Ikebana Artist Mika Otani
First grade teacher (RIJI) of Sogetsu school Flower name is Soka Otani （大谷双香）
Born in 1968
Graduated from University of Sacred Heart in Tokyo in 1990
Began studying Ikebana when she was 20 years old and apprenticed under the great Ikebana artist, Soukou Tomita who is one of the best pupils of Sofu Teshigawara, the first President of Sogetsu Ikebana School. She has been studying Ikebana for over 30 years.
After being an editor at a publishing company for a women's magazine, Mika has turned to freelance work. She worked in advertising and in publishing, as a writer, an interior stylist, a table coordinator and a web publisher until the Tohoku Earthquake happened in 2011.
The devastating earthquake had a profound effect on Mika causing her to pursue a passion she could do for the rest of her life. That passion was the Ikebana and she set up her own classes at 3 locations in Tokyo, Japan.
She is doing "Ikebana demonstration" as her life work all over the world, which shows all the process how to create Ikebana in front of guests. She has been to Australia, India, U.S.A., Czech Republic, China, Italy, and so on to present Ikebana show.
She is so popular in Media world that she creates huge Ikebana works at locations or studios settings of Movies and TV programs as well as big events and party venues. She loves to collaborate Ikebana with other art and She did the collaboration with a fashion show, Virtual Reality World and so on.
Her most phenomenal work is Ikebana decoration for the TV serial drama, "Born to be a flower". That is the Ikebana drama that shows the inner world of Ikebana traditional society. She supervised the drama and created more than 170 Ikebana works including a lot of huge works through 10 episodes. This drama so inspired a lot of young people as they can know how creative Ikebana is through drama that she ignited a quiet boom of Ikebana in Japan.
She is good at expressing emotion and unique story through Ikebana and many movie and drama directors ask her to arrange original Ikebana that is reflected by the story of the movie. They say she established a new genre of Ikebana with her picturesque style.
The number of her followers on Instagram hit more than 50,000. Her Ikebana class holds more than 150 students and they are always on the waiting list to take their seats in her class. She is one of the most popular Ikebana artists.
She has already created a lot of Ikebana works in Hollywood movie, "Earthquake Birds", to decorate the scene and give the deep meaning on each scene. We can easily imagine she will definitely be popular even in the world soon.
