Dance Away! Episode 20: The Young Lady Turns Three Gears

The next morning. I stood before the three who had gathered in the detached room and quietly closed my fan. I smiled slightly as I watched them communicate their intentions much more calmly than last night, using the new etiquette they had decided upon yesterday.

“Everyone, did you sleep well? ...Now, as I promised yesterday, I will tell you your new ‘positions’.”

I looked at each of their faces and spoke clearly.

“Minosuke-san, you will move to ‘Rikata (dancer),’ who weaves the story with their entire body. Saburosuke-san, you will move to ‘Shamisen-kata,’ who catches the dancer’s movements with their eyes and releases sound without a hair’s breadth of error. And Bunji-san, you will move to ‘Uta-kata (lyricist/narrator),’ who paints scenes from sound in the darkness.”

From dancer to shamisen, from shamisen to narrator. I do not know if they realized that I had intentionally announced their positions in the ‘order in which the logic of dance flows.’ Bunji-san, who heard my words, raised his head in surprise, and Saburosuke-san clapped his hands after seeing Minosuke-san’s hand gestures. Minosuke-san pointed at his own face, his eyes wide with confusion.

“W-why, Young Lady! You want me to be the narrator, Saburosuke who can’t hear to be the shamisen player, and Minosuke who can’t speak to be the dancer!?” Bunji-san, guided by the sound of Minosuke-san’s footsteps, turned to face me and raised his voice in surprise.

“Yes. In your current positions, you couldn’t coordinate your movements and sounds with each other, and you must have felt the limits, right? But what about in this configuration?” I spoke from behind my fan, as if unraveling their new relationship one by one.

“Saburosuke-san, who can see, will watch Minosuke-san’s dance movements to play the shamisen and provide vocal accompaniment. And Bunji-san, who can hear, will use that accompaniment as a cue to match the singing. If you do that, the logic of the dance will flow perfectly, won’t it?”

Hearing this, the two gasped. Minosuke-san hurriedly conveyed it to Saburosuke-san with hand gestures, and Saburosuke-san gasped as well. From the despair of ‘no matter how I struggle, I can’t coordinate,’ they all realized that by changing their positions, they could perfectly compensate for each other’s shortcomings like a puzzle.

“In addition to that, I order the three of you to ‘teach each other’ starting today.”

“Teach each other, you say?” “Yes. Bunji-san, teach Saburosuke-san the technique of playing the shamisen using only physical sensation. Saburosuke-san, teach Minosuke-san the basics of being a dancer. And Minosuke-san, teach Bunji-san how to use his ‘voice’ and ‘breath’ as a storyteller.”

Bunji-san guides Saburosuke-san, Saburosuke-san guides Minosuke-san, and Minosuke-san guides Bunji-san. Everyone teaches, and everyone is taught. It is a relationship where each is both teacher and student, transferring the skills cultivated in their former positions into a different form so that they can mesh perfectly as three gears.

Bunji-san slapped his knee and laughed vigorously, saying, “I see! That’s interesting!” Saburosuke-san also spoke up, nodding happily, “Oh, so my shamisen and dancing skills will both be useful!”

“However...” I pointed my fan at Minosuke-san, who was looking down at his own body in bewilderment. “Minosuke-san. Even if you are first-class as a storyteller or musician, you are a complete amateur as a ‘dancer’ who moves your body. Therefore, that part will require desperate, intense training.”

When I said that, Minosuke-san exaggeratedly twisted his face and clutched his head with a rustle of his clothes. Bunji-san, who heard that pathetic sound with his remaining ear, sensed the situation and flashed a daring grin.

“...Hey, Young Lady. If the three of us polish our skills thoroughly in those new positions and create a perfect stage without a single error... can we blow the mind of that great master, Nakamura Shikan?” My eyes behind the fan narrowed slightly. “Yes. I am sure that genius actor will be so surprised he will fall over.”

Saburosuke-san, who heard those words through Minosuke-san’s hand gestures, clapped his hands powerfully. “Oh, oh! Can we surprise the troupe leader who treated us like trash and kicked us out with our stage? That would be thrilling!”

A tremendous heat flared up between the three, as if oil had been poured onto a quiet brazier. The three, who had tasted despair that made them crawl on the ground, had found their new place and a ‘mighty goal’ to show off to.

“Oh! If that’s decided, then it’s settled! Minosuke, I’ll train you thoroughly from the basics of dancing to the marrow of your bones, so be prepared!” As Saburosuke-san, who would become the dance teacher, raised his voice vigorously, Bunji-san, who heard it, continued his words as if chasing after him. “Heh! Let’s do it! We’ll show that arrogant Shikan!” At the two’s shouts, Minosuke-san, who should have been clutching his head after being declared to undergo intense training, also raised his head. With a refreshing face full of motivation rather than giving up, he stomped his foot powerfully on the floor.

Compared to the suffering of spinning their wheels in their current positions, the intense training to get back at a genius actor must have been a far brighter path, and all three of them understood it painfully well. In the eyes of those who had found a path to compensate for each other’s shortcomings and shine in their new positions, a strong heat and ambition resided.

"Now, the preparations to create the greatest stage in Edo are complete. Show me the full extent of your powers, you three."

And so, in the detached building of the Sanzoya, the curtain rose on a passionate stage production by a group of clumsy monsters, all to surprise the great genius who had cast them out.