Yuka Takara Dazzles On Broadway Stage

　Life is often said to be all about timing and luck. But without doing your homework, you could easily miss the chance.

　If true, then dancer-singer Yuka Takara has absolutely done her homework. She won the part of "Connie," the role she had long craved, in a 2006 stage revival of "A Chorus Line," which ran on Broadway from 1975 to 1990.

　"The character, Connie, never grew tall enough to be a ballerina, though she had longed to be. She is Asian, but unyielding ... I thought 'it's me!' as soon as I read the script for the first time," Takara said in a recent interview in Tokyo.

　 "A Chorus Line" originated from the anxieties of dancers who had gathered for an audition, dreaming of performing on a Broadway stage. The musical expresses well the struggles among youth --- complicated family relationships, anxieties over their futures and sex lives ---and its record-breaking 15-year run showed that audiences loved it.

　But this musical is particularly special to the performing "gypsies" all over the world, since it is a story about them! For the 2006 production, about 3,000 dancers auditioned for only 19 roles. Takara was one of them.

　The upcoming film "Every Little Step" follows the musical's eight-month casting process, which is full of emotions, struggles, cries, despair, ecstasy and inspiration.

　Takara describes the film as "very human," revealing the bare truth about a dancer's world. When asked if she knew that the camera was rolling during her audition, she laughed, saying, "Yes, but I was too busy to mind it. I just desperately wanted the role."

　Indeed, there was no time for applicants to notice the camera. The casting process was very strict, and one after another, dancers were auditioned and jettisoned, like panning for gold in a river. It was harsh but very moving, so audiences are kept in suspense, as if they were auditioning themselves.

　The judges' reactions are shown after applicants leave the audition room, and opinions of each character differ greatly among them. What the judges are seeking for individual roles, and what the applicants try to express, are sometimes perfectly in sync and often, the reverse is also true.

　The auditions for the role of Connie Wong were especially thrilling because Baayork Lee, the original Connie in the first production, was in charge of choreography for the 2006 revival.

　Takara said that she tenaciously seeks to make each role her own, so that she never considered a "cut-and-paste" interpretation of the Connie role as played by Lee. But she said she was fortunate to hear Lee talk about the inside story of the original play, which helped make her performance richer.

　Later, Takara was standing in line at a box office on 49th Street in New York to buy a ticket for a musical when her agent called. Takara said she couldn't stop crying when he told her that she had landed her dream role.

　"I walked crying so loud from 49th Street to 44th Street," she recalled. And the first thing she did was call her family in Naha, Okinawa Prefecture.

沖縄にある私の原点

　During the interview, Takara repeatedly mentioned her hometown. She looked so happy when she said she found local media from Okinawa among the U.S. media at the opening of "A Chorus Line." Takara said, however, that there was a time when she had to put Okinawa out of her mind just to be able to survive living alone in New York.

　"It was too hard and too lonely," Takara recalled.

　But it was the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks that changed her outlook.

　"Facing the fear of death, at that moment I realized how important for me family and friends are. They are all symbolized in the word 'Okinawa,' " she said.

　The tragedy also changed her understanding of the meaning of life, as Takara said she felt so useless amid the chaos in New York on Sept. 11, 2001.

　"I'm not a fireman, so I can't help digging out the people. I'm not a nurse so I can't bandage a wound. ...," she recalled of her frustration that day.

　Takara, then cast in the musical "Mamma Mia!" received a "love letter" from a person who saw her musical after working 48 hours on end in the debris of the World Trade Center as a volunteer. The author of the letter said the show helped him forget the reality in New York, and it healed his sorrow.

　"I thought 'That's it!' I can sing and dance with all my might for two and a half hours. I felt I was needed by people. I can heal people. That's what I have to do," Takara said.

　She also said that her musical roles always give her new perspectives on life. For example, in "A Chorus Line," there is a line she really likes: " 'Cause whatever I am, I am."

　"I was perverse that I am short, Asian, young, girl ... by listing negative points. But from this line, I learned that doing my best under any given situation or condition is what I should do," she said. "Envying for what I hadn't been given is meaningless because everyone is special. Now, I cherish whatever I've been given."

　Takara's love of singing and dancing is endless. She can't find any other words to explain the reasons to continue working in the harsh entertainment world, except to say "because I love it!"

　Other than "A Chorus Line," she has performed in such popular musicals as "Flower Drum Song," "Pacific Overtures" (directed by Amon Miyamoto), and "Rent."

　 "I am so glad that I could have the opportunity to participate in works that I'm so fond of," Takara said. "I want to take every little step to continue working in the entertainment world. The place? It doesn't matter whether it's New York, Japan or anywhere else. My stage is on the big Earth!"