in a day and age when gen now is lapping up all things korean be it pop music beauty products and trends tv dramas cinema etc it comes as no surprise that the city played host to a performance that was a mix of indian classical music traditional korean music and contemporary dance called same same but different the event was organised by the inko centre as part of their annual indokorean performance series that attempts to put the spotlight on their cultural diversity the title of the performance for instance was meant to denote the similarities between indian and korean cultures especially in musicthis time around they had korean new wave music group noreum machi indian classical ensemble trayam consisting of vocalist and flautist varijashree venugopal percussionists manjunath and praveen d rao and padma shri awardee and dancerchoreographer astad deboo when the idea of this collaboration was pitched to me i found the combination of music very interesting the amalgamation of the beats is so unique and different that i knew that i wanted to contribute to this collaboration says astad when asked about her experience of working with such a diverse group of artistes varijashree says the process was enriching and educational we had performed together last year as well we got to learn a lot about korean culture and music through this performance and i was very impressed with the way we brought our music together korean music includes a wide range of instruments some being slightly similar to ours my personal favourite being piri which sounds a little like the shenai teaching each other the little intricacies of our music was what made this performance really special