CONTROVERSIAL Slovenian pop group Laibach will be the first foreign band to perform in North Korea, director Morten Traavik has told the BBC.

    Traavik has arranged for the group to play two concerts in Pyongyang in August in front of 2,000 people.

    The concert program will include some of Laibach’s hits over their 35-year career and North Korean folk songs.

    The band has been slated by some critics because of its ambiguous use of political and nationalist imagery.

    But admirers say that their tendency to wear military uniforms on stage is a critique of totalitarian ideology.

    Norwegian director Traavik says that in North Korea they will be uncontroversial — even performing songs from “The Sound of Music.”

    Also on their play list is one of this year’s most popular hits in North Korea, performed by the all-girl band Moranbong, “We Will Go to Mount Paektu.”

    Mount Paektu is the tallest peak on the Korean peninsula and is the mythological birthplace of the whole Korean nation.

    “North Korea is portrayed in the West as the world’s most closed country, but in fact it is more open to the outside world than the prevailing media narrative suggests,” Traavik said.

    “Both the country and the band have been portrayed by some as fascist outcasts. The truth is that both are misunderstood.”

    The Laibach performances Aug. 19 and 20 — which coincides with the 70th anniversary of the Korean peninsula’s liberation from Japanese colonization — would never have been possible without Traavik’s contacts and artistic direction.

    He is one of the few Western directors regularly to have arranged artistic and cultural exchanges with North Korea and over the last five years has won the trust of the authorities.

    Despite its extremist reputation, individual members of Laibach have not been vetted by the North Korean authorities because the director has given his word that they will not cause an upset.

    “I have informed the North Korean authorities of their bad boy reputation and reassured them that it is a reputation that can very easily be disproved.

    “If they were really fascist, why would Poland’s cultural ministry recently ask them to reinterpret partisan songs in Warsaw to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the uprising against the Nazis in the city?

    “Surely Poland — which arguably suffered most at the hands of the Nazis — would never make such a mistake unless it knew the band is in fact parodying totalitarianism?”

    The director argues that much of the misunderstanding surrounding the band stems from their tendency in the 1980s and 90s to wear military uniforms on stage.

    “But Laibach are not a band making statements, but a band that is always questioning contemporary attitudes,” Traavik said.(SD-Agencies)