Choreographer MIKIKO talks about the New York that raised her

On the advice of his mentor, he went to New York alone. Why is Broadway so exciting?

OnTrip JAL Editorial Department (hereinafter referred to as JAL): MIKIKO, you lived in New York for about a year and a half at the end of your twenties, right?

MIKIKO: Yes. I celebrated my 30th birthday over there.

JAL: What was the story behind that?

MIKIKO: I was born in Tokyo, but moved to Hiroshima before I started kindergarten because my father was transferred there. I grew up in the Hiroshima atmosphere and started dancing there. Hiroshima has a strong sense of local identity, and there are few people who think that "I can't succeed unless I go to Tokyo." So I naturally thought that I could be successful in Tokyo or the world without leaving Hiroshima.

But at the end of my 20s, when I wanted to change from a dancer to a director, the president of Amuse, who had been helping me out since then, gave me some advice: "If you want to know what kind of stage productions you want to create and have a vision as a director, maybe you should go to New York once?"

JAL: Had you traveled to New York before then?

MIKIKO: Yes. Once or twice a year, I would go to New York to get inspired. I'd always thought it was an inspiring city.

JAL: Specifically, what is so exciting about it?

MIKIKO: If I were to create a work as a director, I wanted to do dance that was not theater-based, like a Broadway musical. So I had always thought that it would be interesting to incorporate the know-how of the good old Broadway in New York into the dance and music genres that I wanted to do. In that sense, seeing the stage in New York was very inspiring.

The intensity of New York, a city filled with people with dreams

JAL: How did you spend your days in New York?

MIKIKO: I went there on a student visa, so in the morning I went to a language school to study English, and in the afternoon I went to dance lessons and watched various plays from small theaters to large theaters... Also, one of my themes was to write an original script before returning to Japan, so if I had free time I would think about the script. It was a busy day.

JAL: Was there a difference in your impression from visiting as a tourist and living there?

MIKIKO: I was shocked for a while at how different things looked. Compared to Japanese standards, there were many inconveniences and it wasn't clean. I realized, "Oh, what a convenient country I live in!" I also felt the language barrier. Before I could simply speak English well, I had to have a clear idea of what I wanted to express, so I was confused at first.

JAL: So you have to think more deeply about your own will than when you're in Japan.

MIKIKO: In New York, unless you send out a message yourself, no one will notice you and do anything. If you don't have a personal will, like dancing because you want to dance or singing because you want to sing, no one will pay attention to you. So, only people with their own dreams are there.

I think it's actually very difficult to know exactly what you want to do. But in New York, there are only people who have a clear dream or thing they want to do. And it was a very intense experience in such a special environment where there is a huge difference between those who achieve their dreams and those who don't. I felt like I was always being asked, "Do I really want to dance, or do I want to direct?"

The atmosphere is different the moment you step off the plane. You can't understand the value of "travel" unless you experience it.

JAL: It's said that young people today aren't as interested in traveling abroad as they were in the past, but what does going abroad mean to you, MIKIKO?

MIKIKO: When I started dancing, there was no YouTube like there is now, and no lesson videos were uploaded to SNS, so there was no source of information. It was normal to go to New York, learn what you learned in the lesson, and then practice it for a year when you come back to Japan. But now you can see anything on the Internet, so maybe people don't go abroad to get something as much as they used to.

MIKIKO: Of course, I think that's one way of doing things these days. But the atmosphere is different when you actually go there. The atmosphere is different from the moment you arrive at the airport and get off the plane.

JAL: There are some things you can't understand from a video.

MIKIKO: Especially for people like me who direct live shows and performances, we have to provide experiences that cannot be explained in words, which is why people go to live houses and theaters. To create something like that, you have to experience the atmosphere for yourself. On the other hand, it might look so beautiful in the photos, but when you actually go there, it's not so much (laughs). I think that it's worth going and experiencing it.