Friday, February 22, 2013

#004: Michael Loren Marshall

To start off, I appreciate the number of people that have read the blog in just the past 48 hours. I have many more profiles/Q&As to post once I get answers back. Hoping to hear from Alessandra Gatti, Elena Gobbi, Morris Capaldi, Stefano Castagna, Clara Moroni, and more in the near future. So hold on tight!

For our 4th profile, let's meet Michael Loren Marshall. A native of Tennessee, he has worked over many years to grow the parapara community in his home state. As you will read in his profile, he has done some pretty nifty stuff with members of the community.

1. Occupation?
I'm currently unemployed (unfortunately), and still have two more years of college to complete, but have done quite a lot of customer service work. I've actually been lucky enough to hold a few ParaPara-related jobs over the years -- in particular, as a choreographer and dancer for Yoko Ishida during her "Anime Fusion Tour", and more recently, as a choreographer for an upcoming Anamanaguchi music video. I've been reaching out to local dance studios and gyms to try to instruct ParaPara classes as a form of aerobics exercise, but... no luck with that, so far.

2. Where are you from?
I was raised and have spent most of my life in the Middle Tennessee area, particularly in Smyrna, a suburb of Nashville.

3. Tell us how you got into the parapara scene? How did Para2Mahou come about?
It’s all thanks to being an avid fan of music-rhythm video games: particularly Dance Dance Revolution. I became a fan of eurobeat music through DDR and the various BEMANI series games, although I was blissfully unaware of eurobeat's association with ParaPara dancing until I found a ParaPara Paradise machine at a local arcade. I immediately fell in love with it, researched about it on the internet, stumbled across the ParaParaStage.com community, and I guess the rest is history.

I decided to form para²mahou with my best friend, "Gelly", after being inspired by two teams in particular: the ParaPara Allstars, thanks to the ParaPara Paradise video series, and Kikimo-dan (now known as EKS-D ParaPara). We thought that it would be the perfect opportunity to promote eurobeat music and ParaPara dancing in the southeastern United States. Although many of our team members have come and gone, a decade later, we're now celebrating our tenth anniversary as a ParaPara team.

4. Sounds like MTAC has been a popular place for parapara over the years. How did this come to be?
Many of the para²mahou team members have either been associated with the Middle Tennessee Anime Convention (MTAC) through friends and acquaintances, or have been directly involved, through volunteering or being on staff. At first, we simply thought it would make sense to host ParaPara panels at an anime convention, since most anime fans are also interested in Japanese culture. What we didn't expect is how huge of a hit our events would be with convention-goers.

MTAC began to work with our team in 2006 as a means to cross-promote the convention itself, para²mahou, and ParaPara dancing, by having us travel with them to other conventions and host events, performances, and workshops at those, as well. They have always been incredibly supportive and we owe our much of our longevity and success as a dance team to them.

Many seem to come to MTAC particularly for our ParaPara events, so over the years, we've expanded them to include ones such as an annual ParaPara competition, a ParaPara team showcase, multiple workshop panels, and several years, we have even held a eurobeat and hyper techno rave!

Over the years, we've had many paralists from across the United States attend MTAC to join in on our ParaPara events. Being able to get together with paralists and share it with others is an experience that is difficult to put into words. "Absolutely amazing" comes pretty close, though.

5.  I know you worked on the ParaPara Max videos. Tell us how you came into that and what the experience was like?
Honestly, it might've been sheer luck! Gelly and I decided to attend A-Kon in Dallas, Texas in 2004, and we decided to randomly set up a boom box and dance ParaPara in one of the convention center hallways. Through this, we ended up befriending another paralist, Randy, who had been tasked with finding ParaPara dancers to help Yoko Ishida promote her Hyper Yocomix album at an upcoming convention. I was asked to create the ParaPara routine for Yoko Ishida's eurobeat mix of "LET ME BE WITH YOU", and was flown to Anime Expo in California to perform at her concert there, along with several other ParaPara dancers, including D~tan of Disco NRG.

A year and a half later, I was contacted by Geneon once again and told that Yoko Ishida was promoting her ParaPara MAX albums in the US, and was on tour, asking me to choreograph and instruct more ParaPara dances that were to be on an upcoming set of DVDs. So, I participated in several Anime Fusion Tour dates and filming production for the videos.

When the director had me give step-by-step instructions during filming, I immediately was thankful for my experiences of teaching ParaPara at conventions -- Geneon provided us with no script or guidelines whatsoever, and all of their ParaPara terminology and knowledge was provided to them by myself and Randy. Although it took plenty of takes due to us being completely on our own, we managed, somehow.

