Hiroichi Tategata's Danceable LIFE Vol.7

meet the musical
Hirokazu Tategata (actor, dancer, choreographer)

I like musicals.
When I thought about when I was interested in it, I remembered watching a musical stage when I was a child. I don't remember the details, but after that I was playing "musical play" with my friends, so it must have been really interesting. After that, when I was in high school, I did a “musical mock” at the school festival.
I started in earnest when I entered university and joined the "Musical Study Group". A senior I met there told me, "You should try dancing," so I knocked on the door of Nagura Jazz Dance Studio. Perhaps because of my height, I was able to get dance jobs while I was still in school, and I think I spent the latter half of my university life immersed in dancing.

At that time, Japanese musicals had a sort of “division of roles” between dancing and singing, so if you could dance, you could stand on the musical stage as an ensemble dancer. Musicals these days are centered on singing, so I feel that it's become difficult to stand on stage if you can't sing properly.

By the way, when I was in school, I was also involved in the activities of the Musical Study Group, so I was very busy with work as a dancer, classes at university, and club activities. There are times when I am too busy to remember. However, the people and experiences I met during my four years at university were very important, and they certainly laid the groundwork for who I am today.

I believe there is a certain kind of “magic” in musicals. It may be a common saying, but even if you think that straight acting is a little unnatural, you can easily fly to a different dimension by singing and dancing. . I think it's fun and free to skip detailed explanations and fly to different worlds with music.
Musical songs and dances have a mysterious “power” that straight plays do not have. Show dance also has singing and dancing, but I feel that it is a little different from that. I like straight plays, but I also feel a wonderful charm in the world where song and dance coexist.
The first full-fledged musicals I saw when I was young were "A Chorus Line" and "Cats" by Shiki Theater Company.
At the time, it was unprecedented to import an authentic Broadway stage, create a dedicated theater, and stage a work over a long span of several years.
I had just started dancing in earnest, so I had no idea that I would become a professional dancer. . At a time when it was still difficult to make a living out of dancing alone, the long-run system, which allowed dancers to continue performing on stage for a long period of time, was a revolutionary system that had not existed in Japan until then. So, on days when there was an audition for Shiki, all the powerful senior dancers went to the audition, so much so that the studio disappeared. However, at that time, I was still a novice, so I was an outsider (laughs).

One of the most memorable stage performances I performed as an ensemble was "Guys and Dolls" (1993, Nissay Theater). It is known as the lineup of the Takarazuka Revue Company, but I performed on a stage produced by Toho, starring Toshihiko Tahara. I performed because Mr. Nagura was in charge of the choreography, but the ensemble around me was all dance friends. Tahara-san took everyone out to dinner and threw a party at his house, which was really fun.

However, since I was part of an ensemble, I had no lines and was not given a microphone. The more I stood on the stage, the more I wanted to have lines, and the more I wanted to be able to sing.

Looking back on it now, I think how happy I am to be able to play a role with a title and to be able to sing my own songs.