Shoko Nakamura, the 29-year-old principal dancer of the Staatsballett Berlin, is back in Japan for a well-earned vacation and to make her debut in a classic role.

Known simply as "Shoko" throughout the international ballet world, she will be playing the passionate female lead in a Tokyo performance of "Romeo and Juliet."

But this isn't just any old staging of Shakespeare's tragic tale of love. Set to a stirring score by Sergei Prokofiev, this is an entirely new choreography that follows in the footsteps of postwar versions by John Cranko (1958), Sir Kenneth MacMillan (1965) and John Neumeier (1971).