Blog#7: 2020 World(Momoko Watanabe)

Hello, this is Momoko Watanabe.  In this winter vacation, I went to Imperial Theater to watch a wonderful live performance, Johnnys' 2020 World.

Today, I'd like to introduce contents of the stage.  Members of three idol groups, Sexy Zone and ABC-Z  and Hey!Say!JUMP play main roles. Also, Many boys called Johnnys' Jr. appear on the stage.  This is a two-acts play.  Act 1 is divided 12 parts(months) and actors represent beautiful Japanese culture and history of tragedies which civilization brought by dance, song, acrobat and flying.  In January part,  a lot of boys play Japanese drums and samisens　vigorously.  In February part, members of ABC-Z dance with huge Japanese sensus(扇子） and show acrobatic techniques.  In March part,  boys wear pink clothes which motif is Japanese kimono and represent a shower of falling cherry blossom petals.  In April part, they reproduce sinking Titanic which happened in April of 1912 singing "My Heart will Go On." In May part, they reproduce an explosion of an airship, Hindenburg which occurred in May of 1937.  In June and July parts,  they are in military uniforms and march in a quick way.  It represent war.  In August, September and October parts, imaging Tokyo Olympic of 2020, gorgeous show develop.  In November part, one of the member of Sexy Zone, Kento Nakajima　acts 10 character of Shakespeare's works alone, for example, Macbeth, Hamlet, Romeo, Claudia and Puck. He changes cloths in an instant and during playing a role of fairly Puck, he bungee-jumps right above a seats for the audiences.  In December part, they reproduce Macbeth's climax scene, a duel of Macbeth between Malcolm on the stage using water. They perform a splendid sword fight.  In Act 2, they go to space to find phantom 13 month.
Please click here.
 I was impressed by gorgeous set and direction.  Also, the best part of this stage is actor's performance.  Their act, song, and dance made me excited!  In particular, their flyings are very dynamic.  This live performance include 23 sorts of flying!  We can learn history and Shakespeare by this performance, so you will enjoy it too.  I guess this show will be held next year again, please go and see it yourself!

Blog#7: Light Goes On(Misaki Yoshida)

   Hi, this is Misaki Yoshida. I watched an amazing video on TV program, which is called 奇跡体験！アンビリバボー, so I would like to introduce it to you! First, please watch this video.
 

 

 

   This video is really amazing, isn’t it? Also, it is so beautiful and fantastic! I’m sure that you thought it was created by CG, but this video doesn’t use CG at all. It is called light painting. This video is created by Darren Pearson, who is an illustrator. To my surprise, this video is created by many individual photographs like making animation. In other words, it took incredibly long time. He uses a long-exposure camera and a flash pen. He has to draw illustration with the flash pen as fast as he can, because if he moves slowly, he will appear on the photograph. Maybe you have an experience which you draw something with fireworks and take a picture of it . At that time, I think you move your arm very fast. The way of creating light painting is same as that. He uses very long-exposure camera, so he can write complicated illustration. My explanation is poor, so please watch this video which shows how to make light painting.
 

 

 

  He writes illustrations in darkness  with the flash pen, so he can’t see anything he writes, but he writes complicated these easily. It is really incredible! Also, it was really hard work to create make this video, because he had to take uncountable photographs as moving little by little. He took total 724 photographs, and it took one year!

  He created an commercial of Reebok, so please watch this too. it is also amazing!!

 

 

 

   This is his homepage which has his other wonderful photographs.

 

 

Blog#7: The Snoopy Exhibition (Yurina Mori)

 Hello, this is Yurina Mori. I would like to tell you about my one of the best memory during winter vacation.

 I went to the Snoopy Exhibition at Roppongi with my friend last month. Do you know this exhibition held? There were so many pictures written by Charles.M.Schulz who made Snoopy and backgrounds of him. Those pictures came from Charles.M.Schulz Museum at the city of Santa Rosa in California, United States. Because we had got the tickets before, we could enter there smoothly. A staff who was standing the entrance stamped my hand with the astronaut's snoopy. It was very cute! (I'm sorry this stamp is too light to watch.)


 We could know history of Snoopy through Schulz's background there. For example, the model of snoopy was his pet dog and the model of Charlie Brown was his friend in the school. He collected data and wrote part of comic by himself. He had been writing comic strips for about half of century without almost taking a rest. We watched so many original pictures of him. I felt these had philosophical messages in funny story. (Please click this picture, and you can look this bigger.)

 At last, we stopped by two souvenir shops. There were many kinds of goods, for instance, tea cups, notebooks, accessories and so on. I bought pins of Charlie Brown by Capsule toys. The souvenir which I was surprised was the original posters painted by Schulz were selled only 1,500 yen! We could buy very cute Snoopy goods cheaply.

 I had a great time there because I loved Snoopy! Although this exhibition was over, I want you to go watching and know about Snoopy if the exhibition like this will be held. You will be relax by Snoopy's cuteness!