WHO WE ARE

My name is SoEun Park and I'm a sophomore at Harvard College concentrating in Government and Sociology. There are a lot of things that I enjoy doing and appreciate, but the something that brings me the most joy is ballet. I started ballet from the time I was six when I was in Korea, and I fell in love with it after I saw the ballet Giselle and started taking classes. 

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Even after I moved to Michigan, I still continued to take ballet classes, perform on numerous stages, and go to competitions. I go to an amazing ballet school, Valentina's School of Ballet, where so many of my experiences, memories, and friends have blossomed from. Despite my love for ballet, there was one thing that bothered me about the ballet community. It was the implication of racism and microaggressions that you see in the ballet world, particularly in competitions and companies.

It is indisputable that ballet has a diversity problem. The majority of dancers in companies and competitions are not dancers of color. In classes or master classes, I was often one of the few dancers who was a dancer of color.  My parents told me that I had to do way better than other dancers to overcome the obstacles in ballet, just because of my ethnicity and how I looked like. Often, I would see dancers of color getting lower scores even though they seemed to have performed better because of their “body” or the “judges preferences".” Having seen and experienced these indirectly, I felt frustrated and defeated. 

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In the ballet community and even society in general, I realized that the repeating circle of racial inequality creates disparities of opportunities, which also contributes to racism, discrimination, and disadvantages of intersectionality to be omnipresent. For example, when minority groups are in poverty and can't afford their children to go to ballet lessons, the children can't train their technique and performance in order to be ballet dancers.

Meanwhile, people with better financial situations are able to send their children to ballet schools so that they have a higher chance of becoming professional dancers if they want to. This repeats in cycles for the next generation and then the next. Stereotypes and prejudices don't help in creating a diverse community in the ballet world either. This allowed me to give me hindsight on how grateful I should be and how much privilege I have in just being able to do something I truly love: ballet. 

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This is why I created this program Stairway for Ballet. The mission of this program is to help eliminate racism and break stereotypes in the ballet community by advocating for change in inequality in the ballet community and providing a free online ballet program for children ages 5-10, especially those who can't afford it. We are currently holding summer program and intensives every year for these students. 

In addition, podcasts will be posted monthly on podcasts apps such as Spotify, Anchor, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Apple Podcasts, and so on as well as on this website. Our goal for the podcasts is to advocate for more diversity and change with real stories and by interviewing professional ballet dancers and students about their experiences on racism in ballet and what actions we can take for change. You can also check out some of the petitions to sign on MoveOn and YouTube videos that highlight ballet positions, conditioning, stretch that will donate the revenue to social organizations working against racial inequality. 

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Stairway For Ballet emerged out of a pursuit to inspire and support the racial justice community, and a desire for actions to speak louder than words for the ballet world. Established in 2020, we are now a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization driven by progressive ideas, bold actions, and a strong foundation of support. Contact us to learn more and get involved.