Chapter 12 And then You Will Rise…

To say the video was a hit was an understatement. The ‘Osaka Bananas’ were written on a lot of lists for when public shows would be opening again. Once we got out from the virus we all had secure futures for a while to come.

As such, we registered the name as a company with the four of us, plus my sister as CFO, as directors. It was a calculated risk but we certainly didn’t want others to latch on to the name. The university took some of our earlier works and we rejigged them and added the name up front and a list of performers at the end. Before long we all had very busy Facebook sites devoted to our dance. I had not realised there were so many dancers out there. When it became clear that we were the producers of so many J-Pop dance sequences we were more popular and then some bright person saw that the core of the group were three of the Senri Flames with a number one hit to their name.

We all still needed to attend to our normal classes, much of which was done by zoom but we knew we had to come up with another opus for our final year which would be classed as our degree thesis addendum for all of us. It is one thing to be trying to write a thesis alone but it is a different atmosphere when there are nearly twenty of you with the same result in mind. In the end we decided on another virus dance which we workshopped first and then called it ‘Fatal Attraction’.

Once again it was a lot of stopping and starting to get it right. Like ‘Masks’ it would be very difficult to do live, but not impossible. We had about an equal number of boys and girls and the dance would include everyone. It started with us all moving into view, one at a time, and doing individual moves, looking around with a look of wonder in our eyes. Of course we were all masked. As the group grew in number we started to dance in small groups. The last one to appear was Benjiro, made up to look extra handsome with bulging muscles. The group then started to dance around him, the boys being wary and the girls being very girlish. Then one girl goes to him and they hug first and then dance together for a few seconds. When they part he falls to the ground. The girl goes to another of the boys for comforting and, after some more dance, she falls too. The boy then rushes around madly with fear in his face, stopping a few of the others to remonstrate with them, before falling himself. And so it continued until there were just two, who clung to each other before sinking out of camera shot.

Once again, we added the music afterwards to suit the movement and then edited in the name and credits. That, added to our exam results and our written thesis, was enough for all of us to get our degree, the four of us with honours. The graduation ceremony was on zoom and there was no party afterwards except in our houses. We would have to wait until the world was back to normal before we could get together for a drink.

I suppose that everyone who finishes school feels the same. Here I was, a moderately pretty girl of twenty with a future to look forward to but, at the moment, unable to get moving on it. I was one of five directors of our dance group and we employed, loosely said, fifteen other dancers that we were responsible for. We no longer had the refuge of the University to hide away in so something had to be done. I called my manager and he told me that he had about twenty projects on the books waiting for restrictions to ease and that we would be run off our feet then. I told him that I would see about setting up a place in Osaka that we could use and that I would get back to him.

Aiko had graduated the year before and had been working with my father while also looking after our company books. I called a family conference one weekend and we talked around my problem. I needed a place with rehearsal rooms, a film studio, offices and the rest of normal business. My father said he would use his trade contracts to see if one could be found and Aiko told him how much we could afford, saving some back for equipment. One thing that was already in our favour was a small, but regular, income from video royalties and the two university videos had been sold to a large TV organisation who would on-sell them across the globe. We had been given a very good deal on them so our bank balance was not something to scoff at.

After a couple of weeks he had found us a place in the Taisho prefecture, near the docks. It was an old warehouse that had been converted into studios for a budding film company that had not survived the virus onslaught. We would have two sound stages and a big rehearsal, storage room plus offices. A lot of the heavier equipment had been left behind and he had been told that the lights and cameras were in storage and could be available if we made an offer. I texted the rest of the group to meet me there on the following morning, so that we could discuss the situation.

Aiko and I had the keys and when everyone else turned up we all had a good look around. After we had inspected everything I asked if there were any comments and most said it would be perfect for our needs. I told them that we, that is, the company, could afford to be here for a year as Aiko had negotiated a good deal. I then said that we could also buy the film company lights, cameras and other stuff at a fraction of the normal price so all we needed was the work and to get paid. The country was now on the tail end of the second, or was it third, wave of the virus and the vaccines were starting to be rolled out so the suggestion was that we hold off for six months before taking it on in the New Year, when things would be a bit easier.

This was something that Aiko had already raised with the owners and they were happy as long as we had given the commitment to move in. So that is what we did. The other dancers were all still living at home except Mitsuki, who was in a hostel. She came to live with us and we set up another bed in my room for her. Over the next six months I spoke to, and then met with, my manager and some of the people who wanted the projects done. I was often accompanied by Aiko and Mitsuki and every- one thought that we were three sisters, with two of us twins. We were able to schedule the easier projects first that we could start on as soon as we were in our studio so, once we moved in, we were off and running.

When we did buy the film studio equipment it included all of the sound recording units as well as the lights and cameras. We just had to add our musical instruments and Benjiro came up with those as he had a lot of stuff from his band days. We needed to fit a mirror wall in the rehearsal room but that was easy. From the day we moved in to the day we started serious work was about two weeks of shifting, erecting, painting and sweeping. With the twenty of us getting behind it we had the place looking like a proper dance studio and recording studio and were ready to accept work.

The first few projects were straight forward dance routines for J-Pop bands that were still out there but there had not been a lot of new product. Once we had fulfilled a couple of these the work flooded in. With travel on the bullet train being possible with social distancing and our having everything except accommodation in-house, we became the flavour of the month for J-Pop groups and their new videos. Our dancers were all pretty good cameramen already and, with the state of the art gear that we had scored, we could do quality output. “Osaka Banana’ became a byword in the industry and we all were earning good money.

As restrictions eased there were queries about us performing ‘Masks’ and ‘Fatal Attraction’ on stage but we were all well beyond that now. We had developed into cameramen, lighting guys and recording experts who danced occasionally. We did put it around that we would take on the choreography if another dance group wanted to do them and this was taken up by one of the national outfits who said that it would fit with some of their other modern dance pieces.

The four of us were then in a hotel in Tokyo for three weeks while we worked through the difficulties of doing them live. We did, in the end, get them sorted and the opening night saw us being called on the stage at the end of the performance to receive our bouquets. After that there were a few more serious enquiries and this led me to where I am now.

Masuko and Tamura are now co-managers of ‘Osaka Banana’ and looking after the business. I am in an airport lounge, waiting to board a flight to America. With me are fifty ballet dancers as well as Aiko and Mitsuki. We are about to head off to tour the USA with a set of four new, modern ballets, all choreographed by Mitsuki and me and led by the redoubtable Miss Kikuo, no longer a teacher in the school but a touring manager for the lot of us. I now have a number of acclaimed dances under my belt and our wall in the ‘Bananas’ office is lined with signed photos. I think that I may have done the right thing by moving away from Detroit. Who knows what I would have done there, certainly not the path I had gone down since putting on that first leotard to work on the beam.

I do wonder at what my older brother would think when we meet again as I have changed somewhat. At least I won’t have to see his now ex-wife as she had run off with another guy. On top of all that, Benjiro will be waiting for me when I get back and we will need to talk seriously about a wedding day, but only when I am able to receive him as his wife. When I think of everything that has happened to me since I last saw my brother, I think that it is enough to make your head spin.

The end

Marianne G 2021.