KYODO NEWS - Apr 17, 2018 - 21:12 | Arts, World, All

An event to celebrate the birth anniversary of North Korea's founder Kim Il Sung, who died in 1994, closed Tuesday in Pyongyang, two days after his grandson Kim Jong Un, its current leader, viewed a Chinese ballet performance as part of the festivities.

Hundreds of music and dance performers mainly from friendly countries like China and Russia participated in a ceremony at the close of the "April Spring Friendship Art" to mark the anniversary, which is known in the country as the "Day of the Sun" and fell this year on Sunday.

On Monday, Kim Jong Un watched the visiting Chinese art troupe perform choreodrama "Red Women Company" with his wife, Ri Sol Ju, at the East Pyongyang Grand Theatre, state-run media said.

After the performance, the couple climbed on the stage and shook hands with actors and actresses of the troupe, the Korean Central News Agency reported Tuesday.

(Kim Jong Un shakes hands with a Chinese art troupe member)

[KNS/Kyodo]

The troupe, led by Song Tao, head of the International Liaison Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is visiting Pyongyang to participate in the biennial festival that started last Wednesday.

Kim "expressed expectation that the Pyongyang visit by the Chinese art troupe would serve as a significant occasion in carrying forward and further consolidating the tradition of the DPRK-China friendship," KCNA said.

DPRK is the acronym for North Korea's formal name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

In late March, Kim and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed during their first-ever summit in Beijing to promote cultural exchanges.

Last November, Song visited North Korea as Xi's special envoy, but neither country's official media reported Song's meeting Kim, suggesting such a meeting did not happen. Song, however, greeted Kim when he arrived in the Chinese border city of Dandong last month.

(Kim Jong Un and Song Tao)

[Photo courtesty of Korea Media]