It’s been over 15 years since an Asian dance company has performed on The Royal Opera House main stage. Now, from July 24–27, National Ballet of Japan is breaking the dry spell with its United Kingdom debut at the ROH, where it will perform artistic director Miyako Yoshida’s production of Giselle. All 75 of NBoJ’s dancers and 40 staff members will travel to London for the production.
The tour will be somewhat of a homecoming to Yoshida, who had an extensive performance career in the UK. After training at The Royal Ballet School for a year, she danced with Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet (now Birmingham Royal Ballet) before joining The Royal as the company’s first Japanese principal. She says that since she became NBoJ’s artistic director in 2020, she’s dreamed of taking the company to London.
Yui Yonezawa as Giselle and Shun Izawa as Albrecht. Photo by Kiyonori Hasegawa, courtesy National Ballet of Japan.
In 2022, Yoshida shared that goal with The Royal’s artistic director (and her close friend), Kevin O’Hare. He suggested that NBoJ travel to London that summer, as the Bolshoi Ballet had just canceled its ROH engagement. “I thought, No way!” says Yoshida, who knew NBoJ would need more time to prepare. They decided on an arrangement in three years’ time.
“I never thought it would happen this quickly,” she says. “The company opened in 1997, so we are quite young. But I think we are good enough to be on the main stage.” She is excited that all the company members will get to experience a different audience, culture, and theater. “Loads of the younger dancers have never been out of Japan,” she says.
Yonezawa as Giselle. Photo by Kiyonori Hasegawa, courtesy NBoJ.
NBoJ principal Yui Yonezawa will be dancing Giselle in two of the five principal casts. For her, the idea of dancing on the ROH stage feels “monumental.” She recalls watching videos of The Royal as a child, marveling at the house curtain and the artists’ expressivity. Now, she’s looking forward to learning what it’s like to engage with viewers while onstage. The ROH house, she explains, differs in distance between the stage and the audience as compared to the New National Theater, Tokyo, where NBoJ performs.
“We will not need to really exaggerate anything,” says Yonezawa. “What we are feeling, our characters’ inner lives, will land more directly. Because of that, I will have to be very delicate and responsive to what is happening in the now. And be truthful—otherwise, it will look fake.”
Both Yonezawa and Yoshida are curious to learn how English audiences will respond to NBoJ’s style, which Yoshida describes as more “modest.” Yoshida explains that while she was dancing in England, she struggled at first to find the right balance with expression. “In classical ballet, you have to use certain visible gestures,” she says. “In Japan, we haven’t got that similar kind of body language.” Because of that, when she first began directing NBoJ, Yoshida used to encourage the dancers to act like they were European or Russian, with more exaggerated movements and acting. “But I stopped doing that,” she says, “because we have to find a Japanese style.”
Yui Negishi as Myrta with artists of National Ballet of Japan. Photo by Kiyonori Hasegawa, courtesy NBoJ.
In her version of Giselle, which she created in October 2022, Yoshida aimed to weave that Japanese style with her knowledge of English productions inspired by Jean Coralli and Jules Perrot’s 1841 original. She drew especially from Sir Peter Wright’s 1965 version, which she danced while with BRB. “I learned so much from his detail; it was so logical,” she says. “Everything has a reason—why you’re here, why you’re there. As a dancer, you could act easily. I hope people will get that in London.”
Yonezawa believes that they will. “Every single person onstage has their own life. There will be layers of people onstage, and that is what makes a person, and a production, very human,” she says. “Those are the bits that shimmer onstage.”
AloJapan.com