Watch a documentary on the burgeoning dance music scene in Seoul, South Korea - News - Mixmag
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Watch a documentary on the burgeoning dance music scene in Seoul, South Korea

How the undergound community is fueling a cultural boom

  • Harrison Williams
  • 13 December 2016

A new documentary from Les Siestes Electroniques, an event promotion company and festival in France, highlights the burgeoning dance music scene in the South Korean capital of Seoul.

Back in September, the French crew took a trip to Seoul and spent five days exploring the underground club scene, interviewing key members and visiting local venues, while also hosting a Korean edition of the festival in 2016.

Although there has been a small dance music community growing in the city for about 20 years, only recently are Korean citizens able to discover dance music freely as the country did not have access to platforms like Spotify or iTunes in the past. One person who was interviewed for the documentary also sites Mixmag’s launch of a Korean website as one of the many factors contributing to the recent cultural boom.

It might be surprising that a city with 10 millions inhabitants only has a handful of venues, but as Les Siestes states, the number of internationally known dance clubs is growing: “Most of those new clubs are located in the specific neighborhood named Itaewon, next to the main US army base. Mystik was one of the first to be internationally known. Now you have Cakeshop, Venue, Pistil but also Constant Value or Vurt (even if not in Itaewon). Those clubs are quite small. Compared to the huge night complexes you can find in the famous Gangnam area, it's ridiculous.”

Watch the full documentary below to see how Seoul is quickly becoming a stop on the international club circuit.

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