Sung by Helen Reddy (from Pete's Dragon)
Found this little gem the other day and I just had to post it because this is one of those songs that is so pleasant on the ears and it brings back good memories from NUS Choir days where we used to harmonise so nicely... ;)
Just found out about this recently - Takarazuka Revue - an all-women theatre troupe as opposed to Kabuki which is all-male. youTube has loads of video clips with snippets of the various shows put up over the last 10 years.
They perform musicals in Operatic style, like Elisabeth, Phantom of the Opera (but not the Andrew Lloyd Webber one), Figaro, Wuthering Heights, to name a few.
The Takarazuka Revue was founded in 1913 by Kobayashi Ichizo as a means for drawing in more tourism dollars for the city. They trained a cast of young, chaste women to perform western-style musicals.
Kind of reminds me of Hula Girls and how they brought in tourists with their hip swaying ways. hehe... Fun movie by the way... but I digress...
Takarazuka Kagekidan (officially translated as the “Takarazuka Revue Company”) is divided into 5 troupes: “Flower,” “Moon,” “Snow”, “Star” and "Cosmos", each with their top "actors" and actresses.
Thousands of girls between 15 - 18 apply for entrance into the music school yearly but only 40-50 are accepted and trained, taking gruelling lessons in dance and acting and all sorts of enrichment classes. After the 1st year, each student will be chosen to play either the male role (otokoyaku - most coveted) or female role (musumeyaku). A famous Otokoyaku was Yōka Wao who stands at 172cm!!
Once chosen, they have to learn how to move, speak, and sing like the selected gender. The otokoyaku students learn techniques to deepen their voices, and masculinise their gestures and speech patterns. The musumeyaku are trained to be ultra-feminine, in order to better emphasize the masculinity of the otokoyaku.
Kids have been known to commit suicide because they were not chosen to become otokoyaku! This is serious business!
Click to read more about the Takarazuka Revue.
Here's a little clip from Elisabeth - judging from the comments, their fans have their preferences and they can get a little crazy about the stars.
If you have watched some anime, it sort of reminds me of them but with real actors. Long flowing colourful hair, elaborate costumes, music and special effects. LOL... Here's a comparison.
Enjoy...
Here's another one. See how skinny and tall they are :
Ernest in Love(Flower) -- Mr. Bunbury
Just when I felt like blogging, I get this error from blogger "This server is currently experiencing a problem. An engineer has been notified and will investigate." Ghaa..... I think I wasn't meant to blog lah..
ANYWAY.... 
I gotta tell ya.. I love my Ipod Shuffle (2nd generation). It's tiny and light, and I'll say it again, TINY!! Got it free from HSBC by joining some Credit Card spending contest.. hehe...
I can get 225 songs into this wee thing and it syncs automatically and selects new songs for you (if you set it up that way).
No more rummaging into bags to control volume or forwarding songs or getting the wires entangled with your barang-barang. This one conveniently clips to your clothes and doesn't get in the way because it is light (not heavy and bulky).
Now what am I going to do with my (heavy) 4th generation 20GB Ipod? Is that why they made it white?? ;-)
Oh dear.. look at that, Croatia Lonely Planet in the background.. better continue reading before my travel companion nags me again...
:S
Today in my usual early morning stupour, I half-heartedly flagged down an SBS Bus no. 162 with half-closed eyes but when I stepped up the bus, my eyes almost popped out of their sockets! Luckily I had contact lenses to stop them from actually rolling out onto the bus floor. The seats in this bus were not the usual kind. Take a look for yourselves... (do excuse the blur pictures... hard to hold still in a moving bus lah..)
Nokia Bus : 
Cool, righttttt!?! A Lychee Martini, please!! No one to take orders? Awww.... I felt like I was sitting in a lounge and I didn't want to get off when I arrived at my stop. The music was hip and I had fun snapping pictures with my Nokia N80, nope, I don't have the Nokia 5300 but it sure looks like a fun phone!
Check out the Nokia Musicmobile page. Apparently the buses have free downloads of music videos, wallpaper and ringtones via Bluetooth any time of the day! Shucks.. Now I'll have to stand and wait for bus no. 162 everyday from now on until 16 Feb... haha...
I was about to edit my Hangzhou video that my cousin's friend took when I got caught up with Cai Qin and her songs! It put me in such a melancholic mood that I had no mood to edit anymore.
Here's a nice song from Infernal Affairs - it was played when Tony Leung and Andy Lau stopped to listen to an old song in a CD shop - 被遗忘的时光
One of my favourites - 恰似你的温柔 :
I love her mellow voice - maybe it's because I was an alto.. haha.. Also, maybe it also reminded me of the music my mom used to play and sing many years ago - Chinese oldies, they are known as today. Even though I never really appreciated them as a little girl, somehow the melodies were deeply ingrained in my mind that I never forgot them. When I listen to them today, I just go "ahhhh....."
Wish I'd caught Cai Qin's concert back in 2005 when she came to Singapore but she was not feeling well and the concert was postponed. In the end, my dad and my sister went for the concert as the new date clashed with my Spain holidays.
Anyway, you better be glad I'm editing that HZ vid cos it's one of those long and tedious home vids that pauses forever at a scene and then pans and pauses again... I don't know how long it's going to take me to finish! To convert the DVD format to .avi took my computer TWO WHOLE DAYS!! It's about 14 mins 18 sec but it has some scenes of the boat ride we did in HZ which I really want to share with you... Deep Breath... 慢慢的等吧! (Wait patiently lah..)
Fisher the Band has some great Christmas tracks on their website for free downloading. Very nice music for a quiet Christmas in front of the fireplace. Err.. oh yeah, we don't have fireplaces in Singapore - Christmas in the Tropics, right. Oh well... ;)
Enjoy!
Oh BOY... you KNOW you're old when one of your favourite bands has a reunion and all the band members look like grandfathers and lao ah-pek's.... *hangs head*
Last July, the band replaced Boy George (who's been a naughty boy) with SAM - a nubile young 29 yr-old (who could also pass off as a woman actually). Wonder who's climbing into bed with him.. hmmmm... ;-)
Apparently, the band is furious with Boy George for singularly accepting a classic song-writing award at the Q Music Awards for "Karma Chameleon" - a song that ALL the original band members wrote together. AND for also criticising their new lead singer SAM.
You can listen to some of their favourite songs here: Culture Club on myspace
A couple of videos of the NEW Culture Club:
Mikey Craig, Jon Moss, Phil Pickett and INTRODUCING... SAM
So what do you think of Sam? Does it look like the band is looking for someone who looks like the 'old' Boy George? He sure doesn't sound the same...
Anyway, they will be going on their CUlture Club Reborn tour which kicks off in Manchester on 07Dec2006.
I watched the video but I don't know if it's nostalgia or what, but I still prefer Boy George (even though he always sounds FLAT!) I think he needs to be tuned up (like a guitar) because he never quite hits all his notes correctly. LOL... But still, I loved their songs and their MTV's especially the old ones. Those were the days when we used to borrow VHS or Betamax (these got phased out when it lost to VHS) tapes and watched MTV's of Culture Club, Eurythmics, Duran Duran and Thompson Twins on Top of the Pops! What memories...
And NOW... THIS(!) is the Culture Club that I remember!
