Takami Craddock was born and raised in Japan. She received her BA in Modern Dance at Nihon University College of Arts. She studied Sanae Hara Modern dance Academy for 17 years until she graduated from college. Now she has an exchanging program with the school in Shizuoka, Japan since 2004.

After she moved to United States, she began performing and teaching in New York, Baltimore, Washington DC, and San Francisco. She was then the co-founder of San Francisco Butoh Festival 1994 – 1999. Through this festival she worked intensively with Butoh pioneers, Akira Kasai and Setsuko Yamada. She created the performance group “Toumei” (which means clear color) in 2000, now renamed MoBu Dance Group (“MoBu” means true dance in Japanese kanji characters). Mobu Dance is a hybrid contemporary dance style influenced by Japanese butoh and explores concepts of time, space and imagery. The group has collaborated with various artists in the Bay Area and performed many venues. Takami has been invited to lead workshops and perform in Tokyo, Thailand and France.

She also is passionate about teaching children. She worked with the Performing Arts Workshop for a decade and taught all over in the Bay Area public schools Kindergarten through 5th grade. In 1998 she started a children’s dance program called “DancEsteem” for children 3 to 18 years old.

Now her first students are adult and pursuing the carrier in dance and beyond.