Lainie Sakakura

Lainie Sakakura, recipient of the 2015 Joe A. Callaway Award for Outstanding Choreography and 2002 Joseph Jefferson Award for Best Choreography. As a Broadway performer, she performed exclusively in original casts: Chita Rivera The Dancer’s Life, Flower Drum Song (revival), Tommy Tune’s The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public, The King And I (1996 and 2015 revivals), and Fosse (dance reconstruction & onstage dance captain). Other NYC performing credits: Ballet Hispanico, Metropolitan Opera, City Center Encores! 1994 Sakakura became the second Asian NYC Radio City Rockette following Setsuko Maruhashi, the first Rockette of color hired in 1985. 

Sakakura is a NYC based writer, director, choreographer, teaching artist, advocate for cultural diversity, inclusion, and education. Co-founder of Rockettes of Color Alumnae, co-conceived and wrote BCEFA’s Red Bucket Follies Opening Number at the New Amsterdam Theater celebrating Flower Drum Song’s 60th Anniversary & Asian Americans on Broadway. Currently developing Corner of Bitter and Sweet, a musical adaptation of New York Times Best Seller, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet. 

32 years teaching experience including NYU, Pace University, ABT, Joffrey, Jacobs Pillow, Alonzo King LINES Dance Center, Dance Theatre Arts (owner/dir), Verdon Fosse Legacy Reconstructeur, and Gwen Verdon approved Fosse teacher at the original Broadway Dance Center in the 1990’s.