stirring movements, spinning of the arms are the skillful movements which contribute to the enhancement of the descriptive level of the masked dance.

Pongsan Masked Dance represents sharp hatred and satire of the people towards the feudal rulers and exploiting class. The dance movements are so peculiar and made best of its national characteristics of dances that it is estimated as one of the representative masked dance in our country.

The Pongsan Masked Dance fully demonstrates its development in the aspects of mask, clothing and background music.

The Pongsan Masked Dance which was born of these people and enjoyed by them is one of the national dance heritages that has the progressive content and popular dance movements representing the aspiration of the people's well-being and the resistance against the feudal rulers.

The Pongsan Masked Dance has been developed under the wise leadership of the great leaders and the Respected Marshal who wish to have our country to be full of the national fragrance. The dance is now actively contributes to arm the people with the idea of the love for the nation and national excellence and also to the cultural and emotional life of the people.