With official sponsorship, Korean national ballet prospers.

SEOUL--South Korea may not be the first place that comes to mind when one thinks of ballet, yet at least two major companies now operate in Seoul. One of these, National Ballet Company of Korea (NBCK), was founded in 1962 by Korean dancer Lim Sung-nam.

NBCK is directed now by the energetic Kim Hae-shik, a former company member whom the Korean Ministry of Culture appointed to succeed Lim one year after he retired in 1992. Kim, one of the first Korean ballet dancers to acquire a reputation in the West, appeared with Zurich Ballet from 1967 to 1969 and danced as a soloist with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens from 1970 to 1972. While in Montreal she created the role of the Acid Queen in Fernand Nault's famous rock ballet Tommy, and she inspired John Butler's Catulli Carmina, as well as performing classical parts. Kim also taught and choreographed in California for fifteen years, working with Fresno Civic Ballet and the California State University at Fresno, before she was summoned back to her native land to direct NBCK.

Kim is now in a good position to help the ballet to develop in Korea, working in tandem with the Korean government, which has a large stake in NBCK. The government regards the ballet as an educational project, provides $1.2 million of its $2.5-million budget, and takes the revenue from its ticket sales. Last year culture minister Lee Min-sup established a committee of high-ranking officials to help raise money for the company from private sources.

With fifty dancers on a year-round contract, NBCK now offers four programs per year, giving approximately thirty performances at the 1,800-seat National Theater on Nam San Mountain in Seoul, plus six or seven performances on local tours. The troupe also gives special performances for the government at the new 2,500-seat opera house in Seoul.

Kim's ambitions for her company are two-pronged. One aim is to develop NBCK's new school, established last year, where fifty students, ages eight to sixteen, now study with her and with the company's ballet master and ballet mistress.

Her other goal is to build a flexible and varied repertoire. NBCK has performed works of George Balanchine, Boris Eifman, and Nault; and Kim hopes to introduce more Balanchine (particularly Serenade and Symphony in C), as well as works by Jiri Kylian, James Kudelka, and John Neumeier. She also encourages her dancers to choreograph, and four dancers presented new works at a workshop held in June.

Kim's own choreography for the company includes staging such classics as Swan Lake and Nutcracker and creating such new works as Eternite--an hour-long piece set to synthesized music. The troupe was scheduled to perform Kim's setting of the full-length Le Corsaire at the National Theater, September 9--14.

NBCK will celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Korea's liberation from Japanese occupation with a mixed bill in the spring of 1995.