Hana Sakai

Photo: Kikuko Usuyama

Hana Sakai

Hana Sakai was born in Seattle, USA, and raised in Kamakura City, Kanagawa Prefecture. She began studying ballet in 1979 under Toshiaki Hatasa. After training at the Tachibana Ballet School, she joined Asami Maki Ballet Tokyo, where she was selected to perform the role of Cupid at the age of 14, and made her debut in a leading role at the age of 18. In 1997, when the New National Theater, Tokyo opened, she joined the National Ballet of Japan as a soloist and performed alongside Yoko Morishita and Miyako Yoshida in the opening production of The Sleeping Beauty, and has performed many principal roles thereafter. In 2004, she became an Honorable Dancer with the National Ballet of Japan, and made guest appearances in Shiki Theatre Company’s Contact (2007) and Andersen (2009). In 2013, she began her artistic collaboration with Yasutake Shimaji as the dance unit Altneu. She has received numerous awards throughout her career, including the Chieko Hattori Award (2000), the Dance Critics Society of Japan Award (2008), The Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology’s Art Encouragement Prize (2009), the Nimura Dance Award (2015), the Akiko Tachibana Foundation Special Award (2018), and the Tokyo Shimbun Dance Art Award (2021). In 2017, she received the Medal with Purple Ribbon. She is a visiting professor of the ballet course at Senzoku Gakuen College of Music, a guest artist at DaBY (Dance Base Yokohama) since its founding in 2020, and a Dance Artist at Aichi Arts Center since April 2025.