second story First time in three months at the Takaza and on TV.
How is everyone doing with the ongoing Corona disaster? I know that some of you are teleworking at home and some of you are coming to work. The number of infected people has been increasing, so let's continue to take all possible measures to avoid infection. Now that the state of emergency has been lifted, the world of rakugo has begun to move a little bit.
Yose huts are places where people gather, so ventilation was originally designed with this in mind, but now we also take time to ventilate the huts during the performance. In addition, we have reduced the number of seats from about 300 to about 150, and we have opened the front rows so that the audience can be closer to the performers.
We have taken various and thorough measures to prevent coronas, so please come to our Yose and Rakugo performances! Please come to a Yose or Rakugo performance! It's really a bad feeling in this day and age when you can't say "Please come to a Yose or Rakugo performance" out loud. Even if we take all possible measures, if a guest gets infected, there is nothing we can do.
I was quite worried about the three-month "blank" period, including the period during which the state of emergency was declared. It was July 1 when the emergency was lifted and I was finally able to appear on the stage. It had been so long that I was as nervous as if I had been at my first koza when I was a maeza performer.
Each rakugo performer has his or her own style on the stage, and if you perform on a regular basis, you will not forget your own style, but I was worried that I would not be able to perform it after three months away. However, I was relieved to find that the kata that had become ingrained in my body gradually returned on the first, second, and third days of the performance. Looking back, I was rehabilitating myself for rakugo during the July performance.... Now that I have finally finished rehabilitation, I am polishing my skills (laughs).
Aside from Rakugo, I also had some TV work and appeared on Fuji Television's program "Widener Show"! The members were regulars Hitoshi Matsumoto and Koji Higashino, and guests Masahiro Nakai and First Summer Uika. As a member of the "Downtown Gotttsu Ekimae" and "SMAP" generation, I was very happy to be able to work with such famous people.
When we chatted before the show, Mr. Nakai got so excited talking about his days as a biker gang member that I almost thought he was a local senior during our conversation (laugh). I even had the illusion that he was my senior in my hometown (laughs). I am very grateful to Mr. Matsumoto for understanding the mindset of Han during the recording.
From now on, I would like to expand the scope of my work and take on various challenges while focusing on rakugo.
Mr. Koito during his appearance on "Wide Nation Show.
PROFILE
Born in 1984 in Nagoya, Japan, he is a member of the Rakugo Art Association. He became obsessed with motorcycles in high school and became the leader of a local motorcycle gang at the age of 17. He became an apprentice when he saw a solo performance by his master Takigawa Koisho while working part-time at a restaurant in Shinjuku, and was promoted to maeza in 2005, nitsume in 2009, and shinuchi in May 2019.
