THE CULTURAL exchange between Slovakia and the Republic of Korea works both ways. Korean culture has a strong presence in Slovakia, and in late June and early July the ensemble of the Nová Scéna musical theatre from Bratislava, with soloist Sisa Lelkes Sklovská, participated in a musical festival in the south-Korean city of Daegu.
The ensemble won two awards for its performance of Mata Hari, a musical about a legendary dancer who invented her won Oriental dance style and who was executed for suspected espionage. One award went to Sklovská for best female performance, and the other went to the theatre’s director, Juraj Ďurdiak, for best foreign musical. Mata Hari opened the festival, and was performed five times.
Sklovská garnered a huge applause, as she had learned one song in Korean, the dnes.sk website wrote, citing the SITA newswire.