Yun Byul Ballet Company, which drew wide attention with its original work "GAT," is staging a new contemporary ballet with Kim Yu-chan, a star dancer who rose to fame on the dance survival show "Stage Fighter." The piece draws on "The Planets," the orchestral suite by British composer Gustav Holst, to explore the cosmos, humanity and the meaning of relationships through dance.
The Yeongdeungpo Cultural Foundation said the company's new work, "The Earth: us," will premiere Nov. 28-29 at Yeongdeungpo Art Hall in Seoul. It is the first full-length original ballet directed and choreographed by Kim, and 26 dancers will appear on stage.
The work begins from Holst's orchestral suite. The imagery and musical character of each planet, from Mercury to Neptune, are expressed through the dancers' movements. Tracing orbits at different speeds, the dancers draw close and move apart, pulling and pushing one another to form new relationships. Speed and collision, attraction and expansion — the motions of the universe are rendered in the language of the body. A gaze turned toward the vast cosmos finally returns to Earth and to the humans who live on it together.
Kim, the choreographer, reached the final 12 on Mnet's dance survival program "Stage Fighter" and won first place in the senior division of the Youth America Grand Prix, an international ballet competition. After showing his potential as a choreographer in a gala performance last year, he is taking on a full-length work for the first time. He plans to unfold his own choreographic world, weaving together not only the movement of individual dancers but also the relationships between bodies and the structure of paths and space into a single world.
Yun Byul Ballet Company is a young private ballet troupe that gained notice for "GAT," an original ballet reinterpreting the traditional Korean gat hat through contemporary ballet. "GAT" sold out and traveled to overseas stages including Thailand and Hong Kong. The company has drawn particular interest from audiences in their 20s and 30s, helped by the prominence of dancers who appeared on "Stage Fighter." The new production features 26 dancers, including artistic director Yun Byul, Kim Yu-chan, Kang Kyung-ho, Jung Sung-wook, Park So-yeon and Lee Eun-su.
The work was selected for a 2026 program supporting distinctive programming at regional arts centers and is co-produced by Yeongdeungpo Art Hall and Yun Byul Ballet Company. It is also notable as a case in which a venue and a private arts group have worked together from the creative stage to bring out a new piece.
"Yun Byul Ballet Company reinterprets tradition with a contemporary sensibility and is reaching new audiences, showing clear potential as a creative group," an official at the Yeongdeungpo Cultural Foundation said. "We will continue to support and collaborate on new work so that artists can take on new challenges and residents can experience a wide range of performing arts close to home."
Performances begin at 6 p.m. on the 28th and 5 p.m. on the 29th. The show is open to viewers aged 12 and over, and all seats are priced at 50,000 won.