There’s nothing like witnessing Takumi Miyake fully unleashed. In Alexei Ratmansky’s Serenade After Plato’s Symposium last fall at New York City’s Lincoln Center, the American Ballet Theatre soloist blazed onstage in a large circle of chaîné turns, building speed like a category-5 hurricane. He continued into a manège of barrel turns, his body soaring so high you could see his position mid-air with perfect clarity.
The 22-year-old Japanese virtuoso has generated buzz since joining ABT’s Studio Company in 2022. Artistic director Susan Jaffe has wasted no time pushing him to the forefront—just weeks into his first season as a corps member in 2024, Miyake performed a principal role in Harald Lander’s Études, dashing off nine consecutive double tours in the ballet’s finale.
Miyake may be a phenom, but he’s not a show-off. There’s nobility to his dancing: musically precise, with clean lines and an energetic presence that doesn’t pander for applause. “Takumi has a rare, dynamic technique, but more importantly, he knows how to communicate with it,” says Jaffe, who promoted Miyake to soloist last summer. “He has an ease and confidence that draws your attention without ever feeling forced.”
Miyake is modest and soft-spoken in person, growing bashful when asked about his gifts. “I just practice a lot. That’s all I can say,” he says. But he also has an earnest desire to deepen his artistry—and to stretch his repertoire beyond bravura roles.
Japan and Beyond
Miyake grew up in Kagawa, a small prefecture on the Japanese island of Shikoku, in a family with deep dance roots. He received his initial training at Kondo Ballet, a studio founded by his maternal great-grandfather that has since been passed down to his grandmother and now his mother. He started participating in ballet competitions around age 9. “I was often the only boy, so I got many first places,” Miyake says. “I thought, Okay, maybe I’m good at this.”
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Around age 12, he started training more seriously with his mother, who encouraged him to think beyond Japan. (She herself had studied in London and Australia.) “Ballet isn’t really considered a proper job back home,” he says. “There are companies, but the work situation isn’t great—dancers are often only paid per show and need an outside job to support themselves.”
In 2016, Miyake attended a summer intensive at Southland Ballet Academy in Los Angeles, where then-Royal Ballet School director Christopher Powney was guest-teaching. Impressed, Powney named Miyake a Royal Ballet School International Scholar, which allows promising foreign students to study there for select weeks during the year. A few months later, after Miyake won first place at Youth America Grand Prix’s semifinals in Osaka, Powney upped his offer with a full scholarship to the year-round program in London.
London Years
Miyake entered the Royal Ballet School’s White Lodge in September 2017. He was 13, and while he wasn’t exactly homesick, he couldn’t speak much English. “It was difficult in the beginning,” he says, especially in some academic classes. “But my friends would help me.”
He felt his world opening up: “All I knew was classical ballet, so it was good to learn its more contemporary side and meet dancers from all over.” Sometimes he would go to Royal Ballet performances, where he was particularly inspired by principal dancer Matthew Ball. “I saw his performance of Des Grieux in Manon,” Miyake remembers. “It was just perfect—how he was telling the story looked so natural.”
In 2019, Miyake graduated into Royal Ballet’s Upper School, a period marked by interruptions. First, the COVID-19 pandemic forced him to return to Japan. He continued his classes via Zoom, often starting at 9 pm due to the time zone difference.
Miyake returned to London in the fall of 2020, but sprained his right ankle soon afterwards, tearing two ligaments. He underwent surgery and spent months in recovery. That April, he sprained it again, requiring a second surgery. “I basically missed my first and second years at the Upper School,” he says. “I was way behind, especially with partnering.”
He kept a positive attitude, absorbing as much as he could through the physical therapy and strength coaching he received. The following school year, he worked closely with his teacher, Ricardo Cervera, to get back in top form. (Despite the setbacks, his talent was evident—he would later receive a London Ballet Circle’s Dame Ninette De Valois Award, awarded to outstanding male and female graduates.)
