Meet Mikua Mori | Dance Instructor, Choreograpger, Performer, English Teacher and Translator

I am a dancer and I love to create shows and perform on the stage to inspire people. When I was 11 years old, my mentor made me cry with her performance. I was moved and the moment is unforgettable. Because humans have emotions, doing whatever I love and inspiring people are amazing things to me and others. You have fun watching shows or performances and just feel good or get inspired to create something new. The most important thing to me is showing creativity, possibility, and love. Artists love to create something, but it could be hard to pursue their dreams. However, I would like to accept their ability, make it grow, and give big hopes to my younger generation. I am working on giving more opportunities in my home city Nagoya to dancers with my friends. I want to give people big dreams and that is why I pursue my creative career.

Me as a Japanese girl, I was shy when I was a kid. I didn’t have any confidence and I used to care about what people think about me. However, when I am a dancer/performer I can be someone else who is completely fierce or the best version of myself. Living by myself, training, and learning new languages and cultures in LA for 2 years and 8 months were the turning points in my life. It was not easy to challenge all of the new things, but I was really having fun these experiences to be stronger. Therefore, the time I struggled deserves to be myself today. I believe that my choreography, moves, and class are different from others because I experienced with my five senses that not so many people can do. More importantly, I must believe in my growth and I would like to show new styles or perspectives through my dance to inspire people. I think compared to the USA, there are many rules that we have to follow to be not strange in general in Japan. Also, most people in Japan are Asian and thus it is harder to find our personality than Americans. I want to tell them that you can do what you like, be yourself, say what you think with respect, and have confidence. I will keep building my art because I believe that “Dance” is a universal language that we all can have fun and speak up. I also donated and collect signatures to help people such as BLM by dance performance. It is important to know that dancers can help people. Now I hope I can go back to LA to challenge, improve myself more and let my students have big dreams!

On the first day, I would take you to Shibuya and Harajuku where are really popular areas in Tokyo. Because they have so many stores on the street, there are a lot of people every day. When you see the biggest crossing in Japan, you would feel “Tokyo City” there. On the second day, I would take you to Yokohama city. They have a Chinese town where you can eat delicious Chinese food and the popular red brick warehouse has many cute stores that you can buy souvenirs. You can see a big ship and a ferris wheel. It is a beautiful view at night. Next, I would take you to the Tokyo Disney Sea. It has realistic virtual worlds that make you forget about the time. On the next day, I would take you to Osaka has many good food and great Japanese thrift stores. In the last two days, I would take you to Kyoto and Nara where you can experience old Japanese culture. You can actually wear Kimono and walk around to see beautiful temperatures. Because Kyoto is my favorite city in Japan, you can definitely have great memories on the last day!

I would love to shut out to my mentors. They showed me how effort and love are important. They give me new perspectives and it inspires my creativity today. I started learning dance from Erico since I was 12 and she kept teaching me new things every time when she came back to Japan from LA. It is what I want to do now to my students and I respect her as a dancer, teacher, and person. She taught me the world I had never seen. Then I moved to LA and Free let me see his work. He works with a lot of artists around the world and I could see their work. This experience was absolutely epic and I am trying to share and teach what I saw and what my students need to make their dreams happen. I could not be me who is be able to live my lovely life without them.