Yosakoi Remix contest

[Scrattch]

Hello all!

My name is Xander, and I'm currently an American student studying in Nagasaki, Japan. I'm a member of one of the best Yosakoi dancing troupes in Japan, Toppuu. Yosakoi is a high-energy traditionally based Japanese dance (think dancing, screaming, ninjas ), and students traditionally learn the dance Soran-bushi.

Here's the deal: I'm proposing a contest to re-mix the traditional Soran-bushi. The winning song will be given to Toppuu, and danced to during practices (if it goes over well, it very well may be performed!). While I can't guarantee the dance will be performed by Toppuu, I CAN guarantee that the winning song will be performed to by their sister group in the United States, called Arashi.

This is an opportunity for a remixer to have their song danced to by one of the top groups in Japan, and I figured I might as well ask to see if anyone is interested (since I'm one of the few in the group that speaks English, hahaha)

Yosakoi is still a relatively new artform, and has little to no following in the United States. Thus, the music style might be hard to recreate or remix. The songs usually take traditional Japanese sounds (normally the shakuhachi or shamisen), combines it with a "rock" guitar feel, and upbeat drums to give it a modern appeal. This particular song (soran bushi) was performed by fisherman in Hokkaido, and the dance to it mimicks those movements. The song itself is a bit repetitive, and the movements follow that (considering it was a work song), and I'd like the remix to change that.

You can find a copy of the original song uploaded here: http://www.k-state.edu/yosakoi/sound/soran-bushi.mp3

Criteria:

- The remix should be upbeat, but danceable

- The remix should retain the flavor of Japanese instruments

- The remix needs to stay a reasonable length, as the dancers might be exhausted at anything over 6 minutes

- A good Yosakoi song should have an inspirational intro (normally a bit slower and mysterious), an upbeat section, slow section, upbeat section, and then climax. You don't necessarily have to follow this format, but it will probably help your chances of winning.

here's a clip of Toppuu performing to a different song

Submissions can be sent to scrattch@gmail.com or (if it's too large) can be uploaded and then a link sent to that address. I'm going to set the deadline at September 20th as that will give us time to coreograph before practices start. I hope I've covered everything here, but you can reach me with questions at the above e-mail address, or on here.

Here are some pictures of Toppuu in action!

(As a side note, I realize this is not video game-related material or contest, but I highly admire the work done on this website, and have been an avid downloader (hehe) for some time. I figured this might be of interest to those remixers who are interested in Japanese culture beyond the video game!)

If everything goes right, I'm sure we'll see a rise in popularity of Yosakoi in the United States, and show Japan that we can contribute too!

Thanks!