TEDxTokyo 2016 Speaker BLACK
BLACK is all about impossible dreams. He earned the gold medal at the World Yo-Yo Contest in 2001 while still in his teens, but lost his spinning mojo because society didn’t value his achievement. Even when he graduated from university, he couldn’t make performing with the yo-yo a full-time career, and reluctantly became a systems engineer. He was depressed, lost and felt like he was dead. Most yo-yo champions were not valued by society, he found, and he wanted to change that environment. He quit his job and started a new career as a professional performer in 2007, hoping to perform with Cirque du Soleil to change the public’s image of the yo-yo. He merged ballet, jazz dance, acrobatics and even choreography from video games into his performance. His passionate attitude even brought him to TEDxTokyo in 2013. And in 2014, BLACK finally began performing in Cirque’s show Kurios: Cabinet of Curiosities as their first-ever yo-yo artist. BLACK’s goal these days is to tell people through his performance and talk how to make their dream comes true and enjoy a life filled with happiness.