Born in Tokyo, Japan, Misato started her classical ballet training at age of 3 and contemporary dance training at age of 16. During her studies at Ochanomizu University in Japan, she started working as a professional dancer, performing her own pieces at small theatres in Tokyo, and teaching junior contemporary dance classes at private ballet school. After she graduated university with a BA in Dance and Dance Education, she started project-based dance company “&dot.” and performed her first full-length creation in 2016. Misato’s dance practice is based on the word “If”. She is interested in how simple movement is affected and changes when she sets rules. IN 2017 she joined the MA Dance & Creative Enterprise course here at NSCD.
Since graduating from the MA Dance & Creative Enterprise, Misato received the Autograph commission from Serendipity, and performed in the 2019 edition of Let's Dance International Frontiers Festival (LDIF 2019)
I applied to this course after I had a difficult time organising my first full-length performance. As a young emerging artist in Japan, I had to do produce my own performance in addition to choreographing and dancing in it. I looked for a course where I can develop my practice as a choreographer and study art management at the same time and I found NSCD.
The site-specific dance project was a very good opportunity for me to dance in a non-theatre space. During the placement module, I witnessed three choreographers creating pieces, each using different methods, and I created a duet with talented third year dancers. Arts management classes were helpful for me to understand how the dance industry works in the UK and have given me ideas of how to survive as an independent dance artist.
