Mi Young Kim begins our interview by apologizing; the Korean dancer, choreographer and educator has been in Canada for 32 years “but still my English not so good,” she says.
And while it’s true that her syntax is less than perfect, Kim has no trouble conveying the passion for dance that has been the hallmark of her 60 years on the stage and in the classroom.
That legacy is being celebrated Tuesday (November 15) with a gala celebration at the Toronto Centre for the Arts featuring Kim herself, plus guest performers Sampradaya Dance Creations, York Dance Ensemble, Keiko Kitano and Daniel Schnee, Kozakura Sensui and Samulnori Canada.
The evening is likely to be Kim’s swan song as a dancer: “Sometimes I’m ashamed because of my age. I’m not young anymore,” she acknowledges. “My family say this is my last chance to perform on stage, and then just teach.”
Teaching has been Kim’s life and it has often come up short on the glamour scale. For several years her lessons were conducted in the empty hallways of Deer Park Public School. When one of Kim’s brothers came from Korea to visit, he was aghast at the conditions and implored his sister to return to Korea where her talent was respected.
“I tell him, ‘In Korea, many people can teach and perform but in Canada there is no one like me.’ ”
So Kim stuck it out. She formed her own company, the Mi Young Kim Dance Company and she spearheads the Korean Dance Studies Society of Canada, which is where I interviewed and photographed her last week (below).
The drums, which Kim also teaches, play an integral role in many Korean folk dances. Like the bells of a Christian church, the drums called monks to prayer and to meals and they are prominent in Korean Shamanism and also in rural farm dances.
Toronto’s Korean community was small when Kim first came to the city. “I think at that time there was about 20,000 Koreans here,” she recalls, “but they do not think about culture, they thinking about making a living, opening variety stores, their minds were not open to Korean art or learning dance, just Korean language school every Saturday.”
So that’s where she started at the urging of the school principal. In time, she graduated to using a Taekwondo studio when it was available: “Sometimes I used my own apartment living room. I don’t care about the space, whenever I had a student, whenever I had skills to teach, I did it. And then it just grew bigger and bigger and bigger.”
“I started to build a life one by one, little by little. In 1988, there was a celebration of the Seoul Olympics on Parliament Hill,” remembers Kim. “My dance company was invited. I started the company in 1980 when I got the immigration papers.”
Kim is a traditionalist at heart but she is determined to keep her art relevant to this and future generations. She recently choreographed a dance piece to rap music. “The young people like very much but old people, they don’t like. They think maybe I’m destroying Korean traditional culture. But I don’t care. So in future I want to do more of that, find how to establish more Korean/Canadian style.”
Her English may be halting but interviewing Kim was a genuine pleasure and I brim with respect for her, for the sacrifices she made to stay in this country and share her native culture.
“I think I am very brave lady,” she allows. And I agree, wholeheartedly.
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