[JWEB] Kawashima Noel (Noemaru) - 14 March 2023 (Part 2)

[dreamweavernyx]

And here's the rest of the entry! As mentioned, below are some spoilery discussions of the recent Traja debut concert!

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And now, from this point in,

There are going to be spoilers for the concert! Or, well, I’ll be talking a ton about the concert!!!

If you don’t want to see the spoilers, or you’ve got no interest in reminiscing about the concert, the daily Noemaru entry will be out tomorrow so I’d be happy to meet you there!✌️

Thank you for reading up till this point!

It was the best debut concert ever!✨

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Alright then! Let’s get on with it!

And with that!

From this point on, I’ll talk about the parts that especially resonated with me!☺️

First off, it’s got to be YumeHari✨

The tap dance with the sticks!! We wanted to do it no matter what!!

We brought back the original choreography, and added tap dance choreography during the dance break, and did the stick-catch trick! We stuffed in all the stuff we wanted to do! (lol)

Everyone wanted to make it clear that we were performing “Yume no Hollywood”, and not “My Dreamy (Hollywood)”!

And then, the jazz piano!🎹

During our rehearsal period I would practice every day! Without slacking off! At least 2 hours a day!! For sure!!! I would sit down in front of my keyboard!!!

It was the first time in my life I played jazz piano, it was difficult~

An 11th (chord)?! A 13th!!?*

[ T/N: In jazz piano, it is common to have chords that stretch longer than an octave (8 notes). An 11th would have 11 notes between the two notes of the chord, and so on – the 11th and 13th are popular chords in jazz piano. ]

I was like, I don’t know what those areeeeeeeee! It was all chords I’d never used before, and I found it really profound 🧐I’d like to keep trying at it!

For our new song “Swing My Way”, we put a lot of thought into the choice of the song, the concept, and the hats~✨

We wanted to create a fortified performance piece that could act as a counterpart to YumeHari, so we watched a lot of movies like Moulin Rouge as reference material, made our requests to the choreographers, and this amazing piece was born✨

I love this song!!🔥

And then, the mashup! Which I call “Lock ALIVE”…

Or “LA”, for short!!

I mashed up the instrumental track right before as well, in order to create the setting in a world of pure white, into which red and blue paint would fall, leading into the LA mashup🎨

I changed the key for both “Lock Lock” and “GET ALIVE”, and matched the BPM of “Lock Lock” to “GET ALIVE”, inserted a “Drop it!” line for all 7 of us, and choreographed it as a performance piece.

I threw everything we had into this mashup 🟦🟥

It’s a song I regard with fondness, almost as though it were my own child!

And moving on, the white tiger costumes for Act 3, JAPANESQUE!

We were involved in all parts of the process, starting with the costume design, and we came up with the concepts for all 7 costumes together with the designers! 🐯

When we got to the point of discussing that the genre of clothing would be Japanese-style, something I really wanted to do came to me, and I raised my hand so fast it nearly broke through the ceiling! (lol)

White, Japanese-style, with a tiger on the back, it’s an outfit I love!🤍

The 2nd half of the concert started with a dance number, and it was an instrumental piece that we had used for the WOD preliminaries that I re-arranged for the concert ♪

I was put in charge of the formations and music editing, and made use of this song that I thought would help (the audience) experience the atmosphere of the WOD preliminaries, and was making adjustments all the way to the very end of the rehearsals in order to take into account the speed of the members’ costume changes and the length of the walkway between the two stages (which would change depending on the venue), so it’s a number that I put a ton of thought into!

And then, for Namida no Kesshou, we didn’t get to release snowflakes with a bang, but we releaed feathers with a bang instead🪶

I really wanted to do something like that☺️

And then, we borrowed the songs of Johnnys-san and Shounentai-san, who had gone for training in the US before we did, and performed “NEVER MY LOVE” and “Kimi Dake Ni”✨

I think of Johnnys history as a part of Japanese history, so we inserted this portion into the JAPANESQUE section!

“Kimi Dake Ni” was a song, and a type of staging, that I had wanted to do ever since we were in the US. I offered it to Genta early on, and he agreed really quickly, which made me really happy!💙

It’s a number that featured the contemporary dance that we had learned, and was stuffed full of themes of the sea and the moon, blue and white, and then also a hidden theme (which I’ll keep a secret☺️)!

The gleaming moon that’s embraced by the night sky and the blue sea, the ocean that shimmers white from sea spray and reflected moonlight.

Both of us were both the moon and the sea. That’s what I mean. (What on earth do I mean?)

I took charge of the staging, the choreography, the costumes, and the video insert – it was a staging that gave shape and reality to a dream I’d wanted to fulfill!

This was a vision that never would have come to life without Genta, and it’s a number that succeeded precisely because of Genta!

I’m really thankful to him, and truly, Genta’s abilities are astounding. I was moved.

I edited the video many times over in order to link it to the choreography, and battled with the feathers on stage! (lol)

I updated the performance (throughout the concert) to blow wind at the feathers, and have them all burst out at the end, so it’s a piece that kept evolving throughout the various shows　🌊🌕

Someday it might be nice to talk about the hidden theme as well! I’m looking forward to it!

By the way, the choreography did have sign language peppered in, and there were several portions that I was very particular about, so when the time comes (I’ll talk more about that)!　(*´꒳`*)

It was a concert where everyone put their views together and combined them, just like the usual Travis Japan way (of doing things)!

It feels lonely now that it’s over, but the fact that there’s an ending means there will be a beginning, as well!

My head is already filled with many things I’d love to do at the next concert, so I’ll share them slowly with the other members, and start making the preparations (slowly) for our 2nd concert, which has yet to be fixed ♪

I’m looking forward to it! I wonder when it will be!!!

I wonder how many more songs we’ll put out before then✨

For the concert this time we got to make 3 new songs, and 2 of those new ones already got announced for tie-ups with CMs, so I’m sure that in the near future, these songs that we’ve been preparing will get released! I’m happy! For real!

Just counting up the number of original songs we did that have been announced before, there were 19 of them…?!

Ehhhh~!

I’m looking forward to the future! I’m also looking forward to doing concerts (again)!

Our dreams are getting bigger! They’re steadily getting bigger!

Let’s work towards happiness together from now on.

It’s a White Day promise💍

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And with that!

I talked a whole bunch this month, but after all, it’s the regular update! Isn’t that great!

Please look forward to our activities from now on, too🤍

With all the love in my heart, today, from now on, for ever and ever, and for all of eternity.

Yours ever,

Mar. 14th, 2023

Noel Kawashima

Let’s meet again in tomorrow’s Noemaru, okay✨

See you!

#Noemaru

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