Miyu Talks Life-Changing Bruno Mars Collab & Becoming CAA’s First Japanese Dancer: Unbound Japan Interview

Unbound Japan is a Billboard Japan interview series featuring entertainment industry professionals based outside the country and those working to expand Japan’s music out into the world. This installment features dancer Miyu, who at age 19, won the house division of JUSTE DEBOUT 2017 WORLD FINAL, the world’s premier street dance battle competition. She went on to expand her career both in her home country and abroad, culminating in September 2025 when she became the first Japanese dancer to sign an agency contract with Creative Artists Agency (CAA). Billboard Japan spoke with Miyu about what she’s gained over the course of her career so far, and the future she’s aiming for as a dancer.

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At the Billboard Global Power Players 2026, held on June 12, you took the stage as a presenter and honored CAA’s Marlene Tsuchii, who received the Artist Advocate Award. Could you tell us about how you met her?

I only met Marlene fairly recently, but thanks to her I was able to sign with CAA, my horizons broadened, and my imagination for what I want to do really expanded. Being able to call out Marlene’s name on that stage was a huge honor, and it’s rare for a dancer to attend an awards ceremony like that, so I felt it was an incredibly valuable opportunity and really enjoyed it.

Speaking of that agency contract with CAA, it was a landmark achievement as the first for a Japanese dancer. What led to the contract actually coming together?

In Japan, dancers often play a role that’s about making the artist shine, or a lot of them end up working as instructors. But in Los Angeles and South Korea, dance and music sit much closer together, and I really felt that dancers are recognized as artists in their own right, acknowledged by society at large. I once told an artist I’d worked with that I wanted to see that kind of world become the norm and that I wanted to go further abroad, and they were able to introduce me to people. From there, one connection led to another, and it eventually led to the contract.

The agency contract with CAA is a major milestone. Has anything changed for you since then?

Nothing has changed in a big way yet, but my own mindset has shifted a lot. It feels like I’ve suddenly stepped onto a huge stage, into an unknown world.

Looking back on your career, at 19 you won the house division of JUSTE DEBOUT 2017 WORLD FINAL, the world’s top street dance battle competition held in Paris. What do you think was the key to your win?

It’s partly up to the judges’ decisions, so I can’t say for sure, but I can say with confidence that I practiced more than anyone. Thanks to that, I wasn’t nervous going into it, and I think I was able to free myself on that big stage and deliver the best performance I’d ever given up to that point.

Did winning at JUSTE DEBOUT affect your career afterward?

Of course, I felt happy, almost like I couldn’t believe it, and I think the way people around me saw me changed a lot. But in terms of my own activities, I didn’t really feel much had changed. At 19, I’d vaguely imagined that winning a global dance competition would open the door to a more dazzling world, but even after actually winning, nothing like that happened. If anything, it made me realize just how little recognition dancers get from society.

Would you say that’s when you started to focus on getting dancers to shine not just behind the scenes, but in the spotlight too?

Yes. What I thought at 19 was, “I’ve spent this much time and staked my whole life on this, and yet when I come back to Japan, nobody knows who I am. Isn’t that just too sad?” That was my honest reaction.

As you mentioned, a dancer’s status still isn’t fully established in Japan. Is that different in other countries?

I think the country that’s changed the most in the past few years is South Korea. Shows featuring dancers apparently get very high viewership ratings there. And there’s also been a real increase in dancers collaborating with artists as equals, appearing in roles other than backup. But compared to when I was 19, I do think their status in Japan has been gradually rising too. It’s still far from the ideal, but dancers getting cast in ads and commercials, or being featured in magazines… That never used to happen, and now those kinds of opportunities have really increased.

In the TV commercial for (discount retailer) Don Quijote released in summer 2024, you appeared alongside Bruno Mars, at his request. How did that collaboration come together?

That was the first time I’d ever been offered a role directly by an artist. Bruno said he wanted to do house dance. We practiced together in Japan, worked out the choreography, and everyone came up with the costumes together. That collaboration changed my life. If I hadn’t met him, I might have never considered going to the U.S.

Did he give you any advice?

There’s a lot he told me that I still hold onto. Through working with Bruno, and with plenty of other people too, I’ve encountered so many who showed me things that are bigger than anything I’d seen before. And that made me feel confident enough to think, maybe I should jump into something bigger too.

You have a motto, “Make the impossible possible.” Does that come from your own experience?

Up to now, I’ve achieved things, like the world championship, that people around me told me were impossible. They weren’t exactly saying that I couldn’t do it, but I still managed to achieve a lot of things starting from a place where not much was expected of me. Looking back on those experiences, I’ve come to believe that there’s nothing in life that’s truly impossible. I think there are so many people out there who feel like something’s not possible and give up on it. I want to be a source of strength for people like that, and because I keep taking on things that seem impossible to myself, I want to be someone who can give others courage too. That’s why I made it my motto.

If you were to give advice to someone hoping to take on a challenge abroad, what would you say?

For starters, I’d say, “Just try it.” Take action first. If you keep telling yourself that you’ll do it once you’ve improved a bit, or once things are more in place, you’ll end up never doing it at all. Changing your environment or taking on a challenge abroad are really huge decisions. But if you can just scrape together the courage to take that step, you end up in a situation where you have no choice but to do it, so you’re forced to move forward. I think mustering the courage to take that first step is really important.

Tell us about what’s ahead. Is there anything you’d like to take on next?

I want to prove just how far I can go under the title of “dancer.” Being a dance instructor, a backup dancer, a choreographer are wonderful paths too, of course. But I want to help build a world where dancers can stand as artists, on equal footing with actors and singers. To do that, I want my work to go beyond the world of dance alone — combining dance with things I love, like fashion and music, and with the areas I’m involved in, like inclusion, technology, and education — so that more people get to discover the appeal of dance.

—This interview by Sakika Kumagai first appeared on Billboard Japan