天美影视

Comments from students

Tama Miyamoto (3rd year, School of Social Informatics Department of Social Informatics), Hikaru Taniwaki (3rd year, Department of Comparative Arts College of Literature)

From the preliminaries onwards, every team's work was of a high standard, and each piece showcased the strengths of their respective universities. To be honest, I wasn't absolutely confident that we could win, so the moment we were called as the winning school was the happiest moment of my life. A flood of emotions and feelings welled up inside me all at once, including the feeling that all our hard work had paid off and gratitude to everyone who had supported us. Above all, I was truly happy that our generation was able to reclaim the title of Japan's best for the first time in eight years.

We began preparing last year for the JDC championship. Starting in October of last year, we discussed and decided on the songs to be used and the overall structure of our performance, primarily with the 12 representatives (genre leaders) at the center. At the end of December, we held auditions within the club for each genre to select the members who would participate in the competition.

At the start of the new year, we began practicing late at night once a week, sharing areas for improvement among the representatives after each practice, and trying out new ideas in the next practice, going through a process of trial and error. We also received cooperation from our seniors, such as asking alumni to edit songs and inviting them to our practices to give us feedback, and we continued practicing with their help.

Up until now, ADL has consistently received feedback from judges saying things like, "We need something more," and "We need more surprise." In particular, we, the 44th generation of ADL, have received this feedback many times at various competitions, from "First Challenge" in our first year, to the "All Japan University Street Dance Championship," and last year's "JDC." As representatives, we have been struggling the most with how to show a more evolved ADL while retaining our unique style, and this is something we have put the most effort and attention into. Another point we put effort into was the music editing. This time, we asked an ADL alumnus who has been involved in ADL's independent performances every year to edit the music, and after many meetings, he produced the best possible soundtrack for us.

As we 44th generation members often say ourselves, we were completely unsuited to creating an all-genre showcase... We struggled a lot with the fundamental aspects of creating a piece, such as how to connect different genres, the structure, and what the highlights should be. Of all of these, the opening of the piece was the most challenging. While we had to consider each genre section and the sections that combined multiple genres, we couldn't compromise on the opening, which is essential for engaging the audience and judges and grabbing their attention, so we tried out new ideas many times during every practice session. In the end, all the representatives discussed it and combined our individual ideas to create something. This was completed the day before the preliminary competition, and we caused a lot of trouble for all the participating members. Thank you to all 97 people who helped us bring the piece we representatives envisioned to life!

Going forward, as the winning circle of JDC, we will strive to create original performances and works that live up to our name, and at the same time, we will work to build and convey to everyone the "ADL-ness" that the judges mentioned this time, in each generation! Of course, we are aiming to win the JDC again next year!

All of us at ADL will continue to strive for improvement, so we would appreciate your continued support!