Introduction
With the long history and tradition ballet has, it is not surprising that there are strict restrictions on those who want to become a professional ballet dancer. However this leads to modern ballet practices being based on the ideals of the past which are based on racist ideology, claiming that those with darker skin are not delicate or graceful enough to do ballet. With the recent rise of Asian ballet dancers this starts to push the boundaries of who can be considered a professional dancer. One of these dancers is a korean named Hee Seo. With her talent and determination leading her to becoming the first asian principal dancer at American Ballet Theatre, ABT, Studio Company. With her being the few asian principal dancers, she is able to show the younger generations of asians that they are also able to become a professional ballet dancer through their own talent and determination. That this profession is also an option for them as well and not only for caucasians. This in turn brings more people to ballet who’s talent may have been hidden if they have never been introduced to ballet. There needs to be more representation within the ballet world in order to cultivate the best possible talent no matter their race.
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| (curtain call for The Moor's Pavane on 8 November 2013) |
Biographical Information
Hee Seo was born in Seoul, Korea in 1986. Her parents put her and her younger brother in swimming classes wanting them to do physical workouts when they were younger. After trying out swimming, Hee Seo learned that she wanted to do something else so her parents put her in ballet classes at the age of 12. This age is considered a late start in the ballet world. After three months of training she received a letter from Sun Hwa Arts claiming that they are in search of a new talented dancer and is holding a competition for new potential dancers to attend the school. Since Hee Seo was the student president at her elementary school, the school president asked her if she would like to enter this competition and she agreed. After her mom allowed her to enter the competition, Hee Seo decided to audition and she was chosen to attend Sun-Hwa Arts Middle School on a scholarship. Even though she had little to no basic training before the audition, the judges saw something in her that she herself did not see. Since the Universal Ballet Academy in Washington D.C and the Sun Hwa Arts Middle School were sister schools, the Washington director came to visit Seoul and after seeing Hee Seo in class she was then offered another scholarship to perform in Washington. Hee Seo wanting to travel the world agreed to this offer with her parents allowing her to go try it out and if she didn’t like it could come back to Korea. At the age of 13 she attended Universal Ballet Academy in Washington D.C where she trained under Mariinsky ballerina Alla Sizova. At this point Hee seo started liking ballet due to people giving her attention and calling her pretty with the added benefit of being able to travel the world, but after seeing an amazing dancer at the ABT she started to understand that she could do this as a career.
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| (Hee Seo in La Bayadere)
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Career Highlights
After winning the Prix de Lausanne Award in 2003, Stuttgart Ballet director Reid Anderson invited her to attend the John Cranko Ballet Academy in Germany receiving both American and European training. In the same year she then won the Grand Prix at Youth America Grand Prix in New York. John Meehan, the then director of the ABT Studio Company, invited her to come to New York after her year in Germany. Even though Hee Seo admired the dramatic ballets that John Cranko made, her love of classical ballet made her choose to go to ABT instead. With the ABT Studio Company having many shows throughout the year it came to a surprise to her the fast pace the dancers needed to master multiple roles, realizing what she was lacking she started to work on her learning speed proving to herself and those around her that she can handle the workload. After spending a year as an apprentice she became a member of the corps in the spring of 2006. Then in 2010 she became a soloist performing in soloist roles in ballets such as Ballo della Regina and Tudor’s Dark Elegies. With her also making her debut as Juliet on her birthday in March 2009. She also played leads in “Bournoville’s La Sylphide, Ratmansky’s On the Dnieper, and Kudelka’s Desir” (Heavenly Lee). Then in August 2010 she got promoted but finally in 2012 she got promoted to principal dancer. With her still being a principal dancer at the ABT till this day.
