Raising the barre: Why ballet classes are the latest obsession among Korean adults

Home > Culture > Life & Style

Raising the barre: Why ballet classes are the latest obsession among Korean adults

Published: 06 Mar. 2026, 08:37 Updated: 02 Apr. 2026, 16:46

LEE JIAN
[email protected]

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

K-pop star-turned-actor Son Na-eun takes an amateur ballet class in a picture she posted on Instagram in September 2025. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

At 34 years old, Song Ji-hee is a ballerina — something she once thought she could never become.

These days, she pulls on a leotard and tights, ties the ribbons on her toe shoes and heads to the studio for ballet lessons alongside fellow adult amateurs.

“I had friends who majored in ballet from a young age. Back then, teachers would select only the most promising children for separate training, so even as a child I felt that there were certain qualifications you had to meet to do ballet,” she told the Korea JoongAng Daily via email.

In college, Song discovered that her best friend had begun taking ballet classes as a hobby. But what ultimately pushed her to start was her fascination with what she calls “athletic art.”

“Whenever I imagined ballet, I thought of that light, graceful, beautiful image — and that made me want to learn it even more.”

Amateur ballet dancers perform during the 2025 Ballet Mate Festival, an annual gala for adults who learn ballet as a hobby. [WISE BALLET THEATER]

Song is one of a growing number of adults in Korea taking up ballet later in life, reshaping perceptions of the art form as something reserved only for the young or professionally trained. Its surge in popularity — particularly visible on social media — has spilled into fashion trends and brand collaborations, cementing ballet as the latest lifestyle obsession. Whether this boom is translating into larger theater audiences for full-length ballet performances, however, remains an open question.

Among the influx of social media posts — 456,000 are hashtagged “hobby ballet” in Korean. Ballet Mate Festival, an annual gala for adult amateur ballerinas and ballerinos, has also seen its participant numbers rise steadily from 268 in 2023 to 321 in 2024. Last year, it recorded an all-time high of 390 participants, since the program was founded in 2017.

Those in their 20s and 30s accounted for more than half of participants, followed by those in their 40s and 50s, at around 39 percent.

Jeon Joon-young of the Performance Planning Team at Wise Ballet Company, the festival’s organizer, said that when the first Ballet Mate Festival launched, the words “hobby” and “ballet” were “hardly considered compatible.”

“It was difficult to find people who practiced ballet as a hobby because ballet was regarded as the exclusive domain of professionals, and for the general public, it was something to be watched only as spectators,” he stated via email.

“At the time, Kim Gil-yong, current director of Wise Ballet Company, anticipated that Korea would eventually follow Europe, the United States and Japan, where hobby ballet was already steadily growing. With the vision of pioneering a new market and bringing aspiring amateur dancers to the forefront, he founded the Ballet Mate Festival under the slogan ‘A Festival for Hobby Ballet Dancers’ — the first of its kind in Korea.”

His prediction appears to have been accurate. Today, hobby ballet classes are easy to find across the country, with even celebrities publicly embracing the art form.

K-pop star-turned-actor Suzy takes an amateur ballet class in a picture she posted on Instagram on Feb. 7, 2026. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

“I can’t really say I’m doing ballet. It feels more like going to a ballet studio to stretch. It’s basically a hobby,” K-pop star-turned-actor Suzy said in a YouTube interview in December last year. “Someone recommended it to me as a form of exercise, and I found it fun. The clothes are pretty and suit me well. I enjoyed it more than regular fitness workouts, and because there’s music, it feels relaxing.”

For some, cost is also part of the appeal. Office worker Noh Yoon-seo, 28, said ballet classes can be more affordable than comparable yoga or Pilates sessions.

“My ballet class costs about three-quarters of what I used to pay for Pilates,” she said. She has been taking hobby ballet lessons since October last year.

For Song, however, the appeal runs deeper than trend or convenience.

“The more I learn ballet, the more I realize this isn’t just exercise — it’s art,” she said. “I understand why ballet isn’t in the Olympics. It’s an artistic act: creating the most beautiful lines with your body in harmony with music, aligning your posture and learning to look at your body honestly and with integrity.”

Still, the physical rewards are undeniable.

“One of its most powerful motivations is the ability to see clear changes in your reflection, changes that directly correspond to the time and effort you’ve invested,” Jeon said.

“Muscles that were once stiff gradually become more flexible. The exhilaration of finally finding your balance on legs that once trembled becomes a meaningful accomplishment in everyday life.”

“The leotards, tights and leg warmers add to the fun, too,” Noh added, noting that she owns six different outfits for her twice-weekly lessons.

