Global South Korean Stars Share Stage in Seoul to Honor Professor

In recent years, Seoul’s K-Arts has emerged as a top training institution for ballet. Composed of the Korea National University of Arts and the affiliated Korea National Institute for the Gifted in Arts for elementary and high school students, its graduates populate not only the country’s own Korean National Ballet and Universal Ballet but top ranks in major companies around the world. Two of K-Arts most well-known former students—Paris Opéra Ballet étoile Sae Eun Park and Mariinsky Ballet principal Kimin Kim—made history as the first South Koreans to achieve the highest rank at their respective companies.

The scope of the school’s impact was on full display last weekend when alumni from home and abroad gathered for the Global Ballet Star Gala at Seoul’s Sejong Center for the Arts. Dancers, including Paris Opéra Ballet’s Park, hailed from Dutch National Ballet, The Royal Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Boston Ballet, Houston Ballet, Semperoper Dresden, Korean National Ballet, Universal Ballet, Polish National Ballet, and Atlanta Ballet. The event was organized by the K-Global Ballet Institute in honor of Professor Sun Hee (Sonia) Kim, who started the university’s dance program as its inaugural professor in 1996 and is retiring in February. “I wanted to showcase how far classical ballet in Korea has come,” Kim said at a press conference last week, during which she also announced a new initiative: the Seoul Ballet Forum, an annual international conference that will start in 2026.

Professor Kim’s students noted her outsized impact on ballet in Korea. “When I first joined Paris Opéra [in 2011], I was the only Korean dancer,” Sae Eun Park said during an interview between rehearsals. “And now there are seven—four in the company, one on a short-term contract, and two in the junior ballet company. And four of us trained with Sonia.”

Dutch National Ballet principal Young Gyu Choi also expressed pride in his alma mater’s reach. “It’s hard to believe how many dancers, in so many different companies big and small, are here bringing this art to the audience,” he said. “And it started with Sonia—she’s done a great job.”

For the gala, many of the dancers collaborated across companies, dancing together in familiar classical and Balanchine pas de deux. Boston Ballet’s Ji Young Chae, Sun Woo Lee, and Sangmin Lee performed an excerpt from William Forsythe’s Blake Works, while Universal Ballet’s Hyang Ki Hong and Dong Tak Lee danced a beautifully moving Mirinae Road by Byung Heon Yoo. American Ballet Theatre soloist SunMi Park performed the lead in Balanchine’s Theme and Variations alongside Young Gyu Choi and an impeccable corps de ballet made up of K-Arts students. The second cast of Theme and Variations featured young K-Arts graduate Min Chul Jeon, who will be joining the Mariinsky Ballet as a soloist next month.

Although Professor Kim will be retiring (she will be an honorary professor at K-Arts and will continue teaching there occasionally), she is immersing herself in the Seoul Ballet Forum. The new project’s goal is to bring industry leaders, dancers, and choreographers together to share ideas, collaborate, and develop solutions for common challenges in the ballet world. Professor Kim was joined at last week’s press conference by Boston Ballet artistic director Mikko Nissinen, Dutch National Ballet artistic director Ted Brandsen, American Ballet Theatre Studio Company director Sascha Radetsky, and former acting director of the Mariinsky Ballet Yuri Fateev, all of whom were in Seoul for the gala.

The directors praised the initiative, acknowledging that South Korea has emerged as a major player in international ballet. (Nissinen noted that Boston Ballet currently has seven South Korean dancers in its main and second companies.) In addition to K-Arts, schools like Sunhwa Arts Middle School and High School have become known for producing high-caliber professional dancers.

“I think the Seoul Ballet Forum is a wonderful initiative, because we are talking about the future of the art form, which is global and has many different centers of the world—and increasingly a strong center here in Korea,” said Brandsen.

“Right now, Seoul and Korean culture are having a moment,” said Radetsky, who presently has two South Korean dancers in the Studio Company. “I think this is the perfect place to think about ballet’s future and shine a light on the incredible things that are happening in the ballet world here, and to capitalize on that creative energy.”