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The natural: Boston Ballet's Misa Kuranaga has ballet in her soul and a Jackson gold medal to her credit.

Article Excerpt
Young, alone, and at the end of a one-year scholarship at San Francisco Ballet School, Misa Kuranaga auditioned for a spot in a ballet company--any ballet company. She was 19, and her search took her to studios both glamorous and modest around North America. But it soon became apparent that nobody intended to offer her a contract. Hesitant about her next move, she was still certain about one thing: She wasn't going back to her birthplace, Japan. The opportunity to become a professional ballet dancer in Japan, she says, doesn't yet exist.

"In my mind," says Kuranaga, a Dance Magazine "25 to Watch" last year, "I had to stay here no matter what. If I go back to Japan, what will happen? Nothing will happen! I knew I would have to stay here, keep fighting, keep improving, and find where I can be. There was no other choice."

Now, four years later, as second soloist at Boston Ballet, Kuranaga has performed roles ranging from romantic (the Sylph in La Sylphide) to classical (Princess Florine in Sleeping Beauty) to cutting-edge contemporary (premieres by Lucinda Childs, Helen Pickett, and Mark Morris). A dancer of great strength and radiance with a beautifully fluid port de bras, she is also one of the most committed and...

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