Dream of Takarazuka: 36 ~ Takarasienne

[ Dream of Takarazuka table of contents ]

36 ~*~ Takarasienne

There is valuable data about Takarasienne, that they lose three kilograms of weight and one centimeter of height over the course of a three-hour performance.

I can confirm this as true, as I gave myself a check-up in the morning and at the end of the performance and compared the results.

What I'm trying to say is that our job is hard and physically laborious.

* * *

If I were making a list of how hard it is, I'd start with the costumes.

The motto of Takarazuka theater is gorgeous and beautiful.

The higher an upperclassman you are, the higher the star, the more decorations you wear and the more splendid the costume.

But, it's heavy.

If you're unlucky, there may come a time when you have to wear a costume that's close to ten kilograms.

I'm happy to have a chance to wear pretty costumes, but the heavier they are the hotter they are to wear, and then of course it's really difficult to sing, act, and even dance in them. And I know now that as much as we all say we want to wear the splendid costumes, sometimes we just want to wear the plain, softly spinning costumes.

* * *

Next, the torture of feathers.

"I'm sorry, all you birds!" I can't help but think, with all that weight of feathers on my back.

I was so joyful and so glad the first time I wore the finale costume with gorgeous feathers, like a real star.

But I was shocked by the weight on my back.

I'm not sure how many, a hundred, two hundred or more, that heavy.

And it's not just the weight, but when you walk there's wind resistance, so that it feels like you're walking into a stiff breeze as you walk across the stage.

Just like Dorothy could walk in the twister using the magic of Oz, I guess I've gotten used to walking with the weight of the feathers on my back.

* * *

To continue, I'll explain a bit about quick changes.

You run off into the wing of the stage, change your costume, wipe off your sweat, fix your hair, and run back out onto stage.

When you have one, two minutes to do this, it's a quick change.

My fastest record right now is 25 seconds.

When you have a show with a succession of quick changes, being on stage is a bit of a breather.

And then when a bunch of people are doing a quick change at once, it's rough!

Suddenly you realize that the orchestra is moving on and there's no one on stage.

But that all happens during rehearsals so that when it's the real performance, this is not a sight that the audience sees.

Sometimes one person will come on stage without their hat, or someone is wearing the wrong color shoes, and the quick change location in the wing descends into mayhem.

When someone puts on the wrong costume by mistake, even if the fit isn't quite right that means they have to quickly change and get out on stage.

During a quick change there isn't time to fix a mistaken costume. Quick change, quick change, whoosh, whoosh, and then the show is over! ... is what it feels like. The battle isn't just on the stage. In a Takarazuka show, the stage and the wings are both the battlefield, fifty/fifty.

And the pièce de résistance, the origin of our hard labor, is the singing and dancing.

You might say, "Well, isn't that the job?" And that's true, but if you came out and performed in just half of one of the hour-long revue shows then you would learn the exhaustion for yourself.

It's different from an idol going on TV and dancing along to a dubbed tape of themselves singing.

It's not humming along while doing the housework.

It's singing live along with an orchestra, and dancing.

Singing while dancing, or singing just after you've been dancing is a really hard feat.

Fighting for breath, covered in sweat, and yet continuing to smile; you can't show how much you feel like crying.

* * *

If you can persist through all of this to the end, if you've digested all of this that makes up a performance, well, I'm sorry, but that's the world it is.

In the times before the curtain rises and after it falls, the magazine and newspaper articles, the radio and TV spots, our other appearances, the Bow Hall and tour rehearsals, all of it.... It's doing our job.

I comfort myself that I'm at my best on the job, and want to show myself not resting, but working.

It may seem redundant, but I think that complaining just leads to trouble and more complaints. In half a month I have a Bow Hall, then rehearsals for a Japanese dance performance, then ten days of rehearsals for a dinner show, the ten days after that rehearsals for a dance performance, and various other jobs so that dawn to dusk it continues, and I perform.

I'm busy enough that I wish there were three or four more of me.

And in spite of all of this, here I am heroically putting pen to paper....

I'm at my best on the job. Yes.

* * *

When jobs pile up, you get so busy there's no time to be ill. The powerful Takarasienne will go on, and the show will go on, no matter how the wheel turns, or the rain falls, or the spears fall.

And there isn't a single Takarasienne out there with merely average stamina.