In 1998, the Little Angels visited Pyongyang as the first purely private, nongovernmental cultural exchange program and gave three performances there. They danced the cute “Little Groom Dance” and the colorful “Fan Dance.” The eyes of the North Korean people watching the performance were filled with tears. The image of a woman sobbing uncontrollably was captured in the lens of a newspaper photographer. Yong Soon Kim, chairman of North Korea’s Asia–Pacific Peace Commission, praised the Little Angels after their performance, saying, “They have opened a narrow path through the dark forest.”

       That was exactly what the Little Angels had done. They demonstrated for the first time that Koreans from North and South, who had turned their backs on each other for such a long time, were capable of coming together in one place and watching each other’s performances. People often think that politics moves the world, but that is not the case. It is culture and art that move the world. It is emotion, not reason, that strikes people in the innermost part of their hearts. When hearts change and are able to receive new things, ideologies and social regimes change as a result. The Little Angels did more than just advertise our traditional culture to the world. They created narrow paths between worlds completely different from each other.

        Each time I meet the Little Angels, I tell them, “You must have beautiful hearts to perform beautiful dances. You must have beautiful hearts to have beautiful faces.” True beauty is a beauty that wells up from within us. The Little Angels have been able to move the hearts of people throughout the world, because the beauty of Korea’s tradition and spiritual culture that are imbued in their dances are beautiful. So the applause for the Little Angels is actually applause for Korea’s traditional culture.