"Looking at my last 15 years' work, I see it as a series of excitements," Tetsuya Kumakawa told The Japan Times.
Now 42, the Hokkaido native was in the prime of his dance life in 1999 when he left his position as a much-loved principal at the Royal Ballet in London to form K-Ballet in Tokyo the following year — a company he has led ever since, as well as becoming artistic director of the city's splendid Bunkamura Orchard Hall in 2012.
Since then, K-Ballet has built an unparalleled reputation, and thanks to the ballet boom it's fueled, Japanese dancers now win many prizes at the top-notch Prix de Lausanne competition for as yet unpaid students aged 15-18 — the annual Swiss-run event where Kumakawa's career took off when he won Japan's first-ever gold medal in 1989.