SUNKYUNKWAN UNIVERSITY

   Seoul, South Korea-Post Blog #1

   VISITING ARTIST, Bridget L. Moore

When I relocated to Seoul, South Korea for a position as a visiting professor at Sungkyunkwan University, it took me nearly four months to accept the invitation. At the time, I knew only one person in the entire country, a colleague and friend I met while pursuing my graduate studies at, New York University, Tisch School of the Arts. Prior to relocating to South Korea, I was in my third year of teaching at my alma mater, Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, where I was also the artistic director of the World Dance Ensemble. As a teacher, I was one of many responsible for guiding and nurturing the talents of young aspiring artists, and I enjoyed that phase of my career. While teaching at Booker T., I choreographed several works, was a recipient of a Princess Grace Fellowship Award for Choreography, received a Surdna Arts Teachers Fellowship, received commissions from Dallas Black Dance Theatre, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, an artistic residency at University of Texas at Dallas, and was teaching a semester of Dance Composition at Southern Methodist University. Artistically, my goals were being met and I felt fulfilled both as an educator and choreographer. I started to recognize that I was able to fully see the potential in others because I was able to identify and nurture it within myself. I decided to take a leap of faith, uprooted myself from familiarity and traveled over six thousand miles across the Pacific Ocean to live in a foreign country.

I have always seen myself as a risk taker, but now I really understand how courageous it was to follow through with my decision to leave America. My prior knowledge of Korea, its traditions and rich culture, at the time was undoubtedly, limited. While navigating through cultural differences and language barriers, I experienced some challenges that were both frustrating and liberating. My plan was to remain in Korea for a year, gain new experiences and return to the United States. However, to my surprise, I remained in South Korea for three years. Within that time, I bridged cultural gaps, fostered a new set of skills, created new work in Korea and the U.S, solo traveled to India, Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Japan, Thailand, and forged real connections with natives of Korea. My time working and residing in Korea helped me to understand my place in the world and how I want to be seen in it. Today, it is very difficult to imagine my life without the exposure and experiences I gained from residing in Korea.