Japanese dancer Fumi Kaneko has expressed her joy over recently being promoted to principal dancer at Britain's Royal Ballet, saying it "feels like a dream."
"I am still surprised and it hasn't sunk in," Kaneko, 29, said in an interview with Kyodo News on Wednesday, after the Royal Ballet announced the previous day her promotion to principal, the highest-ranked dancer who often plays a leading role.
Kaneko, who is set to appear as the principal in Christopher Wheeldon's "Within the Golden Hour" on Thursday, said she "couldn't believe it" and cried tears of joy when she was told about her promotion.
Having started training at a ballet school in the western Japanese prefecture of Osaka when she was 3 years old, Kaneko said she was determined as a child to someday become a "world-recognized ballerina."
The native from the city of Osaka said, "I just loved ballet and wanted to continue doing it," and her determination grew as she became older.
Kaneko won a gold medal at the Varna International Ballet Competition in 2008, then silver medals at international competitions in Moscow the following year and the United States in 2010.
She went on to join the Royal Ballet in April 2011, and was promoted to soloist in 2013. Five years later, she became first soloist, the rank under principal.
Her roles at the Royal Ballet include that of Princess Aurora in "The Sleeping Beauty," Odette and Odile in "Swan Lake," and the Sugar Plum Fairy in "The Nutcracker."
She is the first Japanese dancer to be elevated to the rank of principal at the Royal Ballet since 2016, when Ryoichi Hirano and Akane Takada were promoted.
Coming to Britain alone was not easy, Kaneko said, as she recounted how she underwent two surgeries due to serious injuries she sustained that forced her to stop training for a period.
"It was a long road but I hope that by coming this far, I can give hope to people who are thinking about doing their best," she said.
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Japanese dancer Kaneko promoted to principal at Royal Ballet
