Text |Mi Li's mother.
The Takarazuka Opera Troupe, which has a high status in Japan and is known as the "daughter training class", has recently been exposed to a big scandal.
In September of this year, a member of Takarazuka's "Zeu" group, 25-year-old Ariai Kii, left a decisive text message to his mother: "I decided to jump from my apartment on the night of the 28th. ”
The next day, the news of her death quickly made it to the mainstream of Japan.
At this point, the gorgeous curtain of this century-old troupe was slowly lifted, revealing the bottomless black hole behind it.
This 100-year-old Takarazuka Opera Company is most famous for its grand and gorgeous singing and dancing scenes and beautiful and romantic stage plots.
The actors use exquisite makeup and gorgeous costumes to create a gorgeous and magnificent audio-visual feast for the audience, and it is not an exaggeration to say that it is a dream factory for thousands of girls.
It is famous in Japan and around the world.
In its heyday, the Takarazuka Opera Company toured more than 1,500 performances a year, and one of its most popular stage plays, "The Rose of Versailles", set a record of more than 4 million people!
Unlike other theater troupes, Takarazuka is unique in that all actors must be unmarried women, and all male characters in the play must be played by girls.
Actors who can enter the troupe must go through strict selection, and the most important selection channel is the Takarazuka Opera Troupe's own junior college - Takarazuka ** School.
Only 40 girls aged 15-18 are selected each year, and the competition is fierce, with an acceptance rate of 48:1.
After being admitted to Takarazuka ** School, the students have to accept strict management in their daily life and learn a lot of stage performance skills and knowledge, such as musical instruments, music theory, vocal music, ballet, tap, classical, modern, Latin and other dances.
The school motto of Takarazuka ** school is "Clean, Righteous and Beautiful", after such a strict screening and careful upbringing, the girls who graduated from Takarazuka have excellent temperament and excellent quality, have outstanding temperament and talent, and are the "dream girls" in the hearts of countless social celebrities.
Therefore, many elite parents in Japan's political and business circles will aim to train their daughters to enter Takarazuka, hoping that the girls will be docile and respectful, generous, and better married after graduation.
The Takarazuka Opera Company divides the performers into five categories: Flowers, Moon, Snow, Stars, and Stars, and there is also a "Majority" composed of highly skilled veteran members who are determined to dedicate their lives to the stage.
Each group has a pair of top-level "male and female servants" (i.e., male and female roles) called topstars, and most of the performances are centered around this pair.
The principals represent the highest standard of interpretation of the current Takarazuka Opera Company, and it is the dream of every Takarazuka girl to become the top of the men's and women's servants.
But if you want to become a person who stands at the top of the pyramid, you need to constantly hone your acting skills and accumulate popularity.
In the Takarazuka Opera Company, there has always been a saying that "ten years of male service" has always been circulated.
This means that it takes at least ten years to become a qualified male servant in his own right.
After the girls graduate and join the troupe, they first have to run for a year
After the end of the dragon set, the troupe will assign these girls to an actor group that focuses on supporting roles, or an actor group that focuses on training and impacting the principal.
Usually the girls spend 6 years in these groups as rookie actors, and it is not until the 8th year that the Takarazuka Opera Troupe signs a formal artist contract with them.
If the development goes well, the male actors who are focused on training will generally gradually change from men to men in about 10 years.
Fifth, the male fourth jumped all the way up and launched an attack on the chief;Even for female actors with relatively little competition, this process takes 4-8 years.
However, after a long waiting period, not everyone can wait for their own day.
What has been accumulated in the past hundred years is not only brilliant achievements, but also many "traditional etiquette" that can be called dross.
Ai Kii, who chose to commit suicide this year, is one of the victims of these so-called "etiquette".
In 2017, Ariai Kii joined the "Zeu" group as a newcomer, and soon rose to prominence and was appreciated by many people. In just a few years, he took the lead and became the starring role of the troupe's drama "PAGAD".
But behind the curtain, her excellence has become a reason to be targeted.
Because of the strict culture of seniors and seniors, bullying in the group has become commonplace.
Including saluting the tram that the senior sister is riding, the senior sister must maintain a specific expression when she sees the senior sister, and the senior sister can only answer the prescribed words when answering the senior sister's questions, and the senior sister who has made the same mistake when a senior sister makes a mistake must apologize together, and the senior sister provides a detailed life report to the senior sister, and the senior sister cannot walk on the same road as the senior sister ......
These suffocating actions turned out to be the daily life that the girls of the Takarazuka Opera Company have to face.
It wasn't until 2020 that after these bad habits were ***, the troupe announced the abolition of these "etiquette" in order to save its reputation.
But the members of the group who are used to enjoying the status of their predecessors cannot be changed overnight.
After Ai Kii was selected as the person in charge of the new performance, she was frequently targeted and excluded by the collusion of the seniors and the juniors.
For example, some seniors will pretend to help her with hairstyles, deliberately burn her forehead with an electric splint, or leave her alone, abuse her until late at night, and constantly put pressure on her, saying that she is "the failure of the ** school girls is your fault"......
