In June, at 31, she became the first Asian ballerina to be promoted to star in the world's oldest ballet institution, amid growing calls for more diversity and inclusion in the world of classical ballet. 'elite.
Sae Eun Park could not hold back her tears on stage when she received the dedication amidst the audience's ovation, after having played the female lead role of
Romeo and Juliet
.
“A
lot of emotions overlapped - I was so happy, and so grateful, and I realized that such a day could really exist,
” the ballerina told AFP.
Today, along with the Argentine Ludmila Pagliero, she is one of the only two stars born abroad of the famous company founded in 1669. “
I had been waiting for so long, on hot coals, there were moments a little difficult, and I remembered it all at the same time,
”recalls the star.
She thus joined the very closed club of South Korean dancers who perform in the firmament of the largest companies in the world, including Kimin Kim at the Mariinsky Ballet in Saint Petersburg and Hee Seo at the American Ballet Theater.
Read alsoSae Eun Park, first South Korean star to shine at the Paris Opera
The "
queen of competitions
"
Born in Seoul in December 1989, Sae Eun Park trained in the best artistic institutions of South Korea, in the Russian ballet method
Vaganova
, which emphasizes the expression of soul, strength and flexibility.
She knew very little French when she arrived at the age of 21 and had never attended the BOP-affiliated ballet school, which supplies around 90% of its dancers and which favors elegance and precision.
Celebrated as a teenage prodigy, Sae Eun Park was nicknamed the “
queen of competitions
” after winning the Lausanne Grand Prix and the Varna Gold Medal, two important prizes for aspiring ballet dancers. At the time, she was particularly acclaimed for her technical mastery, her jumps and her turns, yet she looked for something more, which she found by drawing inspiration from the videos of the BOP dancers.
She was hired as a supernumerary in the corps de ballet of the Opera just 10 years ago, when she was already a soloist in her country. "
With the Korean National Ballet, I was a soloist and I danced the main roles
", she confided in 2019 to AFP. “I
entered the Opera, I was on a fixed-term contract and I was all the time behind the scenes but I learned a lot
”.
Today praised for its emotional depth and lyricism, she believes that "
French ballet frees you from this feeling of duty, this feeling of having to prove something
" with large and spectacular movements.
Laura Cappelle, a writer specializing in dance based in Paris, praises her “
inner serenity, a gift for slowing down time on stage
”.
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His ascent was halted in 2015, after receiving a heavy kick to the face in a training accident.
She failed the promotion exams that year and fell into depression, for a time avoiding mirrors for fear of seeing her scar.
The only strategy to deal with it was to keep dancing, she said.
A "
white world
"
Unlike the New York-based American Ballet Theater or the Royal Ballet in London, the Paris Opera Ballet has very few foreign dancers.
In February, the Paris Opera commissioned an independent audit which pointed out that only 25 of the 154 performers in the ballet were from abroad.
The institution is "
a white world far removed from what contemporary French society looks like
," said the authors of the report.
The BOP did not respond to multiple requests from AFP.
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Kim Yong-geol, a former South Korean BOP dancer, described the company as a "
cloistered society that prides itself on its tradition
" with a "
ruthless
"
promotion system
. “
It can make you feel completely overwhelmed,
” he says. “
The very last survivors of this grueling process are becoming stars. I think she accomplished something impossible.
"
Sae Eun Park admits to having at times wondered if the fact of being Asian would not deprive her of her chances, in a climate of fierce competition between dancers within the troop.
Gavin Larsen, author of “
Being a Ballerina
”, describes Sae Eun Park as an “
important artist for our time
”.
"
His choice to explore beyond his native culture, both in ballet and everyday life, shows his willingness to be vulnerable - which is the only way to be for a true artist,
" a she told AFP.