Choreography

Jae Man Joo

Initial PGF Award: Choreography Fellowship, 2009

Jae Man Joo is Associate Artistic Director, Ballet Master, Choreographer,
Photographer,Costume designer  of Complexions Contemporary Ballet.
He has been involved  with Complexions Contemporary Ballet since 1996. He started classical ballet training at UM Ballet studio in his native Korea,where he also studied modern dance and Korean traditional dance. He studied dance under some amazing teachers,
Young-Ja Um, Wan-Soon YookEun-Me Ahn, Ae-Soon Ahn, Byung-Hee Choi,  Soo-Nam Song, Hae-Jung Kim,
Graciela Kozak and Igal Perry…many of whom are considered almost national treasures in Korea.
After graduating from Dankook University he danced with a wide range of Korean dance companies including
the Korea Contemporary Dance Company. Before moving to New York City in 1996, he received the Best Individual Dance Award from
the Bagnolet International Choreographer Festival in Paris, France. He has worked with Zvi Gotheiner, Igal Perry, Ballet Hispanico,
Shen Wei and Michele Elliman, among others. He choreographed his First solo work,
“Sorrow”(Frank Schubert), for a showing at Dance Theater Workshop in 2004. The Korea Modern Dance Museum invited Mr. Joo to choreograph and perform his second solo work, “Duet” (Jules Massenet) during their 2006 festival. In 2007 his premiered his work for Complexions Contemporary Ballet  “Tears” (Sergei Rachmaninoff) in 2008 “Surface” (Claude Debussy)  in 2009
“Atmosphere”(J.S.Bach) and in 2012 "FLIGHT" (J.S Bach) which opened at New York’s Joyce Theater.
He is a recipient of 2009 Princess Grace Award for Excellence in choreography.

Starting in 1999 during his off hours he started taking photographs as a hobby  and it has developed into a more serious undertaking throughout the years to the point where now his abstract landscape and dance photographs are commercially available. In the past few years he has done all of the portraits of the dance company artists. since 2009 he photographed for Complexions season campaign. Joo also has done  many costume design for the dance company.  Recently he started  worldwide education project  "CODE3-  3  Artistic Director's Education & Movement creation project " with Mr.Dwight Rhoden & Mr.Desmond Richardson.

In 2011, he was appointed to the position of Associate Artistic Director of Complexions Contemporary Ballet.i»¿i»¿

website: www.jaemanjoo.com