These small torture methods, how to look like the Korean drama "Dark Glory" into reality.
In addition to bullying, some family members of Ai Kii revealed that because the work arranged by the troupe was too full, she had to practice at least 15 hours a day for a month before her death, and she could only sleep 3 hours a day with chores.
Such high-intensity training, coupled with bullying that is not known to outsiders, made many members of the group want to quit.
Moreover, the actors not only have to create amorous and dreamy roles on stage, but also work hard to manage their own image in private, and the male actors comb their hair short and dress up handsome and neat;The outfits of the female actors can only move closer to the direction of gentleness and virtuousness.
Teenage girls are ** in their roles, day in and day out.
The income in this industry is not high, especially for those young actors who have not yet become famous.
However, the cost is very large, and you need to pay for the cosmetics, accessories, wigs, makeup photos and costumes used on the stage
And, in order to maintain the glorious dream that Takarazuka has created for fans, the actors also have to wear luxurious and decent costumes in private.
When the curtain opens, there is a glamorous dream bubble on the stage, and behind the curtain, there is suffering day after day.
Because the atmosphere in the troupe is so bad, the 8 members of the troupe who went through a lot of hardships to be admitted to the troupe like Ai Kii are now only 2 left.
The bullying of the team members, coupled with the continuous high-intensity work pressure, overwhelmed the gentle Ariai Kii until the tragedy occurred.
Although the head of the Takarazuka Opera Company symbolically apologized, announced his resignation, and started the self-examination process after the tragedy, nothing helped for a young life.
In addition to Ai Kii, who was on a desperate road, some Takarazuka members were bullied and forced to quit the troupe, and they did not hesitate to go to the sea to shoot ** films as revenge for the troupe.
Even if you put on your own life, you have to tear off the mask of Takarazuka's "pure beauty" ......
Over the past 100 years, the troupe has produced countless celebrities, such as former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's wife Yukio Hatoyama, well-known actors Mao Daichi, Yuki Amami, Hitomi Kuroki and so on.
After leaving the troupe, many members married into famous families, so the name of the "daughter training class" of the Takarazuka Opera Troupe also resounded throughout Japan.
It's just that when art has a purpose, it is inevitable that it will be counterattacked.
And compared with Takarazuka's most famous "male servant", we have a "husband sister" who is more suitable for the physique of Chinese babies.
I believe that everyone has swiped the heroic appearance of "Husband Sister" Chen Lijun on various social ** platforms.
She has a chic figure, affectionate eyebrows, and between the flow of her eyes, she has gained the star eyes of countless fans.
It was hard to find a ticket for the show with her, and even single-handedly changed the trend of the entire Yue Opera industry.
The staff of the Beijing Xiaobaihua Yue Opera Troupe said that for the first time in several years, all tickets were sold out;
The members of the Fujian Fanghua Yue Opera Troupe also said that the promotion of Yin School art has also been much smoother, and many people have followed this wave and visited the Yin Guifang showroom ......
And this wave of purple microstar-like explosions from the sky has actually been traced for a long time.
Chen Lijun's father is a fan of Yue Opera, she has been exposed to it since she was a child, and she is also determined to become a Yue Opera actor.
At the age of 17, she had been studying in art school for several years, and applied for the Yue Opera class of Zhejiang Xiaobaihua Troupe, and hit it with one hit.
After graduation, she naturally stayed in the troupe and studied under Mao Weitao.
The first generation of Xiaobaihua Mao Weitao, at the age of 22, was praised by the National Drama Association as the first of the "Five Golden Flowers", and he is a well-deserved pillar Xiaosheng.
She taught Chen Lijun with all her heart, and Chen Lijun also understood her hard work.
On days when she is not performing, Chen Lijun is always soaked in the practice room, and she has practiced countless versions of the detail of "playing a fan" alone.
If it weren't for the intoxication of art and true love, few people would be able to endure such hard work.
One minute on the stage, ten years of work off the stage, and thousands of times of polishing, only then can I have a glimpse of today.
But for these little flowers such as Mao Weitao and Chen Lijun, no matter whether they are famous or not, their dedication to art will not change.
Mao Weitao once said: "Those of us who are very devout to art, and even worship traditional art, we are really not moved by these things at the moment, and we have always wanted to do so." ”
Not to be among the upper class, not to marry into a wealthy family, just to purely inherit art and carry it forward.
I am afraid that only such a pure heart will have the ability to ride the wind and waves when the flow and ** degree push them to the cusp of the storm, instead of waiting for the overturning in anxiety in the wind and rain.
In fact, all this has long been traced, throughout the long history, only the true transmission of art, can be passed on forever.
About the author: @米粒妈爱分享 (welcome to pay attention), American returnee, Haidian parent, the author of "Parent-Child English Books That Affect Children's Lives" in the overall list of new books. Focus on the scientific parenting, learning and enlightenment of 0-5-year-old babies, as well as the world's novelty and good things recommendation, welcome to pay attention!(5-12 years old mother, please pay attention: @米粒妈频道).