A Heavenly Ballet Performed in Seoul

Seoul falls in love with ‘ballet.’

‘The 2002 International Ballet Stars Invitation Performance’ at the Opera Theater in the Art Center at 7pm on the 27th and 28th featuring fantastic ‘pas de deux (duet dance)’ by the ‘excellent dancers’ from Korea and overseas such as Paloma Harera and Marchello Gomez of the American Ballet Theater, Agnes Leteste and Hose Martinez of the Paris Opera Ballet Company, and Kim Ju-won of the National Ballet Company of Korea.

This stage, which is cosponsored by the Dong-Ah Ilbo and the World Dance Center, will feature highlights of ballet masterpieces such as ‘Giselle,’ ‘Don Quixote,’ ‘Swan Lake,’ ‘Esmeralda,’ and ‘Romeo and Juliet’ performed by 16 ballet stars who will dance in pairs.

Paloma Herera is an excellent ballerina, who was born in Argentina in 1975, and she joined the one of the top three ballet companies in the world, the American Ballet Theater at age of 15, and set a record by being the youngest leading dancer at age of 19 in 1999. He worked with famous choreographers such as John Cellya and Nacho Duato, and worked as a visiting dancer at the New York City Ballet and the Moscow Ballet.

He was also selected as ‘one of the 30 artists who will change the cultural society for the next 30 years’ by the New York Times in 1994, and selected as ‘one of the leaders of the new millennium’ by Time and CNN in 1999.

He will provide the essence of sadly beautiful dance by performing duet dances from ‘Esmeralda’ and ‘the Pirates’ with his partner Marchello Gomez.

Agnes Leteste also is a person who attracts the dance fans’ attention no less than Paloma Herera. He, who won the gold medal at the Varna International Dance Concur, joined the Paris Opera Ballet Company in 1987 and still keeps his position as the leading dance since 1997. We can expect some brilliant techniques from ‘Black Bird’ and ‘In the Middle’ from ‘Swan Lake,’ which will be performed by him and Hose Martinez.

It is worth to see the stage of Korean dancers, who got attentions from the world dance society. Kim Yong-geol, who gained public favor when he appeared at the recently played ‘Don Quixote’, will pair up with the National Ballet Theater leading dancer Kim, Ju-Won, who won the gold award from the Dong-Ah Dance Concur in 1996, and perform ‘Don Quixote’ and ‘Romeo and Juliet.’

The only Korean dancer of the Russian Bolshoi Ballet, Bae Ju-yoon, will show fantastic dance movements in ‘Granpa Classic’ and ‘Mozart’ with Ivanof Constantin of the Kirof Ballet Company.

The San Francisco Ballet Company leading dancer Yuan Yuan Ten and Lohmann Lykin, who are scheduled to perform the duet dance from ‘Esmeralda’, are multinational dancers. The gold award winner of the Swiss Lausanne Ballet Concur in 1993, Lohmann Lykin is from Russia and the winner of the junior division of the Paris International Ballet Concur in 1992, Yuan Yuan Ten is from China. They appeared in the Gala performance stage together in Shanghai, China, which was the hometown of Yuan Yuan Ten in 1998.

Besides them, Lunkina Swettlana (Bolshoi Ballet), Yulia mahali (Kirof Ballet Company), Hwang Hye-min and Um Jae-yong (Universal Ballet Company) will be featured.

On the other hand, it is regretful that the German Stuttgart Ballet Company leading dancer Kang Su-jin is not able to join because of her performance schedule although she originally was planning to participate.

The president of the World Dance League Korea Headquarter Kim Hye-sik (Dean of Dance School, Korea Art Academy) said, “It is a rare stage that features a performance by the leading dancers from the world,” and “it will be a place to see how the world ballet is being changed.”

Ticket prices are from 30,000 won to 150,000 won.

For more information, call 02-2020-1620, 1588-7890

Tae-Hun Hwang beetlez@donga.com