Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Dahyun Kim. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Dahyun, so great to have you with us and we want to jump right into a really important question. In recent years, it’s become so clear that we’re living through a time where so many folks are lacking self-confidence and self-esteem. So, we’d love to hear about your journey and how you developed your self-confidence and self-esteem.
Building my confidence has been a long process as an artist, because I started off my career relatively later than other dancers. I started my training and professional career simultaneously when I was 21 years old. Having gone to university, I realized that I need to pursue a career on stage, and since then my mentality has been focused on ‘catching up’ to the already experienced dancers and colleagues. This has helped me grow exponentially in a short amount of time, and I had accomplished feats such as being invited into guest performances as a soloist in SAC Festival 2019 and D-Party 2019, creating choreography for Seoul Fringe Festival 2021 as a choreographer and director of ‘Underlying Lines’, an evening length audience interactive dance performance, and being admitted to NYU in 2020 for M.F.A. in Dance at Tisch School of the Arts & M.A. in Dance Education in Steinhardt, School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.
Interestingly, these feats actually became a great hindrance to further growth of myself as an artist, because I still lacked the confidence and belief that I belong in these spaces. Any performer understands how important confidence is on stage. This is no different in networking, branding oneself, and creating connections for collaboration. It took failure due to my lack of confidence over and over, for me to finally realize that I need to change how I view myself in order to reach where I dream to be. I needed to take a leap of faith and believe that I have the skills, talent, and experience level to pursue what I want. It started with simply applying for opportunities that seemed out of my league, or sparking conversations with industry celebrities. This made me wholeheartedly understand something that I knew by knowledge but had not yet embodied- that we are all equally human. No one is inherently greater than another, and all it really takes to move forward is to believe in yourself and take action. Building self-esteem and confidence is a life-long process. Some events in your life will strengthen it or break it down. Regardless, simply taking actions as if I am the greatest artist in the world has helped me continuously develop my confidence and self-esteem.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
The next part of the interview is where we’d love to learn more about you, your story and what you are focused on professionally – whether it’s a business, nonprofit, artistic career etc. Please tell our readers about what you do, what you feel is most exciting or special about it, as well as anything else you’d like folks to know about your brand/art/etc. If relevant, please also tell our readers about anything new (events, product/service launches, expansion, etc)
My name is 김다현 or Dahyun Kim, and it means ‘A Royal Tea’. It is pronounced as [Da-hyeon Khim] and while many people struggle to pronounce it, my name is a representation of my culture and ethnicity. I am a dancer, choreographer, and educator from Seoul, Republic of Korea, and I am currently based in NYC. I have recently received my M.F.A. in Dance at Tisch School of the Arts & M.A. in Dance Education at Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development NYU. I have received my B.A. in Dance & Kinesiology at Penn State University.
I mainly dance contemporary, but my passion also lies in house and my strength lies in versatility in how I am trained in numerous different styles at a professional level. In all my creative works, I value creating a culturally responsive and research-based practice. I have had a broad range of performances working with acclaimed choreographers, such as Ronald K. Brown, Jesse Obremski, Luna Cenere, Kaya Wolsey, Shakia Johnson, Deborah G Damast, Aquila Kikora Franklin, Michele Dunleavy, J Austin Eyer, Yurie Ono, David Cartahena Lee, Anna Caffarelli & Crimson Moeller, Esl Kim, Yerin Kang, and Yunjung Jang. I am currently a company member of WADE Dance Inc. and Gotham Dance Theater, being a part of their productions throughout their seasons. As a performer, I bring sincerity to the movement and to bring forth the choreographer’s intentions to the stage. I strongly believe that a performer’s intention can make or break a choreography, and hence where my mind lies is as important as what my body is doing. This includes having an awareness of what lineage the movement follows, which culture it comes from, what role I play in the world the choreographer created, and having clear execution of the movement.
As a choreographer I have had the privilege to work internationally in Seoul Fringe Festival (2021), SAC Jazz Dance Festival (2020), Shinchon Water Gun Festival (2019), and D-Party (2018) at Republic of Korea, and PORCH Finale Showcase in Stolzenhagen, Germany. In the U.S. most recently I have created works in Fall for Fall Dance Festival (2023), Queensboro Dance Festival (2022-23), Access Arts (2021), What We Carry Showcase (2023), WADE Vision Benefit, and Fertile Grounds Showcase (2023). My creative process the past three years have become reflective of my views on various issues within our society. Hence, I value discussions with dancers, where the dancers’ ideas are incorporated into the theme of the project and we collectively create a common understanding of the view/world this project holds.
