People

A choreographer, director, and dancer who led the Ballet Yuba in Brazil. Born Akiko Zushi. Passionately devoted to dance from an early age, she entered the Mitsuko Ando Dance Studio at the age of fifteen. She gained attention through performances with the Mitsuko Ando & Kan Horiuchi Unique Ballet Group, and also appeared on stage and television alongside Tatsumi Hijikata during his modern dance years.

In 1961, she married sculptor Hisao Ohara, a member of the avant-garde Neo-Dada art movement, and emigrated to Brazil aboard the Brasil Maru. They settled at Yuba Farm in Aliança, São Paulo State, a community founded with the values of 'cultivation, prayer, and art'. There, she began teaching modern ballet to the children of the farm and went on to establish the Ballet Yuba, for which she served as director and choreographer.

As an integral part of life at Yuba Farm, the Ballet Yuba evolved over time into a multigenerational endeavor in which four generations of families would eventually share the same stage. Deeply inspired by the pioneering spirit of the farm—where no one ever said 'I can’t because I’ve never done it before'—and by a way of life inseparable from art itself, she devoted her entire life to leading the Ballet Yuba.