Love Letter

BalletMet

Columbus, Ohio United States

2026

Love Letter is about how we express care and gratitude for the people around us.

Coming to BalletMet, I was moved by the many different paths everyone had taken to arrive in the same place, with dance as our common ground. Dance is how we express emotion, connection and artistry, so I wanted to bring that feeling onstage.

I worked with composer Alisdair Macindoe to create a contemporary re-arrangement of Gustav Mahler’s “Adagietto”, originally written as a love letter to Alma Mahler.

The work considers dance itself as a kind of love language: a way of saying what we feel, recognising one another and offering something back. In that sense, the work is also a love letter to dance.

Choreographer
Yuiko Masukawa

Music
Gustav Mahler, reimagined by Alisdair Macindoe

Lighting Design
Jacob M. Gooch

Dancers
Jessica Brown, Sumi Ichikawa, Sophie Miklosovic, Sophie Mossa, Zachary Guthier, Arsentii Lazarev, Jordan Sheppard, Sebastian Joan Zamora

The premiere of Love Letter was presented as part of BalletMet (US) Future Icons season.

“Masukawa conjured a worthy love letter to dance perfumed with intoxicatingly beautiful choreography”

— Steve Sucato, Fjord Review

“It moved me, and it left me genuinely curious about how the choreographer drew those emotions out of the dancer and made them bloom.”

— Stephano Candreva, Ballet Forum

  • Love Letter 1

    Dancers : Arsentii Lazarev and Sophie Mossa

  • Dancers : Sumi Ichika, Arsentii Lazarev and Sebastian Joan Zamora

  • Dancers: Sumi Ichikawa and Jordan Sheppard

  • Dancers: Sophie Miklosovic and Zachary Guthier

  • Dancers: Sophie Miklosovic and Zachary Guthier