{"id":544,"date":"2017-09-28T17:58:00","date_gmt":"2017-09-28T23:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zukalations.com\/?p=544"},"modified":"2021-01-09T22:45:50","modified_gmt":"2021-01-10T05:45:50","slug":"takarasienne-talent-showcase-february-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zukalations.com\/index.php\/2017\/09\/28\/takarasienne-talent-showcase-february-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Takarasienne Talent Showcase! (February 2017)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In this feature from\u00a0Kageki<\/em>, several siennes talk about skills they have that they don\u2019t get to show off on stage. This issue features Kijou Mitsuru, Ouji Kaoru, Hiroka Yuu, and Ayaki Hikari.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Takarasienne Talent Showcase!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Takarasiennes show off their special talents!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kijou Mitsuru, Moon Troupe: Synchronized Swimming<\/em>
I was taking swimming from the time I was really little, but in 1st grade my mother said \u2018Wouldn\u2019t you rather do synchronized swimming? It\u2019s just the same,\u2019 and I fell for it (laughs). I was already taking ballet then, so I thought they\u2019d blend well and started taking lessons at a club operated through the prefecture. In the end I went for ballet, so I only really did it for the 6 years of elementary school, but around 5 days a week I\u2019d head to the club after school, and on top of the synchronized swimming lessons I did ballet, jazz dance, marathon, swimming\u2026day after day I had Spartan training until dark. Once it got so tough that I started crying, but then I was told ‘You did even better while you were crying!\u2019 so I was like ‘Dammit!\u2019 (laughs). But at the prefectural sports meet I won a trophy in the junior division! Because of the stamina that gave me, I don\u2019t get out of breath much on stage, and it was a good experience for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ouji Kaoru, Snow Troupe: Awa-Odori1<\/sup><\/em>
Due to my father\u2019s work we lived in Tokushima Prefecture for 5 years, until I was in 2nd grade. And if you\u2019re in Tokushima, obviously there\u2019s Awa-Odori. It\u2019s not an exaggeration that all the kids in Tokushima do Awa-Odori; I was assigned to a children\u2019s\u00a0ren<\/em>\u00a0(‘team\u2019) too. It wasn\u2019t just around the yearly festival for O-Bon, either. Even the adults would habitually practice after getting home from work, and though this might be a bit extreme it really felt as if everyone was just living for festival time. After that, we moved to Osaka, and to take the place of Awa-Odori I started taking ballet – so it\u2019s sort of thanks to Awa-Odori that I\u2019m in Takarazuka now (laughs). When I was in the 1st and 2nd year of middle school in Osaka, I was able to find an Awa-Odori school run by a rakugo performer from Tokushima. Even now when I hear rakugo I get really stirred up. Everyone, please try to see genuine Awa-Odori at least once. It\u2019s really exciting!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hiroka Yuu, Star Troupe: Chinese<\/em>
My father is from Taiwan and he would talk to me in Taiwanese from the time I was really little. Also, my grandparents would talk in a mixture of Chinese, Taiwanese, and Japanese. Taiwanese and Chinese are about as different as different dialects of Japanese, so when I thought ‘It would be really nice if I could speak a bit more\u2019 I started taking Chinese in elementary school. During the Taiwan performance2<\/sup> I would explain things to everyone else and such, but since I haven\u2019t studied in a while I can\u2019t really call myself fluent; I\u2019m at a conversational level. The word for ‘thank you\u2019, ‘\u8b1d\u8b1d\/Xi\u00e8xi\u00e8<\/em>\u2019, is one I like. ‘Go for it!\u2019, ‘\u52a0\u6cb9\/Ji\u0101y\u00f3u<\/em>\u2019, is another I like since my father would shout that at sports meets. I like how clearly the meaning comes across in Chinese. I would love to be able to put it to use in a show set in Taiwan or China, so if there is another Taiwan tour I\u2019d really like to go! (laughs)3<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ayaki Hikaru, Flower Troupe: Kendama4<\/sup><\/em>
When I was in elementary school, I had the chance to learn kendama from someone in my region. I didn\u2019t keep with it for very long, but last year I saw a kendama at a store that I fell in love with and bought on impulse, and before I knew it I was obsessed\u2026 I haven\u2019t been without one since. I know a lot of tricks, but my favorite is ‘the lighthouse\u20195<\/sup>. You start out holding the ball, and catch the handle on top so it looks like a lighthouse. The appeal of kendama for me is first off, that it\u2019s fun; also there\u2019s the element of success and failure, so it\u2019s a really great feeling to get a trick right. There\u2019s also the fun of learning new skills, and you can even get official kendama certification so I really recommend it (laughs). As for me, I want to use all sorts of different kinds of kendama and challenge myself with the really large ones. My dream is to be able to use kendama on stage sometime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1 – Awa-Odori is the term for the yearly dance festival in Tokushima as well as the dances performed there. It is the largest dance festival in Japan, attracting over a million tourists per year.\u00a0This is footage from the 2016 festival.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

2 – Takarazuka Japonisme\/The Bandit Chu Liuxiang Side Story\/Etoile de Takarazuka<\/em> tour, 2013.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3 – Hiroka later participated in the 2018 Taiwan tour of Thunderbolt Fantasy<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4 – A traditional ball-and-stick toy from Japan that has recently also become popular in the West.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5 – Explanatory video of this trick (Japanese).<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this feature from\u00a0Kageki, several siennes talk about skills they have that they don\u2019t get to show off on stage. This issue features Kijou Mitsuru, Ouji Kaoru, Hiroka Yuu, and Ayaki Hikari.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[20],"tags":[13,360,134,42,93,133,131,132],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zukalations.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zukalations.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zukalations.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zukalations.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zukalations.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=544"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/zukalations.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":545,"href":"https:\/\/zukalations.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544\/revisions\/545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zukalations.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zukalations.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zukalations.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}