#hyoen2017

http://www.tvguide.or.jp/feature/kissandcry/20171115/02.html

Releasing our exclusive pictures of Daisuke Takahashi who performed the young warrior Yoshitsune

The ice show, Hyoen2017 -Basara-, was held at Yoyogi National Gymnasium from May 20th this year. Japan’s representative skaters such as Daisuke Takahashi, Sizuka Arakawa, Nobunari Oda, Akiko Suzuki and Mai Asada performed the show with Kabuki actors such as Somegoro Ichikawa and Emiya Ichikawa and it attracted much attention. The show surprised and moved audience and even now, a half year past after the show, the memories of the show never fade.

 We show you our exclusive pictures of Minamoto-no-Yoshitsune, the young and virile warrior, performed by Daisuke Takahashi, from the show which represented the new possibilities of both figure skating as well as Kabuki.

The story of the show is an account of dream by Goddess(Shizuka Arakawa). To rule a new country, Sarutahiko (Kikaku Nakamura) invited Ninigino-mikoto (Nobunari Oda). For his brides, Iwanagahime (Emiya Ichikawa) and Konohanasakuyahime (Mai Asada) were chosen but since Ninigino-mikoto only took Konohanasakuyahime as his wife, Iwanagahime got really angry. Then she sent for Nikki Danjo, the great villain, and tried to revenge, but to stop the revenge, Sarutahiko disguised himself as Musashibo-benkei and summoned Minamoto-no-Yoshitsune, the hero! The show of the good and the evil which pass through space and time now begins!

 After the retirement, Takahashi-san has been challenging various things such as a pro skater as well as a caster and a dancer in order to find his ideals. In Act2, to save Ninigino-mikoto and Konohanasakuyahime, Yoshitsune disguised as a female dancer in a man’s attire performed a gorgeous dance. That overwhelming performance choreographed by Tokyo Ge Ge Gay was a must to see.

 The projection mapping shown on the ice as well as the white screen on the left stage seen from the audience was created by TeamLab and it was spectacular. Moreover, there were flying tricks and large-scale devises which made the whole venue as one stage and the dramatic rendering enhanced the magnificent story.

It’s officially announced! Hyoen2017 will be aired on August 27th on NHKBSPremium from 10:50pm to 1:05am.

Mai Asada’s tweet: Minamoto-no-Kuro Hogan Yoshitsune ・Daisuke Takahashi

I didn’t have much time with Yoshitsune-sama during the show but when he rescued the princess (Mai played Konohanasakuyahime, Princess Konohana) he said “Are you alright?” or “Run!” to me. There were no such lines of course but he naturally said those words to me. I really wanted everyone at the venue to listen to his voice! 😭✨🙏

Partial translations of tweets related to Dasiuke after the talk show and I sort of summarized them.

https://togetter.com/li/1113932

As for Okuni’s dance, the music was already edited (combined three pieces of genuine and traditional Japanese dance music) and they asked Daisuke-san how he would like to dance to it and he suggested hip hop dance.

Regarding the costumes, after the stills were done, they were planning to change some of skaters’ costumes because they were too heavy or too long but Daisuke-san insisted to wear them without changes and it might be because he knew that Emiya-san would skate in that heavy and long dress even though he was not a skater and the oldest in the cast. Mr. Tobe, the MC of the talk show as well as the scriptwriter of Hyoen, thought Daisuke-san did it because he wanted to show some respect for Emiya-san. 

Emiya-san was really surprised by the volume of applause when Daisuke-san appeared on the ice for the first time as Yoshitsune in the show. Princess Iwanaga (played by Emiya-san) was climbing to the second floor (for the next scene) when it happened and wondered what happened on the ice because it was so loud.

They had 4 hour midnight skating lessons almost every night for a few weeks and the dress rehearsal took 12 hours! Daisuke-san told Emiya-san that he had never worn skates for 12 hours either!

Because of skaters’ tight schedules, they didn’t have much time to do run-through rehearsals until the very end (it never happens in kabuki world though) and no one knew exactly how the show would turn up except Somegoro-san, but the outcome was superb and Emiya-san was really impressed by Somegoro-san’s imagination. Naturally, Emiya-san didn’t know about Daisuke-san’s hip hop dance so when he saw Daisuke-san  practicing the dance in a lesson room, he wondered what Tokyo GeGeGay was about and what Daisuke-san was doing and at the dress rehearsal he finally got what it was and was very much impressed.

During the mid-night lessons, Daisuke-san and Miyamoto-sensei told Emiya-san some figures such as a candy, a fish, a star mark and so on. He also learned crossover! (Emiya-san was a hockey player until he graduated from high school and his school was one of the best in hockey in Japan. He never wore skates for figure skating before the show and hated the toe edges at first but wore both types of skates for hockey as well as figure skating during the shows. ) He commented that he thought he would have volvuluses if he really tried those figures.

The idea to disguise Daisuke-san as Okuni and send him to the drinking party of villains came from Mr. Tobe. He wanted to make a hot scene with Somegoro-san and Daisuke-san but putting two men together would be a bit queer/odd/strange, so he decided to disguise Daisuke-san as a woman. When the truth was revealed, then Dasiuke-san and Emiya-san (Princess Iwanaga) would make another (hot) scene.

From directing side, there was an order for Emiya-san to torture Takahashi-san with a tenacious/stickily manner.

 When Emiya-san was asked about the highlights of the show, he said it’s the scene Princess Iwanaga tortured Yoshitsune adding that that desire to desecrate something beautiful must be some kind of pent up frustration of the scriptwriter.