The Korea National Ballet Company (KNBC) is a South Korean ballet company. It was founded in 1962 as the National Ballet Company. It was one of the affiliates of the National Theater of Korea until 1999, when it separated to independently reestablish itself in the Seoul Arts Center in the following year. It has sixty-five dancers, chosen annually through open audition.

Artistic Directors:

Overseas tours have included performances in Egypt and Israel in 1997, China in 2000 and 2001, Japan in 2002, and more recent trips to Russia.

One of the prima ballerinas of the company, Joo-won Kim was the winner of the BENOIS de la DANSE prize 2006.

In 2007, the company disciplined her for having appeared topless in a Korean fashion magazine. The company said she had engaged in employment outside of her contract. ,

The Korea National Ballet is a professional ballet company founded in 1962 in Seoul, Korea. It was one of the affiliates of the National Theater of Korea until 1999,and in the following year, it separated to independently reestablish itself in the Seoul Arts Center. Equipped with the nation's top dancers and diverse repertoires, the Korea National Ballet has taken the lead in developing the field of performance. Welcoming artistic director Tae-ji Choi who was reappointed in 2011, the Korea National Ballet reflects on its past achievements done under the slogan of Globalization, Refinement and Popularization of ballet for the past half century. There are currently 80 members in the company, including regular members, associate members, and trainees.

Korea National Ballet is composed of 5 ranks of dancers.

Joo-won Kim, Ji-Young Kim, Hae-jin Yoon, Young-cheol Lee and Dong-hoon Lee

Jong-pil Lee, Li-hoe Kim and Young-jae Jung

Nam-yull Jung, Ji-young Kim, Hae-ran Jung, Woo-youn Hong, Jun-bum Kim, Hyun-ok Jung, Jun-hee Kim, Soo-hee Lee, Jung-yoon Choi, Jun-yong Ha, Hyun-kyung Park, Woo-jung Jang, Hye-ju Go, Seul-ki Park and Nan-hee Yoo

Korea (/kəˈriːə/ kə-REE-ə; Korean: 한국 Hanguk [hanɡuːk] or 조선 Joseon [tɕosʌn] – (see etymology) is an East Asian region that is divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the east by the Korea Strait and the Sea of Japan (East Sea), and separated from Taiwan to the south by the East China Sea.

Archaeological and linguistic evidence suggest the origins of the Korean people might have been Altaic language-speaking people from south-central Siberia,^{[dubious – discuss]} who populated ancient Korea in successive waves from the Neolithic age to the Bronze Age. The adoption of the Chinese writing system ("Hanja" in Korean) in the 2nd century BC, and Buddhism in the 4th century AD, had profound effects on the Three Kingdoms of Korea.

The Three Kingdoms of Korea was first united during the Silla dynasty under the king Munmu of Silla. The united Silla dynasty fell to Goryeo Dynasty in 935 at the end of Later Three Kingdoms of Korea era. Goryeo was a highly cultural state and created the Jikji in the 14th century, using the world's first movable metal type printing press. The Mongol invasions in the 13th century, however, greatly weakened the nation which was forced to become a tributary state. After the Mongol Empire's collapse, severe political strife followed and Goryeo was replaced by the Joseon Dynasty in 1388.

A ballet company is a group of dancers who perform classical ballet, neoclassical ballet, and/or contemporary ballet in the European tradition, plus managerial and support staff. Most major ballet companies employ dancers on a year-round basis, except in the United States, where contracts for part of the year (typically thirty or forty weeks) are the norm. A company generally has a home theatre where it stages the majority of its performances, but many companies also tour in their home country or internationally.

Ballet companies routinely make a loss at the box office, and depend on external financial support of one kind or another. In Europe most of this support comes in the form of government subsidies, though private donations are usually solicited as well. In North America private donations are the main source of external funding.

Many ballet companies have an associated school which trains dancers. Traditionally the school would provide almost all of the company's dancers, something which helped to create clear distinctions in style between companies, but 21st century ballet has open hiring practices, and many ballet companies have a very international staff.

Don Quixote ( /ˌdɒn kiːˈhoʊtiː/; Spanish: [ˈdoŋ kiˈxote] ( listen)), fully titled The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha (Spanish: El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha), is a novel written by Miguel de Cervantes. The novel follows the adventures of Alonso Quijano, who reads too many chivalric novels, and sets out to revive chivalry under the name of Don Quixote. He recruits a simple farmer, Sancho Panza, as his squire, who frequently deals with Don Quixote's rhetorical orations on antiquated knighthood with a unique Earthy wit. He is met by the world as it is, initiating themes like Intertextuality, Realism, Metatheatre and Literary Representation.

Published in two volumes a decade apart, in 1605 and 1615, Don Quixote is considered the most influential work of literature from the Spanish Golden Age and the entire Spanish literary canon. As a founding work of modern Western literature, and one of the earliest canonical novels, it regularly appears high on lists of the greatest works of fiction ever published. In one such list, Don Quixote was cited as the "best literary work ever written".