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Prof Joo Ick Kim, California State University - 22 June

Prof Joo Ick Kim
© Richard Finkelstein

If someone wanted an Asian model of brains, understanding and ease amongst artists and other humans, Joo Ick Kim is an ideal candidate. Hae Shik Kim, his wife and the South Korean juror for the VII International Ballet Competition, once told me that Joo (Joe to those unfamiliar with the Korean language) Is frequently mistaken for a roving diplomat. Tall and handsome may be part of the reason, but considering the role he has played for Hae Shik since she started her second career in the Korean ballet world, the label is quite an apt one.

Over eggplant sandwiches at the Mississippi Art Museum’s Palette Restaurant, staffed largely by volunteers, I asked Joo when he started attending ballet performances. "It was when I was dating Hae Shik And she was dancing with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. The ballet I saw was called Hip and Straight. I never saw her dance as The Acid Queen in Tommy, although I did see the ballet with someone else. In those days my interest was equally divided between good dinner parties and good ballet. Hae Shik was dancing when I went to a good dinner party," and Joo emitted his hearty, gleeful laugh animating his face. "Hae Shik didn’t like that."

"To tell you the truth, I didn’t like ballet that much," Joo remarked. The interest was the result of his courtship of Hae Shik. "After six months, we got married in a Western style wedding." Hae Shik joined him in Fresno, California, known one time as ‘The Raisin Capital of the World,’ and now known to many U.S. citizens and residents where they send their annual tax returns. California State University, Fresno is a metamorphosis from first a normal school and then a State College, producing schoolteachers in a city centrally located in California’s San Joaquin Valley. Joo joined the Fresno State University faculty in 1970.

Hae Shik taught ballet in Fresno for seventeen years, and her presence in Fresno, gave Fresno Civic Ballet the chance to produce a full-length Nutcracker, using her as The Sugar Plum Fairy. Prior to her arrival as Joo’s wife, the company limited their production to the first act.

Hae Shik’s presence was just one of the changes Joo’s presence made possible. He also started and directs The Center for Korea Studies at Fresno State University. This University-based vehicle helps to sponsor cultural and scholastic exchange with Korea within colleges and universities. The Center was responsible for bringing Maeja Kim’s Chung Mu Korean Dance Ensemble to California in the late ‘80’s.

Then, in January, 1993, Hae Shik received an invitation to assume the direction of the Korean National Ballet in Seoul. Joo went with her to the interview, which Hae Shik characterized as "the American way" In contrast to the bureaucratic style of the Korean Government, still influenced by the Confucian principles in place during the Choson Dynasty.

Joo did more than simply sit with Hae Shik for her interview. He organized the first private sector support group for the arts in Korea. "Before this, anything financed by the Government could not get private support. With the help of the late Lee Soo Jung, then Minister of Culture, I broke that barrier, and this practice has moved in to other fields."

"My wife taught me how to appreciate ballet, and I started to enjoy good ballet. I started to realize it is the ultimate artistic expression of the beauty of movement and feeling in the human body."

Joo was an avid member of the audience at the 1998 Jackson Competition, and didn’t miss a session. He said, "I saw all 326 performances given by the dancers." He also watched the rehearsals of Kim Ji YOung, The young Vaganova-trained Korean dancer who came away with the senior women’s Bronze Medal, a Korean first, to which she added a Gold Medal with her partner in Paris. < Ji Young has recently joined the Dutch National Ballet.>

Attendance and Korean National Ballet support are not the only activities Joo has to his ballet credits. He personally negotiated and arranged for American Ballet Theatre’s first visit to Korea in 1997. "We had seen The Royal Ballet and The Bolshoi in Seoul, but had never had a major American company.

I decided we should get the best American companies there. I had arranged for San Francisco Ballet to follow this year, but their Japanese arrangements fell through, so we couldn’t bring them."

Joo’s personal background is equally impressive and unusual. A graduate of Seoul National University In agricultural engineering, Joo worked in a Korean bank two years before spending four years in Haifa, Israel at The Israel Institute of Technology. "I was the first Korean to attend the Institute and receive a degree. I was so impressed by what I saw there. Their library was open twenty-four hours a day. And I learned a most valuable lesson there: to work hard."

After Israel, Joo traveled to Vancouver, British Columbia, where he received his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at the University of British Columbia. "It’s the nicest city in Canada." After this seven year study, Joo joined the Fresno State University Faculty.

When I asked Joo how he came to specialize in the subject of mushroom culture, he said, " With my assistant I developed a mushroom harvester. We hold a U.S. patent on it. A company has been interested in purchasing it, but there is a problem. The culture practice of mushrooms has to be modified. They need to grow in rows for the harvester to be effective in a limited customer market." He looked at me and grinned. "The problem is that Mother Nature is harder to control," and emitted the wonderful Joo Ick Kim chortle.

Back to supporting ballet, Joo said that raising funds was simple for him, "My classmates were presidents of the five major Korean banks. I went to them when Hae Shik became artistic director of the Korean National Ballet. I simply shifted my source of financial support for the Center to the ballet company. There are about a thousand Koreans in Fresno, many of them physicians. But the Center’s support came from Korea."

With such support, Joo’s inimitable laugh, and open appreciation of skill, any dancer should perform better knowing Joo Ick Kim is in the audience.

This piece is part of Ballet.co's overall Jackson Competition coverage. The competition runs from the 15th to the 30th June 2002 and we plan daily reports to keep you in touch:
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