Andong Maskdance Festival

The festival

The international masked dance festival in Andong is the great Korean talcum rendezvous, the masked dance theatre inscribed in 2022 with UNESCO's intangible cultural heritage. Andong, in Gyeongsangbuk-do, is the cradle of Hahoe Byeolsingut Talnori, a six-century satirical masked drama born in the village of Hahoe: the exaggerated and noisy Korean masks allowed the people to mock corrupt aristocrats.

The 2026 edition, from September 24 to October 4, was deployed between Talchum Park, the station, the old city centre and the village of Hahoe, with troops from over twenty countries, the World Mask Play Competition, mask manufacturing workshops and a worldwide exhibition of some 500 masks from the IMACO collection.

The festival was also part of the 2026 project of the East Asian Cultural City, with a theatre of stories bringing together shadows and puppets from Korea, China and Japan.