Jerome Ford, an antiques appraiser, left work an hour and a half earlier than usual Friday to put himself at the front of a long line of people at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington.

After another hour and a half waiting, he got what he wanted: one of the seats in the front row for the South Korean nonverbal comedy and percussion show “Nanta,” the opening installment of the inaugural three-day “Korean Culture Week.”

Ford, 68, from Alexandria, Virginia, was among about 800 people that turned out for the show held at the red-carpeted Millennium Stage of the Kennedy Center that is known as the busiest performing arts facility in the United States.

“I left at 3:30 p.m. to stand in line so I can get this seat,” Ford said with a satisfied grin.

“Nanta,” which has gained huge popularity since its 1997 premiere to become something of a symbol of modern Korean culture, was one of the three shows comprising the first annual culture week organized by the Korean Cultural Center under the theme of “tradition and transition.”

The other two shows are also set to be held at the Kennedy Center on Friday and Saturday.

Friday‘s will feature authentic traditional Korean performances, such as “pansori,” which combines narrative song and storytelling accompanied by solo percussion, while the final installment will be “Darkness PoomBa,” a dance and music performance based on a song that Korean street beggars used to sing hundreds of years ago.

It is the first time for Korean cultural events to be held three days in a row at the Kennedy Center.

“I have been going to the Korean Cultural Center for four years for their cultural events every month,” Ford said when asked how he learned about the event.

“KORUS (the cultural center) has basically movies, sometimes art exhibits, sometimes food exhibits, tastings. So I even took an hour and a half off from work so I could get a good seat today. And I’m coming tomorrow and I‘m coming Saturday,” he said.

He said it was when he visited Korea five years ago that he became interested in Korean culture.

“That’s when I discovered K-pop,” he said. “What surprised me in South Korea was that the young people seem to be born out of the air. They‘re not born out of the soil. They have a sense of history, but they’re totally modern. They are totally new creations.”

The constant striking, drumming and dancing in “Nanta,” coupled with comic interactions with the audience, kept everybody riveted to the stage during the one-hour show as applause and laughter filled the center.

One enthusiastic member of the audience, a 9-year-old girl, kept shrieking with delight.

“Yeah!” the girl, Anna Miller, said when asked if she enjoyed the show. “There are two best parts actually. One was when the guy put a dumpster can on himself that had the happy face and the sad face. The other part was when the guy stabbed the knives on his hips, not realizing they’re knives. That was funny.”

Her grandmother, Bev Howard, said the show was “everything we had hoped for and more.”

“We come to a lot of events here at Millennium Stage and so we knew about it from one of their fliers. This is the first time we’ve been to something like this here,” she said. “It was great.

We're looking forward to the next few nights as well. We will be trying to come tomorrow and the next night as well. It’s a great chance to see things we don‘t usually get to see.”

Spreading Korean culture among the mainstream communities in the capital metropolitan area is a key goal of the cultural center. Many officials of US federal government agencies as well as local governments in surrounding Virginia and Maryland were invited.

“It was really fun. It was exciting. It’s my first time seeing something like this. There‘s so much variety. There was comedy. There was rhythm, drumming percussion, everything I hoped for,” said Peng Wu, an attorney at the Department of Justice.

“I enjoyed the physical comedy, the audience interactions. I think that was most interesting,” she said.

Nicholas Majett, chief administrative officer of Prince George’s County, Maryland, also said the show was fantastic and better than expected.

“It was interactive. It was funny. ... I had a really good time,” he said. “I was amazed that kids really enjoyed it and there was a 9-year-old kid in front of me. She just went ballistic. She was so happy. So I was impressed that the kids really enjoyed it. So it was for kids and adults. Everybody enjoyed it.” (Yonhap)