Born in Seoul, Korea, Choi Jayeon trained at Sunhwa Arts High School and later graduated from Ewha Womans University and joined Korea National Ballet. She danced with Hong Kong Ballet as LinaBell in StellaLou’s Wonderful Wishes Ballet in 2024 and became a Corps de Ballet member the same year. With Korea National Ballet, she performed in Don Quixote, Le Corsaire, Giselle, and Nutcracker.   

Dancer Q&A

1. Why do you dance?
I feel alive when I dance. Maybe I love ballet.

2. What does ballet mean to you?
     For me, ballet is one of the things that helps me to find the meaning of life. When I was 21, I felt bored with my life and couldn’t find the meaning of life, and then I quit the ballet for two months. After two months, I tried to take a ballet class for my health, and I felt again that ballet makes me feel alive. 

3. Why did you start dancing?
  When I was five years old, my mom brought me to the ballet academy to get in shape. At that time, I participated in the competition at the teacher’s recommendation, and my parents saw my eyes moving alive on the stage, so it was a hard decision, but I finally decided to major (in it) at the age of 11. 

4. What was the first ballet you ever performed?
  When I was six years old, I went on a performance tour for the church from a ballet academy, and that was the first ballet performance I did. It was a Christian repertoire. 

5. What is the most challenging ballet you have danced and what made it so challenging? 
   The most challenging ballet was StellaLou Wonderful Wishes Ballet by Hong Kong Ballet. I had to play a cute role that I had never played before, so I thought a lot about expressing the characters. Thanks to this performance, I learned a lot, and I found a way to have fun on the stage. 

6. Most memorable/weird onstage moment and why? 
   When I was 21 years old, I participated in a very famous competition in Korea. At that time, I was doing Don Quixote’s Act 3 Kitri solo, but the music was wrong, so I remember doing six jetes that should only have been three. 

7. How do you unwind after a show?
  I just lay down, take my time, relax my muscles using the foam roller and the gua sha and take a shower with hot water. 

8. What attribute do you most like about yourself? 
I think the attribute that I mostly like about myself is to have patience and tenacity to reach the goal to the end.

9. What keeps you motivated on tough days?
  Just doing it first and keep moving helps to motivate me. Or when I feel so confused about something, I sit down and write in my diary. Sometimes that helps me.

10. What place do you feel most yourself?
     My home in Korea is the place where I feel mostly ‘me’. 

11. If you could have one more talent, what would it be? 
  I want to have flexibility. I think I have elastic muscles, but I don’t have enough flexibility. So if I don’t relax my body well, I don’t feel comfortable when I’m doing adagio, especially raising my legs. My muscles feel stuck to each other. 

12. What is your favourite food?
  My favourite food is Korean food that my mom makes for me, and I like Korean barbecue.

13. What would you be if you were not a dancer? 
   If I couldn’t be a dancer, I think I would have been a ballet teacher. If I hadn’t done ballet at all, I might have studied hard and entered a big company like Samsung and Google and worked in front of the computer. 

14. What’s your clothing style?
   I like to give points while being simple, giving the points like tone-on-tone, accessories, socks, shoes, and jewelry.

15. What are your hobbies?
  My hobby is lying down and watching Netflix or Disney+, or I like to listen to my favourite music while driving.

16. What is your favourite movie/book? 
 My favourite book is Jane Eyre. It’s a book that tells me what love is like, and my favourite movie is Howl’s Moving Castle. It reminds me of my childhood, and I like the unique vibes of Ghibli Studios. 

17. What is the most interesting place you have ever visited or want to visit? 
  The places that I want to visit are Nice and the outskirts of France. I want to relax and stay in a beautiful beach house a little bit out of the crowded area. 

18. What is the coolest thing about being a dancer? 
  The coolest thing about being a dancer is that you can dance anywhere in the world. If you can speak a little, you can travel and work anywhere. 

19. If you could have a super power, what would it be?
 I want to have the superpower that I and the people around me don’t get sick. I don’t think there is anything more important in life than health. It’s because food, clothing, and housing are all (important) to live a healthy life. 

20. Who is your favourite dancer who has inspired you? 
  My favourite dancer who has inspired me is my arts high school instructor, because she loves ballet, and she taught me how to dance ballet. She was a principal dancer at a ballet company in the western United States, and now teaches children in the arts high school. When I see her researching and thinking, I’m still getting a lot of inspiration from her.