Over the past two decades, his educational system has grown to naturally position the K-Ballet Academy at its top. Before its opening in September 2023, Kumakawa brought over Kenta Kura to direct the Academy and oversee all of the K-Ballet Schools.
Kura, a former Foundation and Development Programme educator with the Royal Ballet School, followed in Kumakawa’s footsteps to enter the Royal Ballet School as a student in 1997 and later joined the Company, where he was promoted to Soloist in 2007. He retired in 2014 to start his educational career, staying with The Royal Ballet at its famous White Lodge in Richmond Park, a former Royal hunting lodge and home to The Royal Ballet School's younger students, aged 11-16. Kura was honored last year in his selection as a judge for the Youth America Grand Prix (YAGP) Finals, held in New York, the first Japanese ever.
Kura also recently collaborated with Kumakawa to codify the Kumakawa Method, an educational philosophy Kumakawa developed over decades as he perfected ways to lead his young company.
As Kumakawa explains, “When it came to dance, I couldn’t analyze well, because I didn’t know why I was able to do the things that others couldn’t do, you know? It was so easy for me to move my body without thinking. Later, I realized as a director that I had to use words to pass on the techniques and allow my dancers to understand first in their heads, in order to create the movements with their bodies. It wasn’t yet in my dictionary, but at some point, I realized I needed to develop better vocabulary to pass on different techniques of movement.”
“The method springs from a combination of all sorts of influences like culture, background, skin, blood, muscle, anatomy,” Kumakawa continues. “We must take advantage of our fast-twitch muscles that are responsible for explosive, quick movements like a whip or fireworks, but also to develop the lovely slow movement that flows with the soft quality of an adagio.”
“By focusing on Asian dancers, nobody has really analyzed and put all that into one book before, considering various aspects, not just what you see or how you dance, but really digging into our cultural heritage. It has a similarity in approach throughout Asia. China, Korea, even Vietnam or Malaysia, Singapore these days, so in expanding the Method throughout Asia, if I can be helpful to those students who are learning ballet, without them having to go abroad to Western countries to study, that's a good opportunity.”
Without Kura, Kumakawa admits, he probably wouldn’t have written it down as an official system.
“Kenta started to analyze my movements and he brought such a different perspective, with his different abilities and personality too, coming at it like a true ballet educator, his genuine love of studying technique; he can do it all day. With his experience back in the UK, combined with my movement, eventually he approached me to formalize the Method into a book, which I never really had any intention to do before he came. Obviously, he started it, and I became just a puppet, like his guinea pig, because I still don't know 100% of myself with movement, but he thinks he knows 150% of myself.”
“I also have an admiration for him, for what he's been through, what he’s experienced, and what he's trying to give back to dance education and this world through his eyes.”
The idea for the Kumakawa Foundation also naturally arose from both his Company and experiences in ballet education, wanting not only a future home for his vast range of choreography, but to establish something to help talented students financially, on a larger scale than just tuition scholarships.
“We are now into our second year since I established it last July 7. So in two years, we’ve made such a difference; I've already felt very touched and honored to be able to help,” Kumakawa explains. From providing stipends for living expenses to counter inflation to offering the opportunity to attend world-class performing arts productions in order to strengthen their artistic sensitivity, the Foundation currently supports three students in overseas study.
When I bring up the possibility of an overseas tour for K-Ballet Tokyo or perhaps a collaboration with an European, Australian or North American Company, Kumakawa welcomes the idea. “I do hope to share our productions some day to audiences around the world, and I am open to collaborations or if a Company wants to perform my work,” he says. As Kumakawa points out, it requires more than just a financial commitment to stage his productions overseas: “You must establish a relationship, find a way of collaborating with an opera house or Company across the globe. I hope to, in the future.”
According to Kumakawa, there is no methodical, systematic plan (of course), and he too expresses surprise by how well everything aligns in his career, up to this point.
“In some ways,” he concludes, “it was just a coincidence that K-Ballet Tokyo, the schools, the Academy and now the Kumakawa Foundation, ended up becoming one vast organization. But it was probably the gradual combination of each aspect feeding into the next aspect naturally, so that the whole gained movement and momentum.”
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