The 40th Anyang Dano Festival closed Saturday afternoon with a tightrope-walking performance by Kwon Won-tae, a master practitioner certified in Namsadang Nori, a nationally designated intangible cultural heritage. The crowd gasped and applauded as Kwon cut through the air in a series of daring maneuvers at 5 p.m.
The festival drew strong participation from Anyang residents. The city said it held the event from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday at Samdeok Park in Manan-gu, organized by the Anyang Cultural Center, to mark Dano — the fifth day of the fifth lunar month — which falls on June 19 this year.
The Anyang Dano Festival was launched in 1979 to preserve and promote traditional culture. This year's edition marked its 40th installment, cementing its status as one of the city's signature local festivals.
About 2,000 residents, many attending as families, visited the festival grounds on the weekend. Visitors took part in more than 20 hands-on booths offering traditional activities rarely encountered in urban settings — washing hair in iris water, archery, a traditional tea ceremony and rice-cake pounding.
At the center of the grounds, a Dano prayer ceremony opened at 2 p.m., offering wishes for residents' well-being and the city's continued development.
fob140@heraldcorp.com
