Nakamura Kazuha began ballet at age 3 when her mother enrolled her at Hashimoto Sachiyo Ballet School in Osaka. "At first, I didn't say I wanted to learn it," she later recalled. "My mother sent me to a ballet studio near her house, and I started unknowingly. It was like learning while having fun and playing with friends." What began as casual lessons evolved into competitive ambition. Between 2015 and 2019, Kazuha swept awards at Japanese ballet competitions, often taking first place.1

Her trajectory took her to the world's most prestigious institutions: short-term training at the Bolshoi Ballet Academy in Moscow and the Royal Ballet School in London—the latter accepts only 16 students per intake. In 2020, she enrolled at the Dutch National Ballet Academy in Amsterdam, preparing to audition for professional ballet companies. She was 17, on the cusp of a classical dance career, when everything changed.2

K-pop first entered Kazuha's consciousness through a YouTube algorithm. "I fell in love with K-pop the moment I listened to BLACKPINK's music for the first time," she explained. "I happened to see the 'Boombayah' music video on YouTube and I still remember how amazed I was when I first watched it. I thought, 'What is this whole new world?'" In 2018, she attended BLACKPINK's Arena Tour Special Final at Kyocera Dome in Osaka—and wept.3

"When I saw their performance with my own eyes, I was so impressed and moved that I literally cried," Kazuha recounted. "Up to that point, I had watched a lot of ballet performances, but BLACKPINK's performance was cool in a completely different way from ballet. I think that was when I thought I wanted to be on stage, too." BLACKPINK became her role model—Jisoo her bias—and a seed was planted: "Not the cute girl image, but like a cool woman."3

In 2021, while studying in the Netherlands, Kazuha reached a crossroads. She was about to audition for professional ballet companies—the culmination of 15 years of training—when the pandemic shifted the K-pop industry online. "At that time, all the K-pop auditions were taking place online due to COVID-19, and that gave me an unexpected opportunity," she said. "I didn't have many ballet classes at school around that time as well. So, I just decided, 'Let's just do it!'" She submitted a BTS "Dynamite" dance cover alongside a ballet video to Source Music.4

She passed. In December 2021, Source Music's CEO personally traveled to the Netherlands to recruit her—a detail that stunned K-pop fans when revealed. Training began immediately: vocal and dance trainers visited Amsterdam, giving her 5 hours of vocal practice in the morning and choreography in the afternoon. She met her future groupmates—Sakura, Chaewon, and Yunjin—over Zoom. With roughly 3 to 5 months of training, Kazuha debuted as LE SSERAFIM's fifth member on May 2, 2022—the shortest training period in HYBE's history at that time.5

The transition was jarring. In the YouTube docuseries The World Is My Oyster, Kazuha is seen crying during her first week of training, frustrated by the fundamental differences between ballet and hip-hop. The posture, the isolations, the energy—everything she had internalized for 15 years had to be unlearned. "The fundamentals of ballet and hip-hop are starkly different," EnVi Media noted, "and in the docuseries, Kazuha is seen crying when she feels that she isn't doing well enough—after less than one week."5

Yet her ballet training also became an asset. LE SSERAFIM's choreography—particularly "Blue Flame" and "ANTIFRAGILE"—incorporates ballet elements specifically for Kazuha. Her dance inspiration, BTS's Jimin, shared a similar background in fluid contemporary dance; when she and Sakura filmed a TikTok with Jimin for his solo track "Like Crazy," it represented a full-circle moment. Her signature stretching habit—visible in countless behind-the-scenes clips—remains a daily ritual carried over from 15 years of barre work.5

In November 2024, LE SSERAFIM performed encore concerts at Tokyo Dome as part of their "Easy Crazy Hot" tour—just three years after debut. For Kazuha, who first dreamed of K-pop while watching BLACKPINK at Kyocera Dome in Osaka, the moment carried profound personal meaning. At a fan signing event earlier that year, a father had told her: "I am coming to the concert with my daughter, who is practicing ballet very hard. We are both excited."6

"I first watched a concert when I was also focused on ballet, and I went with my father," Kazuha reflected during the Tokyo Dome encore, visibly emotional. "Maybe that's why it felt so special. It is amazing that someone in a situation similar to the moment when I first dreamed of performing is now coming to see our concert at a place as big as Tokyo Dome." The ballerina who once sat in the audience had become the artist on stage.6