Still, Miyake wasn’t fully healed in time for The Royal Ballet’s company audition in December 2021, or for most others in Europe. He turned his attention towards U.S. companies, which often hire into the spring. At a teacher’s recommendation, he auditioned for American Ballet Theatre Studio Company that April.
Destination ABT
Carlos Lopez, a director of repertoire at ABT, recalls Miyake’s audition: “Takumi’s beautiful presentation is what first caught my attention,” says Lopez. “He has a calm and gracious way of dancing. And his jumps were incredibly impressive—he just floats.”
ABT offered him a Studio Company contract. Miyake saw it as an ideal opportunity, as he could continue catching up on his training and partnering skills, as opposed to jumping into corps work. “ABT Studio Company does their own rehearsals and performances, so I would actually get more opportunities to partner,” he says.
Miyake immediately stood out for what Jaffe calls his rare combination of refinement and dynamism. “He can truly wow an audience, but it’s supported by musicality and clarity, so it never feels superficial,” she says.
Jaffe hired him into ABT as an apprentice in November 2023, testing him soon afterwards. For his first company performance that February, she cast him in Swan Lake’s Neapolitan variation alongside another powerful technician, soloist Jake Roxander. The duet includes a battle of pirouettes, and the two were perfectly matched. “It was so much fun to dance next to Jake,” Miyake says. “ ‘Oh, you can do that? I can do that too!’ ”
Études followed later in fall of 2024, not long after Miyake’s promotion to the corps. He buckled down, practicing consecutive double tours every day—sometimes doing as many as 16. In class, Lopez says, “Takumi always dances full-out, trying to do the extra pirouette, the extra jump, so that in rehearsal, he is so set up that he doesn’t have to keep repeating things.” The supportive camaraderie among ABT’s men helps, says Miyake, especially when they practice jumps and turns after class and cheer each other on.
Stretching His Skill Set
Throughout the 2024–25 season, Miyake continued juggling corps and soloist roles, including the mysterious Ever Watcher in Helen Pickett’s Crime and Punishment, Benno in Swan Lake, Eros in Sir Frederick Ashton’s Sylvia, and Giselle’s peasant pas de deux.
This season, he added Twyla Tharp works to his repertoire, along with the Bluebird pas de deux from Sleeping Beauty. “Bluebird was a big step for Takumi,” says Lopez. “We work a lot on his partnering skills, and I saw so much improvement over the course of those rehearsals.”
So far, Miyake has mostly danced roles that show off his technical gifts, and Lopez admits that male dancers with his level of virtuosity can get easily typecast. But Miyake says he’s eager to stretch his artistry. Jaffe wants that for him as well. “The next step is exploring greater nuance and complexity, and continuing to develop a distinct artistic voice as he takes on more demanding repertoire,” she says.
This summer he’ll get a chance when he debuts as the poet Lensky in John Cranko’s Onegin. In one of the ballet’s most heartbreaking scenes, Lensky dances an emotional adagio before losing his life in a duel.
Miyake has been watching archival videos to prepare. “I’m trying to study how Lensky was thinking and feeling,” he says. The choreography, with its controlled pirouettes and sustained piqué arabesques, is technically demanding. “But making the acting natural, visible, and easy to understand [will be] the most challenging part.”
A Star in the Making
In addition to ABT, Miyake is in demand on the international gala circuit, often guesting with his girlfriend, rising corps member Yoon Jung Seo. He also returns home to Japan every summer to visit family and perform. Last year he was invited to the Vail Dance Festival, dancing Balanchine’s Tarantella and a new work by Tiler Peck. “That was my first time dancing at high altitude—I was dying,” he says, laughing. “But the experience taught me how to manage my body more.”
Back in New York City, he often unwinds by cooking, watching YouTube, and playing video games. But his main focus right now is in the studio. This season, he’s understudying Don Quixote’s Basilio, though his ultimate dream is to dance romantic roles like Romeo and Des Grieux. “Hopefully they’ll come with time, when they think I’m ready,” he says. “I will just keep working until then.”
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