One for Taro T...

[sillygirl]

..or anyone.

Explain Matsuken Samba in 500 words or less!

Ole, ole!

[Taro Toporific]

..or anyone.

Explain Matsuken Samba in 500 words or less!

Just watch
http://www.geneon-ent.co.jp/music/sounddata/matsuken/gncl1011.asx
http://www.geneon-ent.co.jp/music/matsuken/index.html

[sillygirl]

Dude! That was quick! Thanks.

He's on crack!

[Taro Toporific]

Dude! That was quick! Thanks.

He's on crack!

His B-I-G_in_J-A-P-A-N on NHK with the randy housewife set. Sort of a Liberace for Japanesque Vegas show.


NHK promotes Matsuken Samba heavily since he incorporates traditions of Kabuki and Japanese music halls in his shtick. Like all Vegas-type entaintanment, he's gotta be seen live for the real fun. He's now has some cross-over fans of young OLs who live him as "trendy." We'd have to ask Mulboyne to break the demographic and positioning of Matsuken Samba <hee, hee>.

[sillygirl]

Yay! My new keitai melody is Matsuken Samba! You should see the look on my students' faces when my phone rings

[dimwit]

..or anyone.

Explain Matsuken Samba in 500 words or less!

Ole, ole!

Wow, thanks silly girl, that was an eye-opener. Japan is really capable of out sleazing sleazy Vegas shows. I am almost tempted to attend such a show except, I would probably be ripped apart by the 50-somethings for laughing too hard.

[Mulboyne]

NYT (Registration): A Samurai And Japan Get Samba Night Fever

Osaka, Japan - Perhaps it was the equivalent of Americans waking up one morning to find John Wayne transformed into the Cowboy of the Village People. For 25 years, on a Japanese television series called "The Violent Shogun," Ken Matsudaira played an 18th-century samurai who embodied Japan's idealized masculinity: strong, selfless, interested in neither women nor money, quick to dispense cold justice with his sword and a single order, "Punish!" So closely identified had Mr. Matsudaira become with this pop culture hero that it came as a shock when the Japanese found out recently that for the last decade (and hidden mostly out of sight), he had been dancing the samba on stage in glittering gold and purple kimonos, emitting animalistic cries and thrusting his hips

Full article continues in next post

[Mulboyne]

