Economy | ANALYSIS
Households to take hit from tax hike
by Tomoko Otake
The consumption tax increase will hit every household in Japan hard, with many people’s financial future hanging on whether their wages rise enough to offset the hike's impact.
Stage Aug 14, 2013
Jeté-ing from ballet to kitchen-sink drama
by Nobuko Tanaka
Though she’s moved from elegant arabesques to doing the washing up, former prima ballerina Tamiyo Kusakari is stealing the show in “Ani Kaeru (The Older Brother Returns),” a kitchen-sink drama playing every night through Sept. 1 at Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre in Ikebukuro. For renowned ...
National Jun 4, 2013
Japan-born, Kaitani-trained ballerina hits stride in S. Korea
by Chihiro Inoue
Choi Tae-ji, a Japanese-born South Korean prima ballerina, has dedicated herself to developing ballet in her country, once described by South Korean media as a “ballet desert” because of its failure to produce any great dancers. The 53-year-old director of the Korea National Ballet ...
Stage May 30, 2013
K-ballet brings back 'Giselle' and introduces new leads
by Kris Kosaka
As summer approaches with the misty other-worldliness of Japan’s rainy season, Tokyo’s K-Ballet graces the stage in June with a revival of the hauntingly romantic masterpiece “Giselle.” Six different ballerinas will perform the lead role as the production synthesizes K-Ballet’s changing image from a ...
Review May 12, 2013
Allowing Nijinsky's ballet to tell his life
by Peter Conrad
How can we separate the dancer from the dance? Vaslav Nijinsky’s art was a vanishing act, and his mystique depended on gestures that lasted only a second, like his leap through a window in “The Spectre of a Rose,” or the slight but scandalous ...
Stage Feb 4, 2013
Teen comes in third at Swiss ballet competition
An 18-year-old high school student won third place at the prestigious Prix de Lausanne ballet competition in Switzerland over the weekend. “I am satisfied with my performance, but I can’t still believe I became one of the top finishers,” said Masaya Yamamoto of Nomi, ...
Stage Apr 15, 2012
Ballet students poised for giant leap abroad
by Edan Corkill
The moment Birmingham Royal Ballet principal dancer Robert Parker began talking about cartwheels, everything seemed to change. By then the formal stage of this year’s first-ever Japanese auditions for the world-renowned Elmhurst School for Dance in England’s second city of Birmingham had concluded. Next, ...