Kaori Ito (born 1979) is a Japanese dancer and choreographer active in France. Since the age of five, Kaori has studied classical ballet under Takagi Syuntoku in Tokyo, and at eighteen was declared by Ryouichi Enomoto as the best young dancer and choreographer. She is the founder of the dance company Hime and has performed for Philippe Decouflé, Angelin Preljocaj, Alain Platel, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, and James Thierrée before embarking on her own choreographic adventure through collaborations with Aurélien Bory, Olivier Martin Salvan.
Steeped in Japanese culture and trained in Western dance, Kaori has developed a hybrid and unique vocabulary that resembles herself. At the crossroads of cultures and languages, she is interested in the unspoken and invisible. Her close proximity to theater dance allows her practice to reflect both her own experiences and that of others. Kaori’s practice draws upon themes such as taboos, the end of the world, death, love, and loneliness; which are vocalised in her productions to inspire the movements that she seeks to see in dance.