Competing for Japan’s Best High School Dance Club.
The Potential in DANCE CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP

The DANCE CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP, or “DCC”, a competition sponsored by Avex Management Inc. (referred to below as “AMG”) to determine the best high school dance club in Japan, was held at the Tokyo Garden Theater in Ariake on August 24, 2012. First launched in 2013 as a competition to determine the pinnacle of high school dance, this year marked DCC’s 10th anniversary, and the number of entries has grown with each passing year. The performances of the participating high school students attracted much attention for the competition’s original judging criteria, which was based on how well each team could use dance to express the theme inside of just two Japanese kanji characters.

For this article, we interviewed Yuya Yahata, producer since the 3rd DCC, and Chong-Hyanga and Ayaka Tobita, who Yahata assigned to the Academy Business Department of the IP Discovery and Development Division at Avex, a department for discovering and nurturing the next generation of talent. In this interview we talk about what makes DCC unique, how it has changed so far, the value it brings to the industry and its future prospects.

Building Teams with Young Sensibility.
Horizontal Development Inside Avex

The tenth DCC since its start in 2013 saw a total of 192 teams participate. Of those, thirty-three teams qualified and joined the seeded teams (last year's top three), for a total of thirty-six teams that advanced to the finals on August 24th.

DCC has grown to become the most important event in the high school dance world, and its producer is none other than Yuya Yahata, leader of the Marketing Strategy Unit in the Academy Business Department of AMG's IP Discovery and Development Division.

Yahata "In my first year at DCC, I was a guest booker, not the producer, because I had dance experience and connections with dancers. From my second year, I took over the entire business from the previous producer and have held the position ever since."

Yahata also belongs to AMG's Corporate Strategy and Event Planning Office and Corporate Strategy Office. "I bring a corporate point of view to DCC," he says. Currently working with Yahata in the management of DCC are two Avex freshmen, Chong and Tobita.

Chong "I belong to the East Japan Unit of the Academy Business Department at the IP Discovery and Development Division, the same as Mr. Yahata. I am also in sales for our school called Dance Master, which Avex has developed as a licensing business for sports clubs nationwide."

Tobita "I am also in the East Japan Unit of the Academy Business Department at the IP Discovery and Development Division, where I am responsible for the nationwide expansion of Dance Master and the management of existing stores. I also belong to the Marketing Strategy Unit, where I am involved with DCC."

Both Chong and Tobita were personally selected and appointed by Yahata to the management team.

Chong "This is my fourth year with the company. DCC was held two months after I arrived, so in my first year I participated as a member of the management team."

TobitaLast year I attended the Entertainment Business Course at the Avex Artist Academy and participated in DCC for the first time as an intern. I joined Avex last December and worked as a member of the DCC management for the first time this year.

Yahata’s intention for bringing the two onto his team was clear. In fact, the sensibility behind it was similar to that of DCC participants.

Yahata "If we don't include staff who understand the feelings of high school students in the management team, it will only turn out to be self-serving content to us staff members who are far removed from what high school students think and feel. That’s why we value having both of them on the team and are conscious of building a team that respects their opinions."

In addition, Yahata looks forward to the growth of individuals as well as the "horizontal development" of the business—something he finds is possible only at Avex thanks to their many departments and teams with various strengths.

Yahata "Avex produces a variety of dance events, and there are many teams within the company, such as AEI (Avex Entertainment), with which we can collaborate. This is a great way for new DCC team members to grow and develop themselves because they can reach out to staff in Media or Alliance departments when needed. Also, these young women are in charge of Dance Master as well, so it was my hope that they would be able to make use of the knowledge they gain here by applying it “horizontally” within the company. That’s why I asked them to join DCC management from the early stages of their employment."

Contribution to Society and the Value of Giving Back.
The Not-So-Average Dance Club and its Environment

As stated earlier, this year marks the 10th anniversary for DCC. We took this opportunity to ask its seasoned producer Yahata to reflect on the event's past.

Yahata "At the time, high school dance clubs didn’t have a tournament like Koshien was for high school baseball, so we started with the idea of creating a tournament equivalent to that. There were many dance competitions at the time, but none of them were large enough where clubs could enter them as part of official club curriculum. Avex was very active in creating social contribution programs under the slogan, ‘Let's create a stage where young dancers can be active.’ DCC was also mainly started with a similar hope to contribute to society."

Today, the DCC has grown to attract entries from 200 teams from all over Japan, but when Yahata first began working on the event, the number of teams was much lower than expected, and there were times when they thought the event might have been cancelled.

Yahata "In the beginning, it was not a major dance club competition, so the number of entries was very small. This year there were 192 entries, but when I first started getting involved, there were about thirty to forty. The third year, there were thirty-seven entries when only thirty-six teams were meant to qualify. We almost cancelled it that time because there were so few entries. That year I made phone calls to every dance club in Japan."

