Ji Young Chae: The Boston Ballet Star Who Makes Jaws Drop
When Ji Young Chae dances, she continually defies expectations. The Boston Ballet principal can hold a développé à la seconde on pointe like it’s nothing, and just when you think she can’t possibly balance any longer, she’ll lift her leg even higher. She can end Odile’s 32 fouettés (with doubles thrown in along the way) by simply slipping her working leg down to meet her standing foot in a perfectly still sous-sus. She can finish the lead in Balanchine’s Mozartiana—a ballet that leaves most dancers gasping for air—looking just as fresh as she did at the start.
“I remember this one rehearsal where William Forsythe told her, ‘All right, do two turns on pointe in arabesque, finish on balance, and push yourself off,’ ” Boston Ballet artistic director Mikko Nissinen says. “And everybody’s jaw just dropped when she did it.”
Chae is a dancer with a shocking amount of strength and stamina, and she uses it in service of creating a precise, tightly controlled but liquid movement quality. “It is very easy to dance with her because of her athleticism and technique,” says fellow principal Jeffrey Cirio, a frequent partner. “And because she works so incredibly hard at what she does.”
Chae is intensely disciplined. She wakes up every morning at 6:30 am, then heads to the studio early to use the Gyrotonic machine for half an hour, followed by 30 minutes of strength-training exercises before taking a full company class. (“I have to finish ballet class until the end, or else something feels wrong,” she says.) Every night, she plunges her feet in an ice bucket for 15 minutes for better recovery. “I’ve never seen an individual in our industry—and I’ve been in the industry for quite a while—with such a process,” Nissinen says. It’s paid off: Her diligent routine has helped keep her strong and healthy throughout her career, without any major injuries to slow down her progress along the way. That’s given her the time and experience to dive deeper and deeper into her work, continuously building her skills as an artist.
Setting a Foundation of Strength
Chae first fell in love with ballet as a kid when she’d accompany her dad, an arts lover, to ballet performances in her native South Korea. She began training at Yewon School and Seoul Arts High School, and eventually attended Korean National University of Arts, or K-Arts, the prestigious academy that’s produced several of today’s top ballet dancers, like the Mariinsky Ballet’s Kimin Kim and Paris Opéra’s Sae Eun Park. Her training there emphasized a mastery of classical ballet, particularly the Vaganova method. But when she attended competitions—including the USA International Ballet Competition in Jackson (where she won gold) and Varna International Ballet Competition (where she also took first)—she grew enamored with the new styles and approaches to ballet that she encountered. “I started thinking, Maybe I want to join a company with different repertoire and choreographers,” she says.
So at 18, when Septime Webre offered her a scholarship to join The Washington Ballet studio company after her gold-medal–win at the Boston International Ballet Competition, she said yes. She loved the work there. But being so far from home and taking class and rehearsals in a foreign language was a challenge. “We learn English in school in Korea, but it’s completely different when you actually live in the U.S.,” she says. Fortunately, she had a friend from K-Arts with her the first year, and the two helped each other learn how to communicate with their new colleagues.
While in DC, however, Chae actually had her sights set further north. “I saw Boston Ballet doing Jiří Kylián and William Forsythe work—my favorite choreographers,” she says. She had previously met Nissinen at the Boston IBC. At the time, he felt she was still a bit green and told her to come back to him after getting some professional experience. So, after two years as an apprentice at The Washington Ballet, she auditioned and Nissinen gave her a corps contract.
Nissinen says having her in the company has been a “dream” from the start. Chae, however, confesses that adjusting to Boston Ballet’s rapid-fire pace of rehearsals was a difficult transition. “I was really slow at the beginning,” she says. Eventually, she taught herself to pick up new rep quickly by studying how her fellow dancers processed choreography in the studio. “These dancers are so smart,” she says. “I’ve learned so much from them.”
Clearly, it’s worked: In 2015, after two seasons in the corps, she was promoted to soloist, and then made principal in 2018. Today, Nissinen often casts her in both lead roles and secondary roles in major ballets—he knows she can handle it.
One thing that’s helped her settle in is having four fellow K-Arts alumni in the company. “They are like my family,” she says. “Without them, I don’t think I’d be here now.” Anytime she’s struggled, being able to talk to peers—in her own language, and who also understand how hard it is to work in a foreign country—has made all the difference, she says.
Today, Cirio says Chae gives back just as much as she’s gained from her fellow dancers (and he doesn’t just mean the chocolates and candy she keeps in her dance bag to regularly dole out). Chae will often voluntarily coach other dancers in her former roles, sometimes even coming in on her day off to go over choreography or just take class together. “She loves what she does so much that she also wants others to be able to enjoy it as much as she does,” he says.
Deepening Her Artistry
Classical ballet remains Chae’s first love. But she relishes the opportunity to move her body in other ways. In particular, she says that working directly with Forsythe—who has a close relationship with Boston Ballet—has been “one of the best experiences” in her career. She explains that he’s taught her a whole new approach to musicality. “I’m very calculated—we learned in Korea that everything has to be set,” she says. “But he doesn’t want to see the choreography the same way every time.” When Forsythe told her that each dancer has different ears, so they each hear the music differently, it sparked an epiphany: She realized she could bring a more personal approach—and a sense of playfulness—to the process.
Chae says that when she first began her career, much of the feedback she got was, “You’re very clean, but you look academic.” Today, she’s continually working to let go of her insecurities and take bigger risks, showcasing personality rather than perfection. “She had good technique to start, but now she’s matured into a major ballerina,” Nissinen says. “She’s going so deep inside, and her dancing is richer and richer.” While she used to study videos of other dancers performing the roles she was cast in, trying to copy them exactly, she now focuses on making her own decisions. “I want to show audiences, This is who I am,” she says. She’s found that tackling more full-length ballets in particular has helped her grow beyond simply getting everything “right” to really focusing on telling a story.
This kind of artistry is something she looks forward to one day passing along to students. “After my dancing career, I really want to teach the younger generation to approach ballet in a different way,” she says. But for now, she’s focused on dancing as much as she can. “She has a long way to go still,” Nissinen says, pointing out that she continually raises her own bar. “She just keeps on surprising everybody.”
