Wonju Dancing Carnival opens on 18th with 122 teams, including Norazo, 1MILLION and Koyote

Wonju Dancing Carnival brings 122 teams together in a bold break from the traditional spectator festival

Festival runs from the 18th to the 20th at Wonju Dancing Performance Center, featuring 37 international teams and 1MILLION

Beyond simply watching: Wonju evolves into a global dance destination where visitors stay

The 2026 Wonju Dancing Carnival, a massive stage for dancers from around the world, will heat up the Wonju Dancing Performance Center in Gangwon province for three days, from the 18th to the 20th. This year’s event will bring together a mammoth 122 teams — 37 from overseas and 85 from South Korea. Top-tier artists including 1MILLION and Koyote are also joining the festival, raising its profile even further.

The Wonju Cultural Foundation has set the festival’s central vision on moving beyond a viewing-focused event to become a festival where visitors stay and, ultimately, a city festival that people want to revisit. To that end, it has introduced five operating strategies designed to elevate the aesthetics of K-dance to a global level while embracing visitors’ dreams and leisure. The foundation aims to establish Wonju as one of South Korea’s leading festival brands by creating strong links with the region’s cultural and tourism resources.

Robots meet K-pop as 122 teams deliver genre-defying performances

On the opening day, the festival’s signature performance, Yesterday and Tomorrow of the Dancing Carnival, will launch the event on the 18th at an imposing scale. The show will highlight the carnival’s legacy, built since 2012, and present its vision for the future. Its forward-looking performances will combine cutting-edge robot technology with K-pop to capture the audience’s attention. Seven elite teams, including the Kim Young-ah Dance Company, Team Raptors and the Arari Cheerleading Squad, will take part to maximize the production’s impact.

The main competition will unfold across eight categories, including K-pop dance and freedance. The K-Street category, open to all ages and giving dancers four minutes to showcase their full range of skills, and the children’s and youth street category for dancers 18 and younger are expected to draw particular attention. The festival will also offer a random play dance program split between an in-person event in South Korea and an online event overseas, along with a silver division for participants 60 and older and a multicultural category. Together, the programs will create a space for unity that transcends generations and borders.

From 1MILLION to Koyote, a top-tier lineup set to captivate the senses

The main-stage lineup is exceptionally strong. On the 18th, 1MILLION, a driving force behind South Korea’s dance sensation, and HOOK, led by choreographer Aiki, will bring explosive energy to the stage. On the 19th, the distinctive hip-hop crew HANYA and the boundary-pushing performance act Norazo will take over. The finale on the 20th will feature the world-renowned breaking group Jinjo Crew and South Korea’s beloved coed group Koyote.

A dance workshop led by visitors themselves will run every day of the festival from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. The program will offer 10 sessions a day across six specialized zones featuring K-pop, shuffle and Zumba. The random play dance zone, where participants can move to the beats of professional DJs, is expected to receive an enthusiastic response from younger visitors.

A genre-spanning fringe festival will also be held at an auxiliary venue, while visitor-stay infrastructure combining a diverse selection of food trucks with a flea market will add to the festival’s appeal. The Wonju Cultural Foundation said on the 16th, "We will maximize the region’s unique cultural content and establish Wonju’s own distinctive culture tourism style."