EXILE PERFORMER BATTLE AUDITION
HIRO spent EXILE’s last tour EXILE LIVE TOUR 2013 “EXILE PRIDE” bidding farewell to EXILE’s audience with his role as a performer. His last performance would be the one at the New Year’s Eve special TV show, Kohaku Uta Gassen, in national TV. However, he would remain as EXILE’s leader, producing the group and directing the company LDH.
During HIRO’s last tour as a performer, EXILE LIVE TOUR 2013 “EXILE PRIDE”, on the final concert it was announced that EXILE would hold an audition to seek for new performers. The EXILE PERFORMER BATTLE AUDITION purpose was to find someone whom could fill the gap that HIRO would leave as a performer, as well as a good excuse to find new talent and give younger generations a chance at becoming part of the group.
The decision to hold such an audition came from one of the early 2013’s group meetings, when HIRO discussed with them his upcoming graduation and the plans they wanted to make for that year. After a long meeting with each member exposing their view on the group’s future, their own hopes, dreams and aspirations, individually and as a group; they came to the conclusion that they wanted to grant the same chances they had being part of EXILE to the younger generations. ATSUSHI was one of the members to insist in the importance of sharing what they had achieved together and guaranteeing the group would survive in the future, even after all of them had graduated. HIRO highlighted the fact that he had gone this far as an entertainer thanks to the opportunities others had granted to him, so now he wanted to do the same for others.
Subscriptions for this audition started on December 2013 and, as always for these auditions, a website was settled for the contestants to communicate the rules and any other important information regarding the audition. The deadline for subscriptions was January 16th 2014, but they received so many entries that they extended it to the 22nd. For EXILE’s Pyramid members under 26 years old, it would be possible to join the audition after the first round (starting with the second round).
GENERATIONS members that announced they would join the audition:
Above, Hayato Komori, Below, Reo Sano.
Above, Alan Shirahama, Below, Mendy (Mandy) Sekiguchi.
After this possibility for the Pyramid’s members under 26 years old was communicated, on January 20th the following members of GENERATIONS: Hayato Komori, Reo Sano, Alan Shirahama, Mendy Sekiguchi, Yuta Nakatsuka and Gekidan EXILE’s Kyosuke Harukawa (Halu) announced that they were joining the audition.
Kyosuke Harukawa from Gekidan EXILE
On January 27th, another Pyramid member make public his participation on the audition, Takanori Iwata (Gun-chan) from 3JSB was also joining the competition. This caused a lot of excitement and expectation among the different fan-bases of EXILE’s family. For some of the Pyramid members, becoming part of EXILE was the reason they had started dancing and performing, so the anticipation on seeing whether they fulfilled their dreams or not was huge.
The first round of this audition took place during February 2014 in Tokyo (days 5th and 6th) and Osaka (day 13th). A lot of young talented dancers went through this first round, showing their skills on freestyle, just to get a chance to become a member of EXILE.
On March 4th 2014, they announced the second round requirements: the contestants would be split on groups of three people each and dance in front of the jury (that was composed entirely by the members of EXILE). The song they would dance was the song Like A Tiger (later its title would change to Craving My Soul), an unreleased EXILE song (like they used to do for the VOCAL auditions). From this round that would succeed to the third round were only 18:
Takanori Iwata (3JSB), Shogo Iwaya (support member of GENERATIONS), Shohei Urakawa, Likiya Eliot (3JSB’s ELLY’s little brother), Kenta Kamiya, Hayato Komori (GENERATIONS), Jin Sakamoto, Taiki Sato (support member of GENERATIONS), Reo Sano (GENERATIONS), Alan Shirahama (GENERATIONS), Mendy Sekiguchi (GENERATIONS), Kaisei Takechi, Yuta Nakatsuka (GENERATIONS), Kyosuke Harukawa (Gekidan EXILE), Itsuki Fujiwara, Shogo Yamamoto, Sekai Yamamoto and Rui Yonamie.
This last round would consist on splitting the 18 contestants in 2 groups that would dance to the song PERFORMER’S PRIDE (from EXILE PRIDE’s second single release), they would perform in front of the members of EXILE, to showcase their abilities to dance in a group as well as their Freestyle individual skills seen as a part of a group’s choreography.On April 10th 2014, the names of the 11 finalists that would participate on a concert held at Budokan were announced. The concert was a special one for the final round: EXILE PERFORMER BATTLE AUDITION FINAL in NIPPON BUDOKAN. The 11 finalists were:
Takanori Iwata (3JSB), Shohei Urakawa, Hayato Komori (GENERATIONS), Taiki Sato (support member of GENERATIONS), Reo Sano (GENERATIONS), Alan Shirahama (GENERATIONS), Mendy Sekiguchi (GENERATIONS), Kaisei Takechi, Yuta Nakatsuka (GENERATIONS), Sekai Yamamoto and Rui Yonamie.
HIRO already announced to the members that didn’t make it to the final that they would become part of a new group they were working on, that group later on would be announced as THE RAMPAGE.
Above, The Rampage first selected members introducing themselves during the final of PBA.
On April 27th, a big concert with all EXILE TRIBE members, including E-GIRLS, was celebrated to hold the final round.
During the concert, the contestants danced a song with EXILE and they also had the chance to show their dance skills to EXILE’s audience in a solo number. While the other groups from EXILE TRIBE were performing, EXILE, HIRO too, met at the back-stage to deliberate and choose a winner. HIRO had been watching the whole final round from back-stage, through a TV screen. Once they had reached a conclusion, they called the contestants to communicate the final decision. The big surprise for them, and later for the audience that assisted to the event, was that instead of choosing 1 replacement, they decided to accept 5 new performers into the group. EXILE would officially become an 18 member group (19, counting the leader).
Above, the contestants dancing with EXILE’s performers the PERFORMERS’ PRIDE. Below, EXILE with the contestants performing BOW & ARROW
HIRO and MATSU (this last one on their Twitter) had already hinted to the possibility of having more than just one winner.
The new members of EXILE were:
Takanori Iwata from 3JSB. His special abilities focus on Krump dance style (he is also a member of EXPG’s dance crew Twiggz Fam, along with Mendy, NAOKI and REO, and other EXPG members)
Taiki Satou, a student from EXPG, whom had also been part of the support members of GENERATIONS; he had also been part of Kamen Teacher’s (drama) cast.
Sekai Yamamoto, he was one of EXPG’s dance instructors in Tokyo. Sekai also dances with the dance crew SLUGGER, he had also been a back-dancer for Miura Daichi (one of Japan’s top performers) and the DANCE EARTH SHOW (USA’s project) in 2013.
Mendy Sekiguchi, from GENERATIONS, another Krump skilled dancer (he is from the same dance crew Iwata Takanori belongs).
Alan Shirama, GENERATIONS’ leader and actor.
http://matome.naver.jp/odai/2135331498747707801
http://team-ldh.tumblr.com/post/61846260820/hot-shot-profile-photos-1
http://ldh.wikia.com/wiki/Harukawa_Kyosuke
http://onehallyu.com/topic/110-the-official-exile-thread/page-137
https://twitter.com/exnews24/status/454534682483257344
http://pantip.com/topic/31905595
http://tumblr.straycat.me/post/90114391144/lets-learn-more-about-exile-tribes-new-unit-the
http://nihongogo.com/2014/04/the-exile-performer-battle-edition-adds-5-new-members-to-exile/
Source:
This battle was followed by the TV show Shuukan EXILE.
