Yoshifumi Inao

Yoshifumi Inao
At the Norwegian National Ballet, Yoshifumi Inao has starred in Ekman's A Swan Lake and as Engstrand in Moum Aune and Espejord's Ibsen's Ghosts, both in the Main House. He has also danced in Forsythe's One Flat Thing, reproduced, Strømgren's Lamentate, Inger's Dream Play, Øyen's Timelapse, Kylián's No More Play and Sechs Tänze, and León & Lightfoot's Sad Case. 

He previously danced with Carte Blanche, where he worked with choreographers such as Jo Strømgren, Ina Christel Johannessen and Jorma Uotinen. From there he moved to Tel Aviv, where he worked with Ohad Naharin and his company, the Batsheva Dance Company. Inao toured a lot with the company and danced leading roles in several of Naharin's productions, as well as in works by choreographers such as Forsythe, Ek, Saarinen and Eyal. Early on, he was appointed Rehearsal Manager in addition to his work as a dancer, and in 2003/04 he was also the company's Artistic Director.

Inao moved to Oslo in 2007 to work as a freelancer. As a choreographer, he has worked with Carte Blanche, the Norwegian National Ballet and the Japanese dance company Noism, and as assistant to Naharin he set up many of the choreographer's works for various dance companies in both Europe and North America.

Originally from Japan, Inao began dancing in his home city of Kyoto before travelling to Lausanne in 1993, where he studied various forms of dance, acting, singing and martial arts at Maurice Béjart's École Atelier Rudra Béjart.