As a Korean woman in a foreign country, I have been forced to realize how my culture and people are commonly misunderstood and stereotyped. Even a simple thing as my name has caused struggle and tension for people because of its foreignness. Hence, my creations have grown to reflect my experiences around my cultural identity, as I have dedicated my craft to sharing more about the intricate and diverse beauty that lies in Korean art forms rather than the one dimensional image people have in their minds. This can be seen in my works, ‘흥 | Joy’, ‘수심가 | Depth of Water’, ‘Tearaway’, ‘일엽편주 | Paperboat’. I will continue creating these works so that my audience would appreciate many different characteristics that lie within my culture.
As an educator, it is important that the student feels welcomed to take risks, and they become the leader of their own movement. In order to reach that state, building awareness of one’s own breath, mind, and body is paramount. Hence, I incorporate Pilates principles and movement into my classes, starting from breathing in an efficient manner that brings focus to the body, calms the nervous system, and engages the core, to using exercises that directly help dancers facilitate better muscle engagement and movement mechanics when dancing. My hope is that my classes would help the dancers understand what is needed outside of ‘dance technique training’ to be able to have a stronger body and sustainable practice, which in turn would give dancers freedom in movement.
Having started my dance journey at 21, my dance experience has been unique and vastly changing from season to season. It has taught me to be vigilant, to work twice as hard so that I could be recognized as a professional, but also to be compassionate to my own desires and imaginations so that my love for dance (which brought me to start this journey) would continue throughout my whole life. My career I have built in itself is a feat against all odds, and I wish to inspire my audience and prove that dance indeed is for everyone.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Being able to take breaks and understand where my wants and needs are has been the key anchor in my journey as an artist. Jumping into the industry as an artist, where funds are minimal and hence we need to take on a lot of ‘odd jobs’, we can often get lost on why we do what we do. Doing what is needed for our basic level of survival is already most likely taking up a lot of our energy. Hence, it is crucial for us to prioritize ‘doing nothing’ when we can. Resting does not have to follow what self care looks like in media imagery. Your own needs and idea of resting is personal to you. In forcing myself to rest even when I felt like I needed to keep pushing myself, I found newfound inspiration for my artistry as well as an even level of energy throughout each day.
In order to do this successfully, I separate the different ‘jobs’ that I do. I am a dancer that needs regular class and cross training, but I am also a choreographer who needs mental rest and capacity in order to brainstorm and plan out rehearsals. I create a ‘to-do’ list for each of them in a day, week, and month, and plan out each day so that I am working a certain number of hours, and I get at least 2 hours of decompressing from 8pm-10pm. This is a time for me to do whatever I want to do, without any responsibility or ‘to-do’ lists. As a freelancer building this muscle will be crucial to not burn out especially on busy seasons.
Okay, so before we go, is there anyone you’d like to shoutout for the role they’ve played in helping you develop the essential skills or overcome challenges along the way?
Comfort on its own cannot foster growth. People in my life that support me and love me no matter what have obviously given me a firm standing ground to support myself from. However, I must say that I have grown from difficult relationships that I have met in my professional, academic, and personal fields. From those experiences I have learned how to build boundaries, build myself back up, regulate my emotions, and to have empathy for people who have drastically different ways of operating than myself. Especially in professional relationships, at first it was hard to accept that a person of such quality receives such respect from the industry or community. I have seen their ‘ugly side’, so it was hard to peel my gaze off from that single image. Yet, this forced me to see what they are doing ‘right’, despite the wrong. I ended up learning immensely from past ‘bad’ relationships exactly because they do something different that works, that I have never thought of doing. For example, my skills in branding, marketing, organizing, and being my own advocate all come from different people in my past who gave me a difficult time. They all came to my life because they had something to offer.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.dahyunkim.info
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dahyun_dancer/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2M0kDTBZSuy9ULeiTJAgbg
Image Credits
Photography by Yoojin Jeon, Photography by John Eng Courtesy by WADE Dance Inc., Photography by John Eng, Photography by Priscilla (IG: @capturedbypriscilla), Photography by Yasmeen Enahora, Photography by Michelle G Hunder, Photography Courtesy by Queensboro Dance Festival, Photography by John Brallis Courtesy by Queensboro Dance Festival
