Kihiro Kusukami

Kihiro Kusukami joined the Royal New Zealand Ballet as a guest artist for Strength & Grace in August 2018 and became a full-time member of the company that September. He was promoted to Soloist at the beginning of 2020 and to Principal in 2023. Kihiro’s first national tour with the RNZB was Val Caniparoli’s The Nutcracker, in which his roles included the Nutcracker Prince and Chinese Tea.

Originally from Nagoya, Japan, Kihiro was awarded a scholarship to The Australian Ballet School at the 2013 Youth America Grand Prix, training at the School from 2014-16 and performing as a member of the Dancers’ Company of The Australian Ballet. His roles with the Dancers’ Company included Hilarion in Giselle, and in 2016 he also appeared in Houston Ballet’s production of Romeo and Juliet during the company’s Australian tour.

Kihiro spent 2017 with Queensland Ballet’s Jette Parker Young Artists Programme, appearing in productions including Liam Scarlett’s No Man’s Land, Amy Hollingsworth’s Glass Heart, Ben Stevenson’s Swan Lake and The Nutcracker, and Trey McIntyre’s Peter Pan. Kihiro continued to perform with Queensland Ballet as company artist in 2018, in productions including Liam Scarlett’s The Firebird, Greg Horsman’s La Bayadère and Carlos Acosta’s Carmen.

Since joining Royal New Zealand Ballet, Kihiro performed multiple roles including Rothbart in Black Swan, White Swan by Mário Radacovský, Artifact ll by William Forsythe, Prince Désiré in The Sleeping Beauty by Danielle Rowe, Twyla Tharp’s Waterbaby Bagatelles, Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Liam Scarlett, Albrecht in Giselle, Romeo and Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet by Andrea Schermoly, and Waltz Man in Serenade by George Balanchine.