AKB48’s new song takes dance to another level! “The story behind the birth of “astonishing dance

The choreographer is a high school math teacher!

• “The choreographer is a high school math teacher! “AKB48’s new song is so cool!
• “The choreography is so well coordinated that I can see the true spirit of AKB48 now.
• “The rock dance is so cool.”
• “When did AKB48 become such a serious dance group?”

These comments appeared one after another on SNS when AKB48’s new song “Neemoha mo Rumor” (to be released on September 29), their first release in about a year and a half, was performed for the first time on “Ongaku no Hi” (TBS) broadcast on July 17.

To be honest, there are probably many people who say that they don’t know the current members …… as well as they did in the early days when there were members known as “God 7” or when there were members with high talent such as Rino Sashihara. The moment I first saw them perform on the show, I was glued to them because I thought their dance was really cool, but I only recognized them as AKB48 when I saw the center of the group, Nana Okada.

Moreover, the name of the choreographer of this “douerai dance” had not been announced at that time, which led to various speculations on the Internet, such as “Isn’t he a very big name?” and “Speaking of rock dance, could it be Masahiro Nakai? It was later announced that it was Jun Kandabashi, an advisor to the Mie High School dance club.

However, it was later announced that it was Jun Kandabashi, the dance club advisor at Mie High School. Kandabashi is not a professional choreographer, nor is he an outside advisor for the club, but his main job is as a math and information teacher.

How in the world did this happen?

How on earth did you come to be in charge of choreography for AKB48?　We interviewed Mr. Kanda Hashi remotely.

“I think it was around May or June last year when I received the request. It all started when I posted the video “Let’s Dance at Home” (Mie Junior High School and High School Dance Club SERIOUS FLAVOR #Order at Home) on YouTube on April 4.

We had raised 10.4 million yen through crowdfunding and were going to try to go to the Apollo Theater in New York, but due to a corona disaster, we couldn’t go, and since the school had been closed since March, we couldn’t do any club activities, so what we thought of doing next was to post a video. He said he saw it on YouTube.

He watched our other dance works and found out that most of us were beginners (about 90% at that time). But since we had won various prizes at national competitions, the school called me and said, ‘You have a teacher who is good at teaching beginners,’ and asked me if I would be interested in teaching AKB48.

The Mie High School Dance Club was originally started about 14 years ago by Mr. Kandahashi, who was a high school student at the time, as a club with a few members. After graduating from high school, Mr. Kandahashi served as the head of the dance club at Ritsumeikan University, where he set a record for consecutive appearances in a university competition.

In fact, he did not get his teaching license until after graduating from college, and after arriving at his alma mater as a teacher in 2014, he became the advisor of the club, which was promoted to a dance club in 2017, and became a hot topic of conversation when the club won the second place in the national competition in its first year under the name “SERIOUS FLAVOR” (a.k.a. Silifre).

Still, I didn’t expect the school to suddenly receive a request to teach AKB48 at …….

“I have a memo that I leave in the office when I’m not in class or in a mobile classroom. When I’m not there for a mobile class or a class, I leave a note on the desk. and “Akimoto-sensei?

The office staff didn’t know what it was, so they took a note, and since it said “Akimoto-sensei,” I thought, “Was there an Akimoto-sensei at other schools, such as public junior high schools and public high schools? (laughs).

Corona Misfortune, all instruction by remote

The call came from Mr. Akimoto’s deputy, who asked for dance instruction and how to create choreography, and then we started working together to create it. However, as Corona kept expanding, the school banned her from traveling to Tokyo, and for a while the filming itself was lost or postponed many times.

“At first, we wanted to see each child who seemed to be good at dancing remotely, so we made a video explaining the basic movements and sent it to them one by one. The management then shared these exchanges and auditioned the participants.

Which girls shined particularly brightly in the audition videos?

I immediately said, “Yui Yokoyama, who is now a front member, should be included. Yokoyama-san’s dance is the kind of dance that I think dancers would like. There is a type of dancer who dances beautifully without showing too much of herself, but she often adds her own colors. At the same time, she has a good core and is a good dancer.

Joining the group as the other front person is Hitomi Honda, who just finished her career with IZ*ONE on April 29.

“I thought Honda-san was a dexterous girl. Even when we were practicing or doing the shakedown online, she would ask me in detail, ‘Is this ~~? He would ask me in detail. I’m sorry to be so superior, but I thought it was proof that she knew exactly what she was doing.

Mr. Kandabashi taught the lessons remotely from Mie, and the two aces from the first year of the club taught the lessons as assistants in Tokyo. In the midst of all this, Nana Okada, the center of the group, was the one whose presence stood out through the lessons.

“I thought Yokoyama-san would be better for her dance skills alone. Besides, I didn’t know anything about the current AKB48, and I only learned about it by watching the music videos. I didn’t even know Mr. Okada’s character.

But after each lesson, I would call the assistants to ask them how they were doing, and as I got a grasp of the whole situation and thought about the formation, I realized that having Mr. Okada in the center would improve the overall atmosphere.

Before the lessons started, I sent a lot of videos explaining the choreography, thinking it would be a lot of work, but only three people came to the first day’s practice. I heard that in AKB48, they don’t start choreographing this early, and often start choreographing the day before or the day of the music video shoot, so I was like, “What are we practicing this early for? So I guess I felt like, “What are we practicing so early?

But as I started the lessons, I realized how hard it was and how difficult it was. During the break, when the assistants said, “This part wasn’t good, so let’s be careful next time,” she was able to say to everyone, “Let’s all do our best.

