Photo by Brittany App, choreography by Lisette Adundez
The name “Moon Ja Minn” means “to be a scholar,” at least as it applies to the founder of Cal Poly’s Orchesis Dance Company.
Professor Emerita Moon Ja Minn Suhr explains the source of her passion for dance: “For my life, I just loved to study and study was my enjoyment.”
With $200 out of her own pocket, Suhr established Orchesis in 1969 and served as its director until 2000. Now, Cal Poly students, faculty, and staff engage in the creative process of working with guest, faculty, and student choreographers to present a performance each year during the university’s winter quarter.
This year’s event, “Slant,” has its last of six performances on Saturday, January 24, aiming to “expand on principles of creativity and artistic vision by diving deeply into the choreographic process to investigate unique methods of composition.”
Looking back, an artistic vision is what sparked it all more than 55 years ago.
Although born in China and raised in Japan, Suhr’s education began in Seoul, Korea. She then earned a master’s degree in dance and dance education from the University of Northern Colorado, but her artistic path began long before then.
“I’ve loved music since I was young,” Suhr says, singing and playing Korean instruments. Her dance journey began after she was handpicked to dance at an elementary school PTA meeting, but her early involvement in the arts wasn’t where she thought her career was headed. At the age of 11, she dreamed of becoming a college professor, specializing in surgery and teaching medical students.
“People said I was an excellent dancer, but dance was not my passion, for I wanted to study medicine.” However, her architect father discouraged medical school, and her mother encouraged her to major in dance.
After graduating from Ewha Women’s University in Seoul, she taught for four years in Korea before arriving in America with the dream of attending graduate school. She went into the process worried about not speaking much English.
“If you see my willpower, please accept me,” she remembers saying to the admissions committee at the University of Northern Colorado. The deciding factor was a letter written by a music consultant she had met in California. Though she never learned the letter’s contents, the committee described it as saying “something significant” about Suhr.
Her graduate school acceptance marked the start of her 12-to-17-hour days of studying course materials and learning English. Most days ended with an English-Korean dictionary tucked under her pillow—her only companion during three-and-a-half hours of sleep before having to do it all over again the next day.
Coming to San Luis Obispo after graduation, she began what would become 42 years of teaching at Cal Poly.
After the school declined to provide funding for the first Orchesis Dance Company performance, Suhr decided to use her own money. It was for that very reason that when she retired from Orchesis, she left nearly $90,000 for the next director. “I didn’t want her to struggle the way I did,” she says.
In 1982, Suhr was promoted to the rank of full professor; then she earned a Ph.D. in dance and related arts from Texas Woman’s University. After retirement in 2000, her commitment has continued—from ushering for Cal Poly Arts to helping at Orchesis closing performances.
Suhr still sees the community she fostered as “very close friends—dance family!”