Asia is sending the world better and better dancers.
The Mariinsky’s Kimin Kim was guest star with ABT for Solor in La Bayadere–dancing splendidly. He definitely can deepen his characterization, but it was sound and convincing. He has a good sense of where his body should be in space at all times to project emotionally.
He’s Korean. BTW wasn’t his dad in the Mariinsky also?
This week at ABT I saw Zhiyao Zhang in Swan Lake twice: in the act 1 pas de trois and in McKenzie’s act 3 Neapolitan duo. He’s Chinese. Very good. Stylistically a little abrupt at times. But although he, like Kim has done the competition circuit neither registers as competition dancers–they’re not going to hit it out of the ballet stage into the ballpark–or vice versa.