Arts South Korea

History was made Tuesday when the United Nations admitted North and South Korea as full voting members, ending a 40-year Cold War stalemate over the issue. But that does not mean the two countries have begun to end their differences, politically or artistically. "All (North Korean) art has been modified to make it more politically motivated," says Jeong-Yoop Park, executive director of the International Cultural Society of Korea, which is presenting "The Sound of Millennia: A Gala Evening of Korean Music and Dance," on tonight1) at 7:30 at the Shrine Auditorium.

Artist Shin Hak Chul landed in jail last summer because of his fans--the paper kind. A student project to reprint one of Shin's oil paintings on hand-held paper fans caught the discriminating eye of an art critic in the anti-Communist bureau of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Headquarters.

Toward the end of "The Last Empress," the new Korean musical, Queen Min, in a duet with her son the crown prince, urges him to nurture his dreams, to grow "to be the strong pillar of the nation--and come out to meet the world in style!" The controversial empress--part Evita, part Joan of Arc--is the central character in this sweeping, lavish production, which opens next Sunday in Century City at the Shubert Theater.

When Jang Yong-Soo, 89, was a boy growing up in a small North Korean village, his family owned a noodle shop, and his sister owned a brewery. So the Jang family was especially popular on May 5 when the country's masked dancers would come through town.