The experience was definitely one that was a dream come true -- none like any other I had ever had, before -- and is definitely one that I will never forget.

6. Who is your favourite Euro artist?
For as long as I've been listening to eurobeat, my favorite eurobeat artist has been Elena Ferretti, most well-known under aliases such as "SOPHIE", "ROSE", "VICTORIA", and "HELENA" under Time Records, "VALENTINA" (and occasionally a vocalist in "GO GO GIRLS" and "KING & QUEEN") under A-Beat C, and a plethora of other aliases across a number of other eurobeat labels. I've always admired how immensely passionate her vocals are, and how her songs range from the smooth and romantic, all of the way to up-beat and energetic ParaPara anthems.

7. What are some of your favourite Euro songs?
That is such a difficult question! It's easier for me to say that I have a penchant for the particularly energetic, danceable songs featured on the Eurobeat Flash and Euromach album series. If I had to choose a single favorite eurobeat song, though, it would have to be between SOLID GOLD / DUSTY, PARAPARA GIRL / BARBIE, and HEY BOY / APPLE.

8. Interested in trance or hyper techno? If so, what songs?
I've always been interested in all forms of electronic dance music, including trance, eurodance, and hyper techno. Although I haven't been into trance as much as I used to be, a few of my favorite "hyper techno" songs include EXPRESS YOUR FREEDOM / ANTICAPELLA, POWER OF DANCIN' / MR. FANG, and EROTIC CHEMISTRY (Hyper Techno Version) / VANDALET.

9. What are your thoughts on piracy within the eurobeat community? When can piracy be help and/or harmful to the genre?
Music piracy is quite the difficult issue, and even more so when it involves eurobeat music. Due to its extreme expense and limited availability outside of Japan, piracy is, for many, a "necessary evil" in order to enjoy eurobeat. With electronic dance music becoming increasingly popular across the world, I think that at least allowing the digital purchase of eurobeat music internationally would substantially cut down on the amount of piracy. It's a matter of having a fine line between making the music available and for a reasonable price.
The expense and difficulty of importing eurobeat that is exclusively released to the Japanese audience seems to force many international fans to pirate the music. If given the choice, fans of eurobeat would surely be interested in supporting eurobeat labels, producers, and artists by buying songs and albums, but when fans are forced to completely clean out their wallets to do so, piracy unfortunately becomes an increasingly more appealing option for many.

At the same time, many might never have become aware of the genre of eurobeat if it weren't through piracy. Searching for dance music in general, "ParaPara music", "Initial D music", or who knows what else, might all cause one to stumble across eurobeat. Even if pirated initially, it can open many doors and expose people who would otherwise have never known of eurobeat to the genre... and once a fan, the more likely it is that someone is to legally purchase eurobeat songs and albums.

10. Physical albums or digitial copies? Why?
Personally, I prefer the physical albums, but that's mainly because I decided when I first fell in love with the genre that I wanted to collect eurobeat albums. While I do enjoy digital versions, having physical copies to add to my collection appeals to me much more, although, admittedly, the expense of importing surely doesn't. I sincerely hope that both physical albums and digital copies continue to both be made available to eurobeat fans, but I also can understand the difficulty and potential financial loss of doing so. As long as there's eurobeat to enjoy and dance ParaPara to, I'll be happy, regardless of the format.

11. Do you see a future parapara boom in Japan? Will parapara keep going strong in the next few years?
It would make sense for another ParaPara "boom" to occur in Japan, as they have occurred regularly over the past several decades. It usually seems as though there's a few years where ParaPara loses popularity, but suddenly explodes, and the process repeats all over again. I think that the recent re-launch of the Super Eurobeat album series is the perfect opportunity for another one of these booms. It's simply a matter of igniting the spark that is necessary to get it going again; in the past, this has often been huge promotional campaigns or spots on variety television shows. Promotion and marketing is key.

12. What's been looping on your media player lately?
Recently, I've been listening to a lot of the songs that are to be featured in our team's upcoming performances, but those will have to be kept as a secret until we perform! Other than that, Super Eurobeat 221, of course!

13. Guilty pleasure?
Italo disco music. I have a huge collection of the true predecessor to eurobeat, and can not seem to ever get enough of it. Even more exciting is when I recognize eurobeat vocalists singing on Italo disco tracks from the early and mid 80s.

14.  Anything you want to tell the people in the parapara community?
ParaPara is a dance of high-energy and unity, and is so much more fun to do when with a large group. See past potential conflicts and differences, and dance ParaPara with one another. Don't be afraid to go out of your way to befriend and meet up with other paralists and use it as a means to bond. It's amazing what a bit of waving your hands around in the air together can do to establish a long-lasting friendship!

No comments:

Post a Comment