It’s the same in our dance club, where there’s a lot of pressure and criticism on the girls who are in the center, but I felt like, ‘If she’s in the center, it’ll be easier for us to come together and it’ll be harder for people to complain.

The level of the national championship… “To be honest, I thought it would be impossible at first.

By the way, what kind of order did they give you for the choreography of the new song?

“When I asked them what level they wanted me to go for, they said, ‘Please do it at the level of a high school student aiming to win the national championship.

To be honest, I thought it was impossible at first. To be honest, at first I thought it would be impossible. In the street dance world, people who like it really like it, so if you don’t go beyond a certain level, people will think, ‘You’re making fun of street dance. It’s absolutely impossible to cross that line in one or two days, and the level of aiming for the national championship is …….

Even so, the management said, “We’ll let you do it,” and I said, “Then, give me the song! But in the meantime, the shooting date was postponed by Corona, and for a while I thought it might disappear.

In the end, the demo song came out this year.

In the end, the demo song came out this year. “The management told me, ‘It’s unusual that it came out so early. I made the choreography and sent it to them as a video, and Akimoto-sensei immediately sent it back to me, praising it as ‘very good.

However, I thought that the chorus was the most important part, so I started from the chorus and sent it to him, but I thought that if I went full throttle for the whole song, everyone would fall down, so I made two parts for the nukis.

If we were serious about winning the national championship, we wouldn’t have done it, but in a music video, it’s okay to have nude parts because they stand out, and it’s okay for idols.

The lessons started three weeks before the music video shooting…

They started with the chorus, then the A-melody, B-melody, intro, and outro, and repeated the process with ……. In fact, they didn’t start lessons in earnest until three weeks before the shooting of the music video.

“We were getting more and more impatient, and since the music video was to be shot in the latter half of July and released in September, we thought it would be impossible ……. Then I heard that the dance part of the music video was the chorus, so I decided to complete the chorus part in three weeks.

I kept telling the manager and staff, “We’ll never make it in time at this pace,” but then I got an offer to appear on “Ongaku no Hi.

I knew I had to have the intro, outro and chorus ready by the end of July, when the music video was to be shot, and then this offer came.

But at the AKB48 solo concert held in May, the day after Minami Minegishi’s graduation concert, the release date of the new song and the composition of the members as “AKB48 solo” were announced. Since the fans were waiting for the new song, they wanted to perform it for the first time at the summer music special “Ongaku no Hi”.

Until the very last minute, I was worried about the song, wondering if it would work and if we would get beaten up, but after watching the video of the rehearsal, I thought we had made it.

Mr. Kanda Hashi was scheduled to be there for the performance, but he had to give up coming to Tokyo due to the declared emergency in Tokyo. Mr. Kandahashi was supposed to be there for the performance, but due to the declared emergency in Tokyo, he had to cancel his trip to Tokyo. He watched the first performance with the members of the dance club on a projector in the room of the assembly hall.

“We were all so excited, saying, ‘This is so good! I was a little relieved when I saw the rehearsal and thought, ‘I’ve managed to make it in time,’ but to be honest, there were still some rough edges at this stage, so I gave them detailed instructions on camera angles and so on, and the performance went really well.

I was afraid of the response, so I tried not to look at it, but my students, sisters, and parents looked at it and said, “The response was really good. I was relieved when I heard, ‘That’s a great response. I was also relieved when I received a call from the management as soon as I came back onstage after the dance: “Thank you, teacher. Thank you very much, the response has been great. I was really happy to hear that. I felt like I had done my job.

Finally, Mr. Kandabashi met AKB48 for the first time on the day of the music video shooting. I was surprised to hear that Mr. Kandahashi’s involvement up to this point had all been remote.

It’s amazing. I took the bus with the students to the location in Ito City, Shizuoka Prefecture, and in the waiting room, a staff member introduced me to the AKB48 girls. They reacted like, ‘Oh, you’re the teacher,’ or ‘You’re the guy from the video. On the other hand, I was like, “Oh, it’s the people you see on TV” (laughs).

(laughs) When I actually saw the girls on the set, there were many scenes where I realized that they were professionals.

They talked to me and the other students in a friendly manner, and once filming started, they acted in accordance with the director’s instructions. It was a hot day and we had to be very careful about preventing heat stroke, but while the staff sprayed us with mist and offered us ice cream and Pocari, the girls from AKB48 were fanning the students and checking the footage with us. They were very nice, and the students were saying, ‘This makes you want to support them’ (laughs).

Under Mr. Kandahashi’s guidance, a version of “Doerai Dance” from the Mie High School Dance Club’s “SERIOUS FLAVOR” has been posted on YouTube, and it continues to spread to many “Odotte-mita” videos by dance clubs and people with dance experience. There are also TikTok videos that have been arranged into simple upper body choreography, and there is a possibility that “drop down videos” will be uploaded in the future.

How good is AKB48’s performance at this point in time, from the teacher’s point of view, in this difficult “dierai dance” that has dance lovers buzzing?

“About 70 percent (laughs). (laughs) Because the girls still have a lot of room to grow. If you don’t have any dance experience, you might not understand, but this dance requires a lot of practice, and you can’t get there without accumulation.

There are a lot of companies that sell intense dancing, but surprisingly, most of them are just intense hand gestures, but “Root and Leaf Rumor” is different. I want people to know that these girls worked really hard despite their busy schedules.