Yahata's underlying desire is not to discover new talent, but to contribute to society. Yahata believes that DCC is one way for Avex, which has grown in the dance industry, to return value to the dance industry through its business.

In addition to DCC, Avex has also been running their school Dance Master for many years. In both of these areas, Avex's strength is that it has a pool of Japan's top-class dancers to draw from.

Chong "I was running both DCC and Dance Master in parallel, so there were areas where I could take advantage of the things I learned in each of them. Dance Master is mostly elementary and junior high school kids, and it targets mostly beginner dancers. Those kids often go on to high school where, hopefully, they join dance clubs. I like to think we are creating a nice flow for them to do so, and learn even more."

Tobita "I started Dance Master in second grade, and I joined Avex because I wanted to support the dreams of many children at the school that I had been a part of. I was in junior high school when dance became a required subject, so I had many friends who experienced it in junior high school and joined the dance club in high school. I think it actually served as an entry point."

Yahata "When DCC started, some schools had a negative image towards dance, and I often contacted by club advisors for advice. But now the environment surrounding high school dance clubs has taken a complete one-eighty, and it has become one of the major clubs. It is not unusual to find high schools where the dance club is the largest one in the school."

Aiming to be a Summer Tradition Like Koshien.
How DCC will continue to evolve

The Osaka Prefectural Tomioka High School Dance Club must be mentioned as one of the clubs that helped make a 180-degree change in peoples' take on DCC and the high school dance world. The shocking “Bubbly Dance” performed by the girls at the 5th competition (2017) was covered by numerous media outlets and catapulted club dance to major stages. The boom was further accelerated by the introduction of dance as a compulsory subject in high schools.

Yahata "I believe that the move to make dance compulsory has created a trend where everyone is exposed to dance in junior high school, then go on to join a dance club in high school. In my opinion, the Bubbly Dance and the introduction of compulsory dance training raised the level of the dance industry, and the start of D.LEAGUE (Japan's first professional dance league, launched in 2021. The league’s first champion was “The Avex ROYALBRATS”) really contributed to the current trend as well."

Yahata also believes that the unique theme of the DCC, "expressing the concept contained in two kanji characters through dance," will have a positive educational impact on the participating students.

Yahata "First of all, from an entertainment standpoint, the theme allows people to enjoy the show even if they don't know much about dance. In addition, the process of discussing the theme together and researching how to express it is educationally meaningful for the students."

Yahata is also conscious of the quality of the judges. This year, the judges included Terry Ito, the creator of Dance Koshien, TAKAHIRO, a world-class dancer, MITTAN, a dance director at Avex, Yuta Nakamura (avex ROYALBRATS) and Rena (Rht.), who are active in D.LEAGUE, alongside other leaders in the dance world. This was highly appreciated by the participating high schools, as evidenced by the fact that Tomioka High School, mentioned earlier, participates only in DCC.

Yahata "The most unsatisfying thing for the participating high school students is to be judged by people who have never danced before. DDC makes a conscious effort to book professional dancers and people who know the dance industry well enough to satisfy everyone who participates."

The social recognition of dance and DCC’s original format have successfully synchronized with the current trends, and the competition to determine the best high school dance club in Japan has expanded each year. This year's 10th contest was another milestone, with Teizukayama Gakuin High School (Osaka Prefecture) winning the championship with “Haruyokoi [Bring on the Spring]” as its theme.

Yahata "I think many of this year's participants had special feelings about the tournament because they experienced the pandemic right after entering high school. Also for the same reason, the theme of the two kanji characters has become more socially relevant. The theme of the winning team from Teizukayama Gakuin High School, “Haruyokoi” (written as “Spring Haze,” and read as “Bring on the Spring”), was also impressive in its expression of the desire for peace."

Chong "Personally, I was impressed by the third-place winner, Mie High School. I could feel the joy of expression from all the dancers. Also, a lot of media were interested in DCC and followed us closely, so I would like to continue to convey the event's charm more to those who don't know about it."

Tobita "I was able to see what happened from the preliminary round all the way to the final first hand, so it was a good experience. Also, many of the words in the themes represent the times we're in, and I could feel from the dance and the comments that they were expressing their own youth."

Although I said at the beginning that this is not a search for newcomers, there are already dancers who have gone on to become professionals after entering the DCC. And in the future, further developments are expected, such as the holding of regional qualifiers and TV projects featuring high school dance clubs. If this happens, more and more people will be able to see the contents through a high school dance club adolescence lens. The day is not far off when people will be talking about both Koshien and DCC as a summer tradition in Japan.