Dream of Takarazuka: 3 ~ Ballet

[ekusudei]

3 ~*~ Ballet

As soon as I entered junior high, the talk began about continuing my education in high school.

As promised, my mother wrote to the school I wanted, the Takarazuka Music School. When I entered junior high, it seems that the results of my exams to separate me into my class were good, and the school teachers enthusiastically encouraged me to enter high school, but I didn't pay much attention. After that, my grades dropped, and I only got fives in my specialty subjects--P.E., music, and art--all of my other grades were completely awful, after which they understood at last and encouraged my entering the Music School.

I can admit it now, but it seems that they falsified my school record which I had to turn in at the Takarazuka entrance exam. Because it is of course preferred that the school admit healthy pupils, they padded my spotty attendance record. And it seems that they raised my grades slightly.

So when I entered the Music School I had become quite a smart, healthy child.

The thing I enjoyed most about entering junior high were the club activities. Actually, I wanted to enter the basketball club, but because it was important that I not injure myself, I gave up. I entered my second choice, the brass band club.

I learned to play the flute, sax, and trombone, but I left the club after a year and a half. I quit both the basketball club and brass band club for ballet.

In my first year of junior high I had a sudden growth spurt, and began to enter into adult roles. Unlike when I was a small child, I was recruited for the ballet troupe's performances. It was a large ballet troupe, so they put on a performance each month. Doing this, my days became a routine of dropping my bag off at home directly after school and going immediately to the ballet school. I would practice until ten or eleven o'clock, and always return home after twelve.

I had no time for club activities, playing with friends, or, of course, homework. On the day of a performance, we would rehearse from early in the morning, so I would have sudden absences from school, and because my body wasn't very strong, this hard lifestyle would lay me down from time to time. But as the one performing, I wasn't bothered by my beloved performance rehearsals, and because I was treated as one of the adults, it became quite enjoyable.

My first ballet performance was when I was in fourth grade in elementary school, a December performance in the Ueno Bunka Kaikan of "The Nutcracker". Incidentally, my role was one of the mice. My final performance was "Swan Lake". I remember that although it was the day before the high school entrance exams, I performed. During this time I played the lead role of Clara in "The Nutcracker", and when the Leningrad Ballet made a visit to Japan I danced amongst all the children, and I had appearances on TV--I had all kinds of experiences. At that time the primas in the ballet troupe were Maki Asami-san, Oohara Noriko-san, Morishita Youko-san, Kawaguchi Yuriko-san, Yuuki Miho-san, Mushiyano Kouji Yukiko-san, Shimizu Youko-san, etc. A mountain (excuse the expression) of people who are now all shining brightly in various places. I am a very lucky woman to have rehearsed and grown up watching these people. Instead, no matter how I rehearsed I could never compare with them, so perhaps I quit too soon.

Comments

[anthy1306.livejournal.com]

Very interesting to read, she was no good student *g*
Gaaa, and that schedule.....just gaaaaa X_X

[ekusudei.livejournal.com]

Japanese junior high students' schedules can be quite mad..... T_T

[anthy1306.livejournal.com]

And even worse, when ambitious mothers are involved. It's like that in Korea, too. Really insane X____X

[poggie92.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for translating these chapters - I'm really enjoying reading them ♥