Kenichi Ebina ALL PERFORMANCE America's Got Talent 2013
Kenichi Ebina was the winner of the season. I enjoyed his "dance-ish performance" and was also very impressed by them. I am glad he won.
[The video presentation is not in chronological order. The performances are presented in following order; "The video game"(second round), "The head drop-Matrix" (first round), "The mirror"(Third round), "Angel"(semi-final) then "Holograms" (Final)]
On 4/21/2014 he published a book in Japanese. So I ordered it from Japanese Amazon and read it. To my knowledge, the book has not been translated to English as of today (8/23/2014). On rare occasions like this, I get benefit from my Japanese language skills here in the US.
(Book cover of his book)
The book title says," You can win in the world if you show it well"
[My translation: The original reads,"Misekata hitotsu de sekai demo kateru"]
Good thing about reading a book like this is that we can have a glimpse at inner workings of a creative mind. In the book he did not define himself as a dancer. He even referred himself as a second-class (or not top-notch) dancer. He thought he was not the best-of-the-best dancer. Considering the amazing things the best-of-the-best dancers can do (Young Baryshinikov, for example), what he said may have some truth.
Yet, he beat all other contestants who tend to be the best in their own specialty.
Instead of defining himself as a dancer, he defined himself as a performer or entertainer.
Kenichi's unique trait is his smartness and scope. He sees his performance as an act, not as a dance. He puts high priority on the audience's response, rather than on showing how exquisite his dance is.
So he had a fundamentally different scope from a dancer.
He pointed out that, in the America's Got Talent show, dancers had not fared well. Visual surprise or impact can fade quickly once the audience grasp what the performer would do. His (then novel) idea was to be unpredictable and to give a surprise by combining different disciplines for each of his act.
The "head drop" was originally a magic act. He saw it in a TV show, a kid was doing it. He adopted it to his act.
On a magic stage, the "head drop" may not be very surprising by itself, because the audience anticipate a magic. Yet when the audience expect dancing, the magic trick comes as a surprise, he said. Fizzle or sizzle, it really depends on the context and on how well you show it.
To be the best of the best, it takes so much training, yet you risk becoming predictable and getting less reward. Rather, he said he would combine two not-the-best-of-the-best disciplines and create unique and surprising entertainment.
His approach is brilliant.
PS.
In more recent dance shows, like in this season of "So You Think You Can Dance", the choreographers are adding more story into the dance. This trend may be a far-cry result of his presentation.
[Disclaimer: the YouTube video is not mine. All rights belong to the creator of the original]
