Super Mario bridges ancient tradition with modern Japanese culture
Two blobs of red and green opened the performance for Japan Club. And as a bouncy, fast-paced tune filled the Cannon Activities Center, the audience cheered in recognition of the familiar: Mario and Luigi dancing to the Super Mario Bros theme. The club’s show was a medley of many things people around the world love about Japanese culture: pop culture, such as video games and anime, and the beauty of tradition.
Super Mario is a video game character beloved worldwide, and Japan Club said they wanted to make sure the audience remember that the popular Nintendo character is Japanese. The club said they crafted a performance that is both simple and imaginative: Super Mario traveling through the worlds of Japanese culture, said club president
Naoto Calip, a sophomore in information technology from Japan. “Mario has all these different worlds—land, volcano and sea,” said club choreographer Hosana Yamamoto, a sophomore in business management with a finance concentration from Japan. “We used that to travel through different aspects of Japanese culture all at once.”
The club blended the past and the present in creative ways. Female dancers wore “yukata”—a traditional garment that, according to Calip, reflects the values of gratitude, politeness and cultural pride. The club put a modern twist to this traditional element by having the performers carry light-up fans.Yamamoto described it as them summoning different eras on one stage. “The lights glow, which gives the fan dance the atmosphere that ties into the game world aesthetic while still honoring the traditional dance. It merges the modern game elements with traditional culture,” she explained.
Both Calip and Yamamoto described the preparation period for Culture Night as a time for students to come together as one. They said producing the performance has not been without its challenges, but it was fulfilling. “People are into different things—some love traditional Japanese culture, some love anime, some love games which gives everyone something to connect to,”Yamamoto shared.