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| (Seo curtain call for Romeo and Juliet, 19 June 2015) |
Three Interesting Facts
With there being many ballet dancers in the world, it can be hard to stand out against the crowd but Hee Seo's way of dancing showcases her feminine strength, the ability to embody a woman and a child while she dances. She is able to do this since she takes extra time to make sure she knows the character that she is playing. As when she performed in Swan Lake she actually started with being a peasant, then she played the aristocrat, then one of the soloist roles as one of the swans. When she finally played the main role she knew the ballet inside out, she believes this deep understanding of the story allowed her to put more layers into the way she portrayed the main role in Swan Lake once she became a principal dancer. Not only that but she also believes that in order for a dancer to perform a role they need to have imagination. With her even claiming that what makes an artist is their imagination.
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| (Hee Seo rehearsing “The Sleeping Beauty” with David Hallberg at American Ballet Theater’s studios)
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Since ballet has a lot of mime throughout the dance each movement has a meaning behind it Hee Seo makes sure that every step she takes has meaning to convey to the audience. Before she performed in Swan Lake, when Hee Seo was a soloist she “had many recurring injuries due to the instability in her ankle, preventing her from making her scheduled debuts in The Nutcracker and The Bright Stream” (Heavenly Lee). In order to keep herself in the best condition she does light weightlifting. This not only keeps her ankle in good shape but also makes sure that her figure is in perfect shape as well. As she also believes that a dancer needs to have a certain look physically and has the mental strength it takes to become a professional.
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| (American Ballet Theatre dancer Hee Seo, here with Marcelo Gomes in “Swan Lake”) |
Conclusion
At ABT with there being an increase of imported stars, with Hee Seo working her way up from the Studio company to the main company shows that hard work does pay off as she has proved it herself as a homegrown dancer. Not only that but with her starting later than most of her peers it shows others that it is never too late to start even if it’s later than some. After being the first Asian principal dancer at ABT this shows the younger generations of Asians that they are also able to achieve a career in ballet. With the younger generation being able to have someone to look up to if they did want to pursue ballet as a career. The power of representation within art is important as it gives those that otherwise wouldn’t have been represented to be seen and heard. As in this case, it allows asians to be seen within the world of ballet and be given a chance to showcase their skills which would have otherwise been overlooked. Not only that but by allowing one minority to be included then this would soon open up to more minorities allowing for more representation for others and not only for asians. However with ballet starting to include more asian representation, it needs to be taken into account that most asians can fit into the european standard of beauty and can be white passing. Instead of trying to break the colorist tradition and standard that is heavily implemented into ballet, allowing asians to join simply appeases those that want more diversity within ballet while still upholding their colorist ideals. The ballet community simply extends their range of which race is considered “white”. Even though the ballet community is still upholding their colorist tradition, by starting to reach out to other races is a first step that can eventually lead to ballet stopping their colorist traditions. Hee Seo is also trying to get more representation within ballet by creating a nonprofit foundation named Hee Seo Foundation which grants ten dance students the ability to go to a company affiliated school.
A Conversation with Hee Seo, The Korea Society, 24 Sept. 2020, www.koreasociety.org/arts- culture/item/1425-a-conversation-with-hee-seo.
Heavenly Hee written by Kina Poon, fl. 2007; edited by Wendy Perron, fl. 2004; in Dance Magazine, Vol. 87, no. 5, May, 2013 Links to an external site., Dance Magazine Links to an external site., Vol. 87, no. 5, May, 2013 (New York, NY: DanceMedia, 2013, originally published 2013), 24-29
“Hee Seo - Ballet Competition.” Https://Yagp.Org, yagp.org/hee-seo/. Accessed 7 May 2024.
Kourlas, Gia. “A Fresh Perch on the Career Ladder.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 3 May 2013, www.nytimes.com/2013/05/05/arts/dance/hee-seo-american-ballet-theater- principal.html.
Rubin, Hanna. “Why Abt Principal Hee Seo Loves the Art of Giving Back.” Pointe Magazine, 3 July 2021, pointemagazine.com/hee-seo-abt/.
