Avantgardey

November 24, 2023 12:19 PM

Precision formation dancing is one of my favorite things. And I was astonished to see Avantgardey's performances from America's Got Talent and Japan's Got Talent. [22m, performances include judging segments, video is chapter marked for convenient skipping]. This 9m video gave me some background about this thrilling dance troupe. And from Taiwan News just a couple of days ago, Japanese dance troupe Avantgardey's Taipei performance goes viral has an embedded Instagram video of another dance.
posted by hippybear (10 comments total)

I don’t know why but this kind of thing makes me burst out in tears.

Love it.

The shimmy off stage at the end…*chef’s kiss*
posted by chronkite at 12:47 PM on November 24, 2023

Oh wow, I haven't thought about Gackt in forever! It's still so weird to me to see celebrities with a niche fanbase in America as beloved national icons judging on shows like _'s Got Talent. Google tells me Gackt has been a frequent guest on Japanese variety shows for years now.
posted by Gable Oak at 1:08 PM on November 24, 2023

Best stage exit ever? Loved it
posted by greenhornet at 1:12 PM on November 24, 2023 [1 favorite]

Looks like dance paired with the super-exact discipline of Japanese synchronized walking. Really impressive.
posted by zardoz at 1:23 PM on November 24, 2023 [1 favorite]

So much fun. Thank goodness the production team at America's Got Talent figured out better shooting techniques for their later appearances. There's so much happening onstage, I really wanted to see more wide angle shots, and they sorted that out pretty well after their first appearance.
posted by EvaDestruction at 4:28 PM on November 24, 2023

I appreciate that they're synchronized, but they aren't perfectly synchronized so they don't look mechanical.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 8:10 PM on November 24, 2023

This is what you'd get if you gave Cyriak only 3d models of Japanese women to work with.
posted by m2ke at 1:47 PM on November 25, 2023

The snapping between the synchronized movements and the cascade work is really amazing. And they're so tight with the cascade work... I don't even know really how you build up a performance where people are trigger movements 1/4 second apart from one another [maybe less]. I remember doing piano practice where I would take a very complicated passage and start out doing it very slow and over time work up the speed to where it needed to be to fit into the piece at tempo. I don't know if you can do that with a group like this, so how? I have no idea.

I find them thrilling. I understand why they have so few routines on video -- it must take forever to get even one 3 minute thing worked up.
posted by hippybear at 2:19 PM on November 25, 2023

It's pretty standard in dance to start learning a choreography from counts, which can be as slow as needed at the start, well before moving on to music. And these days, there are programs that will slow recorded music down, as well, so you can get used to the musical cues at reduced speed.

I don't know about other pop music but in most Western pop a single beat can be broken down down into 4 segments fairly easily if the tempo isn't wildly fast (1-e-&-a, 2-e-&-a), and any one of those can be a cue for movement. So I can get my head around how this can be done, but it's a lot of work to create a routine, break it down to teach and learn, drill and get up to speed, and layer expression in as well. They're talented and very hard working dancers.
posted by EvaDestruction at 3:28 PM on November 25, 2023

I love them. But I especially love the fact that they can dance with these intense expressions on their faces. It's not smile no matter what, smile until your cheeks seize up. They have emotions and I love it.
posted by sharp pointy objects at 11:25 AM on November 27, 2023 [1 favorite]