Ten hours of struggle, mirrors covered: Inside Seoul Ballet's audition

"Move hazily, like a person shrouded in fog. Pull your left arm in and bring it forward as fast as you can."

As Orly Kaila, the stager for world-renowned choreographer Jiří Kylián, demonstrated each movement and called out instructions, some 40 audition candidates reshaped their bodies moment by moment. It was a Korean premiere of a Kylián work — something none of them had ever danced before. "Keep your posture while standing upright. Undulate like seaweed. Sink as if giving up, and the moment you arrive, push your left leg forward."

Dance is not a series of disconnected movements. It is a continuous flow that surges and recedes like the tide, each gesture gliding into the next. The dozens of dancers were still finding their own way. The angle of a supporting leg, the arc of a swinging arm — each was different. Then Kaila's voice cut through again, as the dancers spread their legs wide in a squat-like stance, sank toward the floor and rose again, held up by a firm core.

"The movement starts from the pelvis, from the core. Falling and rising — don't forget!"

Just as Kaila finished her feedback, one dancer lost her balance. Unable to overcome the friction between her socks and the floor, she lurched as if about to slip. Far from flustered, she gave a sheepish smile and immediately repeated the movement, etching the dance into her body.

The scene unfolded at the Seoul Metropolitan Ballet's rehearsal studio on Nodeul Island. Selected from 138 applicants representing 23 countries — through both in-person and video screenings — the candidates were absorbing a master's masterpiece with every fiber of their bodies. Their task was singular: to make this dance, first performed Thursday, their own — and to do it faster than the dancer beside them.

Of the 138 total applicants, 49 held foreign citizenship.

Despite being a fledgling company marking only its second anniversary, the Seoul Metropolitan Ballet has built a reputation among dancers worldwide. In Korea, it launched carrying the symbolic weight of being the first contemporary company among public ballet troupes — and it has moved differently from the rest. Breaking into a field dominated by companies with long histories and deep traditions is no easy feat for a newcomer.

From its founding year, the Seoul Metropolitan Ballet steadily brought world-class choreographers to its stage, beginning with an original work by choreographer Ju Jae-man. When established names were reluctant to entrust their works to an unproven new company, Hans van Manen — the choreographic titan behind Nederlands Dans Theater — stepped forward and offered his hand.

Ahn Ho-sang, president of the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts, recalled the early struggle. "Before the company was even founded, we were reaching out to choreographers, and everyone asked for dancer references. We had nothing to show because we hadn't hired anyone yet, and we kept getting turned down — until Hans van Manen, who passed away last December, gave us his approval," he said. "After that, we were able to collaborate with world-class choreographers like Ohad Naharin and Johan Inger, and that's what allowed the Seoul Metropolitan Ballet to establish itself so quickly."

Staging works by master choreographers is a premium in itself — and that is precisely why the Seoul Metropolitan Ballet has become a coveted stage among dancers. It offers the chance to perform the works of the greats, but even those who do not make the final cast gain something rare: the opportunity to learn those works through the audition process itself. Applicants who flew in from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Switzerland, France, Mongolia and elsewhere made up 35 percent of all candidates.

Daniel Couvre (29), a Swiss-born dancer who spent eight years with professional companies in San Francisco and Texas, said he first learned about the Seoul Metropolitan Ballet through a stager for Christian Spuck. "I had never heard of it since it was a new company, but it had a repertoire that any dancer would want to perform, so I applied," he said. "I saw it as a rare opportunity to grow just by learning from outstanding choreographers during the audition." Spuck recently worked with the Seoul Metropolitan Ballet on "Death and the Maiden."

Of the 43 dancers — five of them foreign — who advanced from the first round, roughly half face elimination. The final competition ratio stands at about seven to one. The second round takes an approach rarely seen at established ballet companies: it simultaneously selects around 20 seasonal dancers while allowing the four choreographers whose works will be staged next season to cast performers for their own pieces. Each stager conducts a two-and-a-half-hour session with the candidates, observing their abilities in close detail. All applicants start on equal footing — their first task is to learn, during the audition itself, dances that most of the 40-odd candidates have never performed before. The four choreographers then review footage of the process and choose their dancers.

Three walls of the audition studio were draped in black cloth. With the mirrors blocked, the dancers lost their visual anchor and faced the disorientation of being unable to check their own bodies and movements.

For dancers accustomed to constant self-monitoring in the mirror, it was an unfamiliar experience. Kaila explained the deliberate choice: "I covered the mirrors so that dancers would understand movement from within their bodies, rather than checking what they look like from the outside. It's not about looking pretty — it's about knowing what state you're in on the inside."

The audition was not looking for someone who excels from the outset. "I focused on how much a dancer changed between learning the first steps and the end of the session," Kaila said. "What matters is how well they absorb the information given and how quickly they can transform it and make it their own." The goal, she emphasized, is to find "not someone who already knows everything, but someone with the potential to develop and grow."

Ivan Dubreuil, the stager for choreographer Johan Inger's work set to be staged next year, offered a similar view. "Dance is a language," he said. "What the Seoul Metropolitan Ballet must do is not stay within the single language of ballet, but create new physical languages. What matters is not someone who only speaks ballet, but someone who can absorb multiple languages, apply them to their own body, and generate something new."

Both evaluators trained their eyes not on the finished product but on the process of change, watching each dancer with hawk-like attention. Natural talents stood out wherever they looked — not dancers mechanically copying the roughly three minutes of movement the stager demonstrated, but those in whom an inner sense of agency suddenly erupted into dance.

"A dancer's height, arm length, proportions — the aesthetic elements — are not important," Kaila said. "We look at the quality and direction of the movement we propose, the intensity of the energy, responsiveness and precision. What matters is the energy a dancer's body produces and the feeling that energy conveys."

Fundamentals still matter, of course. Given the company's identity as a ballet troupe, female dancers were assessed on their foundational ability to command the stage in pointe shoes. All dancers were also expected to demonstrate physical control — stable feet and hips, a strong core, and the ability to carve out their own space. "What counts most in the studio is how quickly you perceive and absorb something new," Dubreuil said. "We were not testing technique — we were observing learning ability and speed of response."

The Seoul Metropolitan Ballet's audition was neither a mechanical entry test nor an exercise in finding the right answer. It was far from a hiring call for finished dancers. Through a grueling ten-hour ordeal, the company searched for seeds — dancers who had not yet bloomed but carried within them the potential to flower brilliantly one day. The two evaluators, too, were less interested in casting dancers who fit neatly into their own works than in finding raw material that could enrich the soil of a young company still taking root.

"Running a dance company is like tending a garden," Dubreuil said. "Looking for one person who fits perfectly into a specific work is seeking only a single, narrow dance language. Even if you don't know what flower will bloom right away, the focus was on planting strong seeds — finding people who can flourish in many different ways within the ecosystem of a ballet company over a long time."

The Seoul Metropolitan Ballet is cultivating a new garden of contemporary dance in a Korean ballet world long dominated by the classical tradition. Audiences have already begun to embrace it. In just two years since its founding, the company has surpassed a cumulative audience of 25,000. Average seat occupancy has reached about 86 percent. "In the Bamboo Forest," a new work by choreographer Kang Hyo-hyung staged last May, set an all-time high of 98.7 percent. It is a sign that this ecosystem has taken root in once-barren ground.

Thursday's audition was the occasion for discovering the people who will shape the company's next two years. "Through dancers who can create new languages," Dubreuil said, "we will be able to build a dance ecosystem that goes beyond one language and speaks more than 20."