[News Figures] Ballerina Kang Miseon Wins 'Academy Award of the Dance World'

'Working Mom' Ballerina... Learning Ballet Since Age 8
Active for 21 Years at 'Universal Ballet Company'

Kang Mi-seon (40), principal dancer of the Universal Ballet Company, received the Benois de la Danse award for Best Female Dancer, known as the 'Academy Award' of the dance world.

The Benois de la Danse organizing committee held an awards ceremony on the 20th (local time) at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, Russia, selecting Universal Ballet's principal dancer Kang Mi-seon and China National Ballet's Zhu Yunting as joint winners of the Best Female Dancer award.

Celebrating its 31st anniversary this year, the Benois de la Danse is called the 'Academy Award of the dance world.' Established in 1991 by the Russian headquarters of the International Dance Association to honor ballet reformer Jean-Georges Noverre (1727?1810), the awards began the following year. Each year, works from world-class ballet companies are judged to select the best male and female dancers, choreographers, composers, and others.

Ballerina Kang Mi-seon. Photo by Universal Ballet Company

Kang Mi-seon earned the honor for her role as a widow who lost her husband in the ballet 'Mirinaegil,' performed at the National Theater in March. She is the fifth Korean recipient of the award. Before Kang Mi-seon, ballerinas Kang Sue-jin (1999), Kim Joo-won (2006), ballerino Kim Ki-min (2016), and ballerina Park Se-eun (2018) received this award.

Kang Mi-seon is known to have started ballet at the age of eight. She entered Sunhwa Arts Middle School and gained attention by winning the President's Award at the 1997 Korea Ballet Association Competition. After completing Sunhwa Arts High School in just one year, she graduated from the Kirov Academy in Washington, USA, then returned to Korea and joined Universal Ballet, one of Korea's two major ballet companies alongside the National Ballet Company, as a trainee in 2002, where she has been active for 21 years.

She progressed from corps de ballet dancer to demi-soloist (2005?2006), soloist (2006?2010), senior soloist (2010?2012), and was promoted to principal dancer in 2012.

Universal Ballet principal dancer Kang Mi-sun. Photo by Universal Ballet

Kang Mi-seon's husband is also a dancer. He is Konstantin Novoselov, a Russian national. They met at Universal Ballet, were both promoted to principal dancers in 2012, and married in 2013. The two reportedly grew closer while performing 'The Nutcracker' together at the end of 2008.

According to an anecdote Kang Mi-seon shared in a 2015 interview with the 'Korea Daily,' she was struggling with frequent mistakes during that performance, and Konstantin came over to comfort her a lot. This led to their closeness and eventual marriage. After giving birth to a son in October 2021, Kang Mi-seon returned to the stage just five months later. Currently, her fans cheer her on, calling her 'god Mi-seon' and 'working mom dancer.'

Kang Mi-seon has performed the entire repertoire of the ballet company, ranging from full-length ballets such as 'Swan Lake,' 'Giselle,' 'Don Quixote,' 'La Bayad?re,' 'Onegin,' 'Romeo and Juliet,' 'Simcheong,' and 'Chunhyang,' to modern works like Nacho Duato's 'Multiplicity' and Raymond Leveck's 'White Sleep.'