Ellen Akashi is a contemporary dancer originally from Orange County, California. You can follow her work here: https://www.instagram.com/ellen.akashi/

In our conversation Ellen discusses changing lanes to pursue your dreams, distinguishing the difference between hobby and passion, and embracing discomfort to become a better artist.

Born and raised in Orange County, California contemporary dancer Ellen Akashi started studying ballet when she was just three years old, and in time dreams of becoming a professional ballerina started to materialize. However, as she grew and started taking dance more seriously Ellen was suddenly faced with the realization that her passion and determination to become a ballerina were not enough as she lacked physical attributes like height and bone structure required of most professional ballerina. And now standing at a crossroads Ellen made the difficult decision to put dance behind her.

But just as soon as she'd made the decision a new door suddenly opened in the form of Contemporary dance, a style she was previously unaware of. Quickly Ellen found herself excelling again on this new path, sustaining her toward studying at Chapman University where she went on to earn her BFA in dance performance and onto dancing and performing in several projects and companies over the next several years.

Finding various levels of success, Ellen created a stable situation both financially and creatively for herself. However, after COVID she came yet again to another crossroads having discovered that she'd become complacent in her routine, and in an effort to grow and become a better dancer she's decided to move across the country to New York where she hopes to push herself outside of her comfort zone in order to forcibly move to the next step in her career.

Included in the unedited version of our conversation Ellen details her start as a dancer as well as the ins and outs of what its like to work as a professional in the field of dance.

In the bonus episode Ellen talks about her love of KPop and Korean culture before we segue into what it was like for Ellen as a Japanese-American the first time she went to Japan.

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