Yukichi Hattori is a Japanese-Canadian ballet dancer, dance teacher and choreographer based in Calgary, Alberta. He is a former principal dancer with the Alberta Ballet Company.
Hattori grew up in Tokyo, Japan; his parents were actors. [1] [2]
Hattori danced with the Hamburg Ballet in Germany, where he met dancer Galien Johnston; the two were married. They moved to Calgary, Alberta, in 2006, where they both danced with the Alberta Ballet Company, for which Hattori became principal dancer. [1]
Hattori choreographed dances for the company, including Stravinsky’s "Le Sacre du Printemps", which premiered in early 2016. [3]
Hattori retired from the ABC after the 2015-2016 season, during which he performed the role of Elton John in the glam-rock ballet Love Lies Bleeding; [4] soon after, he and Johnson-Hattori opened a dance studio, the H/W Ballet School. [5] [6]
Hattori was commissioned by the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra to choreograph a ballet to accompany a five-movement symphony honouring Canada's 150th birthday. The resulting work, True North: Symphonic Ballet , premiered at the True North Festival in Calgary in 2017. [7]
In 2019 Hattori choreographed Billy Elliott: the Musical for Theatre Calgary. [8]