[Reporter’s Reading] Ballet Stories to Enjoy Like Drinking Coffee

1980s National Ballet Lead Kim Soon-jung Professor "Ballet is a Story Inherent Within Humans"
Introducing 25 Works Including the Oldest 'La Sylphide' Featuring Plot, Characters, Personal Interpretation, and Experience

·[Asia Economy Reporter Park Byung-hee] Kim Soon-jung, a 60-year-old professor in the Department of Dance Arts at Sungshin Women's University, was a principal ballerina of the National Ballet Company in the 1980s. She joined the National Ballet Company in 1983 and the following year took on the lead role in the full-length performance of "Swan Lake," playing the dual roles of the white swan Odette and the black swan Odile. In 1986, she played the lead role of Chunhyang in the National Ballet Company's original ballet "Chunhyang's Love." When the National Ballet Company premiered "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" in 1987, she performed as the protagonist Esmeralda in five shows. In 1997, when the National Ballet Company revived "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" after ten years, Professor Kim Soon-jung appeared as Agnes, Esmeralda's mother. The ballerina who played her daughter Esmeralda at that time was Kang Su-jin, the current director of the National Ballet Company and former principal dancer, and Kim Ji-young, who retired last year and is now a professor in the Department of Dance at Kyung Hee University.

Professor Kim Soon-jung recently published "Kim Soon-jung's Ballet Insight." I met Professor Kim at a cafe in Daehangno. She said, "In Korea, ballet is approached very difficultly, which worries me," and added, "I wrote this book to communicate stories about ballet in an easy way."

The book contains stories about 25 ballet works, starting from "La Sylphide," the oldest existing ballet piece. She avoided encyclopedia-style explanations of each work. Professor Kim said, "I wanted to write breathing, experiential prose."

Some works are explained focusing on their storylines. Others focus on the history of the work or the dancers who played important roles. Many writings include Professor Kim's own interpretations based on her experiences and thoughts at the time of performance. Rather than writing within a fixed framework, it feels like she comfortably shared stories she wanted to tell related to the works. That makes it an easy read.

Professor Kim hoped the book would be something that could be read comfortably in one sitting. "I wanted it to be a book you can read when your head hurts from reading deep books, a book you can read like drinking coffee."

This is to make ballet accessible and easy for everyone to feel. So she included a lot of her own stories. "I felt embarrassed and thought about removing my stories. But then I wondered what would be different from dry explanations of ballet works on the internet. I thought it wouldn't be read that way."

Professor Kim studied abroad in the UK from 1987 to 1989 and rejoined the National Ballet Company in 1990. The following year, she retired from the National Ballet Company after performing the role of Kitri in "Don Quixote." Afterwards, she trained future dancers at Cheongju University and Dongduk Women's University before going back to Russia in 1999 to study ballet pedagogy.

At a secondhand bookstore in Moscow, Russia, she was amazed and envious to find extensive writings on ballet. The ballet materials in Russia were so vast that she could even find records about her mentor, Teacher Im Seong-nam. Im Seong-nam learned ballet in Japan and returned to Korea in 1956, becoming the first director of the National Ballet Company and contributing to the development of ballet in Korea. He was also Professor Kim's head teacher during her time at Yewon School.

"After Teacher Im Seong-nam brought ballet back and following the establishment of diplomatic relations between Korea and Russia in 1990, Korean dancers began to enter Russia and seriously study ballet, leading to a leap in the development of Korean ballet. Now, many dancers are active in world-class ballet companies and have achieved remarkable results. However, research should now focus not only on the external aspects of ballet but also on its rich spiritual and cultural assets. I believe this is just the beginning."

Professor Kim said ballet is ultimately a "story," making it easy to approach. "Fairy tales and characters passed down from long ago are embedded in ballet. There is no more effective tool than ballet to convey those stories. People think ballet requires first thinking about the dancer's body and enduring pain, but ballet shows stories inherent in humans. Ballet contains countless stories. It should not only showcase technical aspects but also allow people to see ballet from various perspectives through diverse stories. Ballet should make people feel that it can also satisfy the humanities."

Professor Kim is still an active ballerina on stage. Next month, she is scheduled to appear as the innkeeper in "Les Mis?rables," a performance prepared by her juniors. She continues to learn ballet through different roles. In 2003, she performed as Princess Bathilde, the fianc?e of the male lead Albrecht, in "Giselle" at the request of Moon Hoon-sook, director of the Universal Ballet Company. Having always played the lead role of Giselle, this was a new experience for her. "Becoming Bathilde on stage and watching Giselle gave me a very different feeling about 'Giselle.'"

Professor Kim also dreams of being an eternal active dancer. In her book, while explaining "The Nutcracker," she mentions the legendary Russian ballerina Maya Plisetskaya. During her studies in Moscow, Russia, she saw Plisetskaya dance well past the age of 70. She described Plisetskaya's death as follows.

"Plisetskaya died happily(?) of a heart attack while preparing for her 90th birthday gala concert in 2015."