Ji Woo-Young (born 1969, Seoul) is a South Korean ballet dancer and choreographer, and the founder of Shahar Dance Theatre. She studied classical ballet in Sunhwa Art School and Suwon University, and continued her further research in Staatliche Hochschule fur Musik and Theater Hannover, which had one of five dance departments as a national unsiversites, and got her Master’s degree in dance practice (Buehentanz) there. During this era, she was invited to Oxford University by The Korean Scientists and Engineers Association in the U.K, and presented her choreography “Dream of Love” and other works; in Honnaver, works like “Dezember,” “Gesang des Feuers,” in Fresh Tracks programme for young artists, were very well received by critics in Honnver Zeitnung. In the perfromances like “THEMA+VARIATION” and “Kulturring Spiele” in concert hall of Hochschule Hannover, she also danced main roles and made her own works.

Her main devotion has always been concentrated on ballet, but meeting with Heide Taegeder, who was the dancer in Pina Bausch’s Tanztheater Wuppertal, added the very seasoning of the expressionism of European Tanztheater into her works, which we easily recognise. So, the three elements of her creativity come from classical ballet, character dances, and Tanztheater. Besides, her experiences in other art genres as an actress, a musical player, and a pianist, all mingled and were added to her accomplishment in dancing, turned into exquisite musicality and theatricality.

The year 2003 was very remarkable in her career, for her new work “Juliette &Juliettes” in Korea, gave her “New Choreographer Prize” from Korea Ballet Association. She also showed her deep understanding of Western classical vocabularies and reconstruction of them in “When Giselle met Sigfried.” In December the same year, she founded her own company, “Dance Theatre Shahar,” and presented “Mother” with this company, which is about Korean War and yearning for reunification of two Koreas.

“Gone with the wind (2007)” and “Sound of Music (2010)” were full-sized balletic reinterpretations of these two famous movie titles. For their definitely well-known stories and musics, the audiences were thought to be able to more sheerly appreciate the asthetics of art of dancing, and this strategy was very successful. The important venue of Nothern Seoul (Nowon Art Centre) drew full house everyday, with castings of main roles by fine dancers like L-Ballerino, and K-Ballerina, who were the principal dancers of Korean National Ballet.

Dance Theatre Shahar runs with dancers being trained in ballet, acting, and other theatrical techniques in its integrating sense; with ballet mistress Art ballerina, who was the first pricipal ballerina of Korean National Ballet and the first state scholarship student in dance field; and with art mangers of international visions.