Slovakian Cultural Institutions & Artists under Pressure

Panel with Matej Drlička, Soňa Ferienčíková, Michal Hvorecký, Lucia Kašiarová, Roman Samotný

2024/25 Nebenan Gespräch

In the fall of 2023, Martina Šimkovičová was appointed Minister of Culture by the ultra-right Slovakian National Party (SNS). In just a short period of time, she has arbitrarily replaced the management and qualified staff of state cultural institutions, abolished the current funding system and spread hate speech and conspiracy theories against freelance artists and members of the LGBTQI+ community. In her statements, she makes it clear that she wants to impose a “national Slovakian culture”. The former director of the Slovak National Theatre Matej Drlička, the choreographer and dancer Soňa Ferienčíková, the author Michal Hvorecký, the director of Divadlo Štúdio tanca Lucia Kašiarová and the LGBTQI+ activist and founder of the community project Tepláreň Roman Samotný describe their perspectives on current Slovak cultural policy in conversation with Markus Huber, director of the Goethe-Institut Slovakia.

Duration: ca. 1 h 30 min
Language: Slovakian with German simultaneous translation

Matej Drlička  studied clarinet at the Bratislava University of Music and Performing Arts. As an orchestral clarinettist, he played in prestigious European orchestras. In 2005 he had to end his career as a concert artist due to an injury and he began to devote himself to music management. Since then, he has worked as a manager in the creative industries, as a dramaturge, producer and organizer of major cultural events. In 2005, he founded the Viva Musica! festival, which is currently the largest and most visited summer festival of classical music in Slovakia. In 2008, he accepted an offer from Columbia Artists Management International to become the project manager of the Abu Dhabi Classics festival in Abu Dhabi. In 2010 he founded the Viva Musica! Agency, which organizes music productions and projects in Slovakia and abroad. In 2017, he founded the VIVA EVENTS agency and began working with the global classical music streaming platform IDAGIO. In 2019 he founded and managed IXPO: The largest technology festival in Slovakia. From January 2021 to August 2024, he was the General Director of the Slovak National Theater.

Soňa Ferienčíková is a dancer, choreographer and founder of the BOD.Y platform. She studied at the Eva Jaczová Dance Conservatory in Bratislava, the Prague Academy of Performing Arts, the Royal Conservatory in Antwerp and the renowned Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance. She has worked with many national and international artists and has performed throughout Europe, in Israel, Mexico and China. In 2018, she was nominated for the DOSKY Award in the category “Exceptional Achievement in Dance Theater”.

Michal Hvorecky (*1976) is a Slovakian writer and translator. He lives in Bratislava. His most recently published works in German: The novel “Tahiti Utopia” and children’s book “Danube – a magical river”. In his home country, Hvorecky campaigns for the protection of freedom of the press and against anti-democratic developments.

Lucia Kašiarová is the founder of Studio ALTA, a Prague-based cultural center for dance and new theater as well as social and educational projects. Since 2022 she has been the artistic director of the dance center Divadlo Štúdio tanca in Slovakia. In the past, she has directed the HYBAJ HO festival of Slovak contemporary dance, the Kašparův kolínský Mimoriál festival of movement theater and pantomime and currently the Dni Tanca/Dance days international festival. She works in various cultural and promotional committees in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. She is a board member of Vision of Dance, a professional organization for independent dance. She was awarded the Czech Dance Platform Prize for Interpretation in 2017 and 2021 and the Jiří Opěla Manager of the Year Award in 2018. In 2022, she received a nomination for the Thalia Theater Award in the field of alternative theater for her interpretation in the performance Multividual.

Roman Samotný studied journalism at Comenius University in Bratislava. During and after his studies, he worked in various media companies (TV JOJ, RTVS, SITA, Plus 7 dni). He is the founder of the Queer Slovakia platform, which organizes various events for the LGBTQI+ community. These include the Tepláreň project, which was a bar and community center. After a terrorist attack in 2022, in which two queer people were shot dead, Tepláreň continued as a series of events in various clubs and cultural centers. Roman Samotný has been a member of the Inakosť initiative since 2010, where he manages communications, fundraising and events and is involved in educational work on LGBTQI+ issues. In 2022 he received the White Crow Award for civil courage and in 2023 the Bratislava Mayor’s Award for the creation of a safe space.

Markus Huber studied theater studies, art history and journalism in Berlin and Milan. From 2007 to 2015, he worked for transmediale, a festival for art and digital culture in Berlin. He worked there as a curator and festival manager. He then moved to the Federal Cultural Foundation in Halle to work in funding program development. Huber has been working for the Goethe-Institut since 2017, first as Head of Education and Discourse and since 2020 as Director of the Goethe-Institut in Slovakia.