Ch’oe Sŭnghǔi (1911–69) was a dancer of extraordinary talent and the first of her kind in Korea. Her art was known not only in the Far East but also in Europe and the USA, where under a Japanese name she sold out halls and achieved success not merely due to her “exotic” origins and appearance. However, she paid for the opportunity to travel and gaining global recognition by collaborating with the Japanese – which was also one reason why she did not return to Seoul after 1945. She chose North Korea, as did her husband, An Mak. The rest of Ch’oe’s career focused entirely on serving her homeland, the party, and North Korean leader Kim Ilsung himself. Yet even his personal admiration failed to shield her from persecution: her husband was accused of anti-state conspiracy and executed in 1958, after which she vanished from public life and, according to available reports, lived out her days in seclusion.

As a so-called people’s artist, she also visited Czechoslovakia in 1956. This was a part of her Eastern European tour, completely typical of the 1950s. It meant she was just one of many Korean women performing “Korean” art of varying quality in friendly countries, and local audiences could not judge whether the performance was of elite quality or if it was mediocre. Ch’oe subordinated her art to political goals, and her troupe’s performances were steeped in communist propaganda – whether folklore, dramatic interludes, or solos on Korean War themes. She was accompanied on the tour by her daughter An Sŏnghŭi (*1931), a dancer raised in the Soviet Union and at that time a popular figure at world youth festivals, where she represented the fighting Korean people. The performances of both dancers received positive coverage in the contemporary press, though they were not classical first-tier stars but members of a political delegation, dancing on grand theatre stages as well as for members of remote collective farms.

Troupes – purely dance ensembles or combined with music – appeared in Czechoslovakia with a frequency of at least one per year. However, troupe visits weren’t a Korean monopoly. Some went almost unnoticed, while photographs survive from others. Thanks to academic sculptor Tibor Bártfay (1922–2015), two busts were also created – of a boy and a girl – captured by Zdena Klöslová, their guide at the time, showing the young dancers while Bártfay modelled them.