Obituary: Michiko Takao - founder of ballet school in Kyoto, kept close tie with Ukraine - NHK

Michoko Takao （高尾美智子さん）, who dedicated her life to teaching ballet in Japan and kept a close friendship with Ukraine, has passed away after falling ill about two weeks ago, Japanese broadcaster NHK reported on 10th November 2025. She was 86 years old.

Japanese Takao received a government scholarship to train in Kyiv, Ukraine, when she was just 11 years old, according to this social media post about her 85-year-old birthday celebration.

In 1960, she co-founded Terada Ballet Art School in Kyoto, where she was from, with her husband.

In 1975, the school became a sister school of then the Kyiv National Ballet School. Since then, Takao sent many Japanese students to Kyiv and invited teachers, students and artists from Kyiv to her school and performed together.

Her son, Nobuhiro Terada, is Artistic Director of Ballet of the Taras Shevchenko National Opera and Ballet Theatre of Ukraine.

Takao lost her father in the second world war and she took the war in Ukraine personally, Terada told the NHK broadcaster. She helped Ukraine people, who fled the war, to move to Japan following the Russian invasion to Ukraine in 2022.