Hirokazu Tategata's Danceable LIFE Vol.7

Encounter with musicals
Hirokazu Tategata (Actor, Dancer, Choreographer)

I like musicals.
When I thought about when I first became interested in musicals, I remembered seeing a musical on stage as a child. I don't remember the content, but I seem to have played "pretend musicals" with my friends afterwards, so it must have been really interesting. Later, when I was in high school, I even did a "mock musical" at the school festival.
I started dancing seriously when I entered university and joined the Musical Study Group. There, I met a senior who told me, "You should try dancing," so I went to Nagura Jazz Dance Studio. Perhaps because I was tall, I started getting dance jobs while I was still a student, and I feel like I spent the latter half of my university life completely absorbed in dancing.

In those days, Japanese musicals had a sort of "division of roles" between dance and singing, so if you could dance you could appear on stage as an ensemble dancer. Nowadays musicals are centered around singing, so I feel that it has become difficult to appear on stage if you can't sing properly.

By the way, while I was at university, I continued to be active in the musical study group, so I was extremely busy with my work as a dancer, university classes, club activities, and so on. I was so busy that there are times when I have completely lost track of time. However, the people I met and the experiences I had during my four years at university were very important, and they certainly formed the foundation for who I am today.

I think there is a certain "magic" to musicals. It may be something that is often said, but even things that seem a little unnatural in a straightforward play can be expressed through song and dance, allowing you to effortlessly fly into another dimension. You can leave out the detailed explanations, and I think there is a freedom and fun in being able to fly into a different world with the music.
The songs and dances in musicals have a mysterious "power" that isn't found in straight plays. Show dance also has songs and dances, but I feel that it's a little different. I like straight plays, but I also find the world where songs and dances coexist wonderfully appealing.
The first full-scale musicals I saw when I was young were Shiki Theatre Company's "A Chorus Line" and "Cats."
Importing a real Broadway stage, building a dedicated theater, and performing a production over a long span of several years was unprecedented at the time.
I had just started to dance seriously, so I never even considered becoming a professional dancer, but something that changed that in a good way was the long-running productions of Shiki Theatre Company. At a time when it was still difficult to make a living solely from dancing, the long-running system that allowed dancers to continue performing on stage for an extended period of time in one production was a revolutionary system that had not existed in Japan until then. So on the day of the Shiki audition, all the powerful senior dancers flocked to take the audition, and the studio was practically deserted. Of course, I was still just starting out at the time, so I was an outsider (laughs).

The most memorable stage performance I performed in as an ensemble was "Guys and Dolls" (1993, Nissay Theatre). It's known as part of the Takarazuka Revue lineup, but the production I appeared in was produced by Toho, starring Toshihiko Tahara. I was cast because Nagura-sensei had choreographed it, and the other members of the ensemble were all fellow dancers. Tahara-san took us all out to dinner and threw parties at his house, so it was just so much fun.

However, because I was part of the ensemble, I had no lines and was not even given a microphone. The more I performed on stage, the more I yearned for lines and the more I wanted to be able to sing.

Looking back on it now, I realize how lucky I am to have been given a role with a name and to be able to sing my own songs.