Hinako dances
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Hinako Yukimoto is from Osaka, Japan, and lives in the Netherlands since 2020. She first did a Bachelor’s Dance at the Royal Conservatoire in the Hague, and moved in 2023 to Rotterdam, where she got an internship in the company Conny Janssen Danst. I got to know Hinako (and quite a few other dance students) because Japanese dance student Moët Tsukada lived in our house for a few years and her friends came over (all dancers, from different countries). Moët moved to Toulouse to dance.
What puzzled me about the dance students was their devotion to dance. They do not just dance as a passion, their life and their world is dance - dance - dance. Most of them started at the age of 4-5 years. Sometimes parents pushed a bit, but in most cases they didn’t. The young dancers just loved dance and the world of dance. It was hard work for them, with competitions, discipline about diet and exercise, and sometimes injuries. The student dancers realise that professional dance is unlikely to make them rich and famous, only very few make it to the top and the large majority is happy when they get a contract. There are just more aspiring dancers than positions available in dance companies. Salaries are quite modest and many dancers do side jobs such as teaching yoga, or work as a waiter.
Hinako loves contemporary dance more than classical dance, though she developed classical dance skills. Modern dance has more space for self-expression, she says. Also that Europe is better for a modern dancer. She now looks for a dance company with a modern repertoire that is interested in a dancer like Hinako.
I made pictures of Hinako in 2023 and 2024, first in the La Lumiėre studio of Petra Teeuwsen – Petra specializes on dance photography. The second time in a big dance studio of Conny Janssen Danst in Rotterdam.
Hinako’s website is https://hinakoloveballet.wixsite.com/hinakodances