Shoko Nakamura

Born in Fukuoka, Japan, at the age of seven Shoko Nakamura began her ballet training at the Chikako Tanaka school in Fukuoka. At age sixteen, after competing and winning the first prize in the Lausanne International Ballet Competition, she received a scholarship to be a part of the John Cranko School in Stuttgart. In 1998, Shoko was offered a contract in the Stuttgart Ballet where she performed for two years. In 2000, she joined The Vienna State Opera, where in 2002 she was promoted to a soloist. In 2006–2013, she was a Principal Dancer with the Berlin State Ballet. Since 2013, she has been a Principal Dancer with the Hungarian National Opera. Her repertoire includes the roles of Odette/Odile in Nureyev’s Swan Lake, Juliet in Cranko’s Romeo and Juliet, Sylvia in Ashton’s Sylvia, Nikiya and Gamzatti in Malakhov’s La Bayadère, Princess Aurora in the productions of The Sleeping Beauty by Vladimir Malakhov and Peter Wright, roles in George Balanchine’s Theme and Variations, Tchaikovsky Pas de deux, Symphony in C, Serenade, Apollon musagète, Jirí Kylián’s Petite Mort, William Forsythe’s The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude, Herman Schmerman, Slingerland Pas de deux, Nacho Duato’s Arcangelo, among many others.