K-pop star Mimi takes a photo after her amateur ballet class in a picture she posted on Instagram on Oct. 25, 2025. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

Fashion spillover

The commercial impact is visible in retail data. On online shopping platform ZigZag, transaction value for “ballet wear” increased more than sixfold on year in November. Leotards, in particular, saw explosive growth of over 3,000 percent, according to the platform’s operator Kakao Style.

Searches for “ballet” on ZigZag reached approximately 12,000 in the same month, which is more than triple the figure from a year earlier and 83 percent higher than the previous month. Around 80 percent of those searches came from consumers in their 20s and 30s, indicating that the trend is concentrated among younger generations.

“Following the balletcore trend that gained popularity two years ago, ballet has emerged this year as a popular form of exercise among women in their 20s and 30s,” a Kakao Style representative said in a press release. “Since ballet wear can also be worn for various indoor activities such as yoga and Pilates, we expect demand to remain steady.”

NikeSKIMS Spring ’26 collection advertisement featuring Blackpink member Lisa [NIKESKIMS]

The spillover into daily fashion — “balletcore,” in Gen Z terminology — has been on the rise since 2023 and reached a new peak with the January launch of Nike’s collaboration with athleisure brand Skims. The NikeSKIMS Spring '26 collection features a head-to-toe system of dress, including footwear, apparel and accessories inspired by the modern ballerina.

“This Spring '26 Collection celebrates the timeless poise and elegance of ballerinas but with a distinct modern twist,” said Kim Kardashian, co-founder and chief creative officer of SKIMS, in a January press release, emphasizing ballet’s themes of confidence and grace.

Other brands have also tapped into the lucrative balletcore trend. Adidas released the Samba Jane Shoes — a ballet-style Mary Jane hybrid of the classic Samba — along with the Adidas Taekwondo Mei, a minimalist ballet-inspired sneaker drawing on early 2000s designs. Puma introduced the Speedcat Ballet, a slip-on sneaker that merges the brand’s racing heritage with the aesthetic of the ballet flat.

“The increased media exposure and mentions by celebrities first introduced ballet to the general public,” Jeon said. “This was followed by rapid diffusion through familiar platforms like social media, where information spreads organically and accessibly. The romanticized image of ballet, along with the fashion industry–driven balletcore aesthetic, has played a significant role in attracting more people to hobby ballet.”

KNWLS Nike Air Max Muse Elemental Pink [NIKE]

A boost to live performances?

Professional ballerina Park Sae-eun performs as Princess Aurora in Paris Opera Ballet's "Sleeping Beauty" [PARIS OPERA BALLET]

Attendance figures suggest momentum. Long ranked near the bottom among genres in ticket sales revenue, dance performances — including contemporary dance and ballet — saw ticket revenue in the third quarter of 2025 nearly double compared to the same period last year, according to the Korea Performing Arts Box Office Information System (Kopis). In the first half of the year, revenue had already increased 1.5 times year-on-year.

Through the third quarter of 2025, the number of dance productions reached 320, up 33.3 percent on year. Performances rose 53.5 percent to 617, with approximately 170,000 tickets sold, a 49.6 percent increase. Total ticket revenue reached around 6.4 billion won ($4.37 million), up 96.2 percent.

Leading ballet sales was Universal Ballet’s extended nine-performance run of “Swan Lake.” The Korean National Ballet and the Seoul Metropolitan Ballet also ranked highly with five performances each. The Royal Ballet of the United Kingdom and the Paris Opera Ballet held sellout shows in Korea last year.

Hobby ballerina Song said she also took interest in professional ballet shows since going to ballet lessons for fun. By taking lessons from former dancers of the Korean National Ballet, she said she was able to watch their performances at half price.

“When I was in elementary school, I used to fall asleep whenever I went to a ballet performance. But now, having tried ballet myself, I understand the art expressed through the precise turnout, the sound of the ballerinas’ pointed shoes striking the floor, and the beauty created through their bodies. I go to see performances almost every season,” she said.

Online search trends suggest that interest in “doing ballet” and “watching ballet” tends to move in tandem. On Naver, search volumes for terms such as “ballet academy” and “ballet performance” rise and fall in correlation.

Still, Kopis cautions that rising ticket revenue does not necessarily indicate a broader audience base; it may partly reflect repeat attendance by a newly formed core fan community.

“There is growing interest in ballet academies and adult hobby ballet, influenced by big-screen exposure and social media,” a Kopis spokesperson said. “We also found that searches for ‘ballet academy tuition’ — a stronger predictor of actual enrollment — spiked in the first half of 2023. Interest in hobby ballet, which began emerging in the mid-2010s, slowed temporarily during Covid-19 but rebounded quickly due to media exposure. The rise of balletcore in 2023 as a megatrend likely contributed as well.

“While more research is needed to determine the long-term relationship between lifestyle participation and theater attendance, the data suggests that ballet is no longer confined to the stage — it is becoming part of daily life.”