Uchiage originated from sumo wrestlers who held celebrations in order to express gratitude towards their teachers. JAC adopted this tradition for the main committee members to thank all their sub-committee members for the work put in into making the JCF (Japanese Cultural Festival), an event prior to Uchiage, a success.

Kai Yeat’s bishie. — Headlining Uchiage are Xue Ming, Su-An, Kai Yeat and Liang Yue

ONE OK ROCK, Wherever You Are, Notes N’ Words

ONE OK ROCK is the current sensational rock band in Japan. One special feature about this band is that they are good in singing English songs too. Their latest album, 35xxxv, is full of such concepts.

It was really pleasing to be able to see our members take up this challenge to perform and sing OOR’s songs. Kai Yeat spent a lot of effort in fine-tuning his pitch while the girls picked up their instruments to practice really hard for both of the songs.

The one thing that really drove it home for me was the atmosphere it created. It was a slow song, suitable for building up the atmosphere and really got the audience going. Music is from the heart. Indeed, I heard their souls that day. People were waving light sticks. It was truly a spectacle to behold. It was an embodiment of what a live event is supposed to be.

Perfume, Spending All My Time

After the band performance, our very dear President, Serene, Vice-President, Sean Tok, and the legendary dancer, Ada took center stage and mesmerised the audience with their dance moves! It was an excellent performance. One of the key features of Perfume is their precision in dance moves and coordinated hand movements. Their performance can be described as robotic not in a sense that it had no life to it, but even down to the most minute detail, they were in sync. The amount of preparation needed for the coordination of the dance must had been staggering! To the audience, it was a nice change for of pace from the slow moving songs that Kalbee sang and perfect for the mood as it set the tone for the rest of the performances.

Kami no Manimani, Nico Nico Douga

Kami no Manimani was a song chosen by some of the NND (Nico Nico Douga) fans of JAC. For people that don’t know, Nico Nico Douga is a Japanese version of YouTube. Some of the videos are song covers of vocaloid songs sung by people and have a huge following behind them. I think the choice of having 3 people singing elevated the performance as it harmonized the melody. It was also positive that the singers were moving around and having fun on stage and not standing stagnant at one location. It kept the flow of the uchiage going and lead up to Adeline’s Song.

Darling, by Nishino Kana

For the third straight year, Adeline challenged to herself with another exquisite song. One slight difference as compared to the previous years was that Adeline chose a cute song, how surprising! Darling was originally sang by Nishino Kana and it actually really make a big impression to some of our club members here. Why? This is because some days after the performance, our members were searching for Nishino Kana songs. Similar to Kalbee’s performance, she managed to captivate the audiences’ heart and soul.

Lek Sheng, Wanlu and Deborah (with 2 extras)

Youkai Watch

After a soothing performance by Adeline, it is time to re-energize the crowd, and what better way to do it than to do the Youkai Watch dance? Initially I honestly thought it was a filler in the schedule. To my surprise, Lek Sheng, Wanlu and Deborah taught the crowd the dance. It was fun and laughter afterwards as we tried to do the dance! Much credit has to be given to them as we successfully performed the dance together at the end of Uchiage.

Dancing to Touhou, Beware the Umbrella Left Behind and D-51, Brand New World

Wotagei originated from fans of Japanese idols jump and cheering for them using light sticks. Eventually, organized cheering squads emerged and lead to the development of dancing using lightsticks.

A Former Arashi member, alumni and extremely talented dancer. The dance was choreographed on his own. It was a mesmerizing sight to behold as the light sticks move about with precision. In addition, most of us were unfamiliar with wotagei, adding to the intrigue and wonder during the performance. The second part of his performance mixes agility and precision as Wei Kiang dances effortlessly to the music. It was another upbeat dance leading up to the marquee performance of the night.

AKB48, UZA and Kanojo ni naremasuka

These are the 2 performances the audience eagerly waited for and they delivered, with style as they drew the loudest cheers from the ever enthusiastic crowd. Both JAC Musume and JAC Arashi spent 2-3 months to perfect the dance to the maximum similarity to the actual AKB48 and Arashi dance respectively. JAC Musume has the most number of members in the team since its foundation 3 years back. If you do like to challenge or have the interest to learn dancing, these two groups are definitely the choice for you to start! Without further ado, let’s enjoy again, the dance performances done by JAC Musume and JAC Arashi!

Uchiage ended on a high note and with lots of photo taking at the end. Of course, a huge thanks to all performances and staff who were involving with this year’s uchiage! You can view the photos on JAC’s Facebook and may JAC be able to have many more successful Uchiages in the future.

Written by: Ryan

Edited by: Jessel

Uchiage – A Night to Remember

Japanese Culture Festival – Spreading our Love and Passion for Japanese Culture

Subcommittee Appreciation Night