Sae Eun Park

Sae Eun Park (; born December 1989) is a South Korean ballet dancer. Following stints at ABT II and Korea National Ballet in her early career, she joined the Paris Opera Ballet in 2011. She is the company's first Korean female full-time member. In 2021, she became the first dancer from Asia to reach the rank of étoile at the company.

Early life Park was born in Seoul in December 1989. She started ballet at 10, She was mainly trained in the Vaganova method, before Kim Yong-geol, a former Korean Paris Opera Ballet dancer and a professor at the university introduced her to the French style. In 2006, she won the silver medal in the junior division USA International Ballet Competition in Jackson, Mississippi.

Career In 2007, she competed at the Prix de Lausanne and received a scholarship to American Ballet Theatre's second company, ABT II. In May 2009, she returned to her home country and joined the Korea National Ballet, where she became a soloist and performed main roles.

In 2011, Park joined the Paris Opera Ballet with a fixed-term contract as a corps de ballet dancer. A year later, she became a permanent member, after ranking first among 130 applicants in an audition, making her the first Korean woman to dance with the company full-time. In 2013, she was promoted to coryphée. She also received the Prix Du Cercle Carpeaux, and was the first Korean recipient of the award. The following year, she became a sujet. In December 2014, she danced as Naila in Jean-Guillaume Bart's La Source, thus becoming the first Asian dancer to perform a lead role in Paris Opera Ballet's history. In 2015, she performed at Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, Russia. In 2018, she was awarded the Prix Benois de la Danse for her performance in "Diamonds" from Balanchine's Jewels. She is the fourth Korean to win the award, after Kang Sue-jin, Kim Joo-won and Kim Kimin.