His sword replaced by a coterie of female dancers and a revolving disco ball, he told his fans that in these dark days in Japan, samba was the only thing to do and sang: "Samba! Viva! Samba! Matsuken Samba! Ole!"
The metamorphosis of Mr. Matsudaira, now 51, into the singing samurai of his revuelike show, "Matsuken Samba II," caught on wildly in a country where the idealized image of Japanese masculinity has changed drastically in recent years, both in pop culture and in the real world, from stern to soft. After stealing the show at a nationally televised concert on New Year's Eve and watching his trademark song climb to No. 3 on a weekly chart in mid-January, Mr. Matsudaira recently kicked off the first of 30 scheduled performances this year of his new "Matsuken Samba II" show here in Osaka.
In addition to the show's own qualities, Mr. Matsudaira's radical transformation forms part of its appeal, as the actor himself said between rehearsals here. "People may be interested in it because they may think, there is this kind of samurai, too, a samurai who dances and sings," Mr. Matsudaira said.
On his television series, which ran from 1978 to 2003, Mr. Matsudaira played the eighth shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate, Yoshimune Tokugawa. As Japan's top samurai or military ruler, Yoshimune was known as a reformer who, in the true spirit of Japan's warrior code, eschewed extravagant living for a life of simple meals and martial arts. Wanting to grasp the concerns of ordinary people, he posted a box at one of the gates of Edo Castle in Tokyo and collected complaints and suggestions.
On television, Mr. Matsudaira's shogun reads those letters and, furthermore, assumes a different identity so that he can mix among townspeople. In each episode, he helps ordinary people fight against corrupt, powerful officials; each episode reaches its climax when the shogun reveals his true identity to the corrupt officials and nearly single-handedly cuts down a phalanx of bodyguards with his sword.
The world depicted in "The Violent Shogun" is black and white, one in which people are good or bad, and men and women have clearly defined traits. Mr. Matsudaira's samurai is strong and gentle to the weak. Women fall for him, but truly the stoic warrior, he shows no interest in or weakness for them. The episodes open with the image that came to define Mr. Matsudaira: wearing the samurai's top-knot and a simple robe, sitting atop a white horse galloping on a beach, his sword dangling at his side.
The image was in keeping with the macho or tough-guy image idealized in the pop culture for much of postwar Japan, said Kimio Ito, a sociologist at Osaka University. It is in the last two decades that the image of the idealized male began changing, he said, with the popularity of funny and sensitive types. In the real world, as the generation of gray-suited corporate warriors has given way to young Japanese men who put great care in their dress, use cosmetics and are generally considered feminine, it was perhaps not surprising that "Matsuken Samba" has become wildly popular now even though Mr. Matsudaira had been performing this show for a decade.
Mostly as a service for his fans, Mr. Matsudaira put on the "Matsuken Samba" shows at theaters across the country, in afternoon performances that were largely attended by housewives. The show's first half was made up of samurai dramas, but the second half was filled with singing and dancing. Sometimes Mr. Matsudaira put on a tuxedo and tap-danced. But the most successful songs and dances involved glittering kimonos and Latin-infused beats, like "Matsuken Mambo" and "Matsuken Samba I" and "II." Mr. Matsudaira said he visited New York regularly, going to Broadway musicals for inspiration. He also found material for his costumes in the city, choosing cloth used for women's dresses. To match the gaudy costumes, he tried different wigs, once wearing one in four colors. He settled on a wig typically worn by rich merchants in the Edo era, though in the brown favored by today's youth. Two strands of hair dangling on either side - symbols of male sexiness, dyed gold for even greater effect - completed the new image.
The "Matsuken Samba" show was in the tradition of what is called "mass theater" in Japan. It is entertainment that is performed, usually at small theaters during the daytime, by actors who sometimes had only minor roles in Kabuki. Like "mass theater," Mr. Matsudaira's shows remained unknown to the vast public but had an underground following.
The shows also developed a following in Japan's gay subculture, said Noriaki Fushimi, a gay author and lecturer on sociology at Meiji Gakuin University. The image of "Matsuken" (as Mr. Matsudaira is familiarly known) featured prominently in gay festivals last year in Sapporo, in northern Japan, and Shinjuku 2-chome, the gay district in Tokyo. "Matsuken's original image was that of a samurai, a macho image," Mr. Fushimi said. "And there was a huge impact when someone who had a macho image, a sophisticated samurai image, absorbed a kind of femininity."
"Matsuken Samba" became popular throughout Japan after a CD of the show's songs was released last year, and Mr. Matsudaira's radical transformation was complete. "About 90 percent of people had a favorable reaction," he said. "For about 10 percent, especially among older, conservative men, the image of the samurai was shattered." To many, the enormous success of "Matsuken Samba" struck a deep chord in a Japan gripped by uncertainty and pessimism about its future. Here was a samurai icon for a quarter century, no longer bent on fighting with his sword for a better society, transformed into a hedonistic samurai who lives only for the samba.
As everyone from children to salarymen began singing and dancing to "Matsuken Samba II," some people compared its popularity to that of a dance that gripped Japan in 1867, the year the 264-year Tokugawa shogunate ended. Japanese reacted to the era's confusion and uncertainty by dancing and chanting, "Eejanaika!" or "Why not? It's O.K.!"
At the "Matsuken Samba II" show here recently, fans shrieked, "My Lord!" and "Shogun!" as Mr. Matsudaira addressed the audience. Introducing the show's last song, Mr. Matsudaira listed problems besetting Japan and added, in words that could have been as much about his country as about himself: "In times like these, the only thing to do is samba!"