Just six years ago, when Hanna-Lee Sakakibara plunged through the floor of a Jerusalem wedding hall in an infamous disaster that left 23 Israelis dead, it was unclear whether she would ever pirouette again. But next week she will become the first Israeli to appear on the Fox reality show “So You Think You Can Dance.”

Born in Jerusalem to a Japanese father and an Australian mother, Sakakibara was only 16 when the floor of the Versailles wedding hall, where she was working as a dancer, suddenly collapsed. A fellow dancer found Sakakibara, her legs pinned under rubble and her face shattered. Lying in a hospital bed, with metal plates in her face, the Christian Israeli dancer asked for divine intervention. “I just prayed as I lay in that bed,: ‘If you let me get out of this, God, I will pursue dance until the end.’”

She survived and, ever since, has been living up to her end of the bargain.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

After high school, Sakakibara moved to New York, where she studied at the famed Alvin Ailey school. Now 22 and done with her studies, Sakakibara is pursuing her professional dance career. She calls the second round of auditions for “So You Think You Can Dance” the most grueling of her life. During the first round of auditions, which were held May 1 in New York, Sakakibara said she was so nervous that she forgot her choreographed moves when it was her to turn to perform.

“I started dancing like a maniac. I can’t remember anything I did.”

But apparently the show’s producers liked what they saw. They were so taken with her moves — and her triumphant story — that they are also set to air a special May 24 segment on the Israeli dancer.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

$90 → $180 $180 → $360

$360 → $720

Other amount