Serendipity or Meant to be?
Gifts we got from this pandemic
This global pandemic made so many people stressed out.
Performers, artists, and musicians around the world lost their jobs and gigs for over a year.
However, some clever artists found creative ways to find new jobs.
Let’s ask three performing artists how they made the best of the situation during this difficult time.
Eru Gibson is an actress based in Los Angeles, who recently had to return to Japan,
where she is originally from, in order to renew her artist visa.
“Usually it takes a couple of months to finish the renewal process,
but the union and embassy closed, which left me completely stuck in Japan.
I love working in Japan, but I missed working in English.
Fortunately, I had opportunities to do online live streams for the very first time.
I also collaborated with circus performers and cruise ship entertainers,
who all lost their jobs during the pandemic.
We met online and performed together.
I find it amazing that, even though we haven’t met in person, we could still network!
I love acrobats, so I was thrilled to collaborate with these professional performers.”
Eru started to introduce live streaming to other performers who had lost their stage jobs.
Teruyo Hagiri is a singer based in Japan, who specializes in French Chanson and Italian Canzone.
She has been singing on stage for years, but had to cancel her shows for two years in a row.
Teruyo said she appreciated networking with friends,
especially during this difficult time.
“I never did live streaming before and I didn’t even see it as a possibility.
Eru recommended performing online to me and
I was overjoyed to take advantage of this opportunity.”
21 years ago, Teruyo lived in Melbourne, Australia for one year and a half.
She sung on stage there, but it’s been awhile since she has performed in other countries.
Now that she sings online, anyone in the world can enjoy her performances.
Takashi Harada is the first Japanese musician ever to play
the Ondes Martenot as a solo instrument.
He has performed in 20 countries with major orchestras around the world,
such as the Boston Philharmonic, Philharmonia of London, the Royal Concertgebouw of Amsterdam,
and Filarmonica della Scala of Milano, to name a few.
Unfortunately, he also had to cancel many concerts last year.
One day, a production company asked him to make a music video at home.
He bought professional lighting and cameras for this project and learned how to edit footage by himself.
After posting his music video online,
one major TV production came across it and introduced it during their show.
Takashi is now popular on TV as well, among non-classical musicians fans.
This is the very definition of serendipity, is it not?
They are now working on a new media series together and
Eru says that she’s been having a wonderful time collaborating with these Japanese performers.
Takashi explained, “During the pandemic, according to the data, approximately 40% of musicians had no income.
We had to cancel concerts with Teruyo and because of this, not only us,
but our audience was very disappointed.
Thanks to Eru, we started performing in online concerts and I can’t wait for our new adventure to begin!
The online gigs were completely different compared to performing in a theater,
so we had to try out several tactics to produce
the best possible experience for our audience while entertaining them virtually.”
We cannot miss their upcoming works and
we will certainly see more adventures from them!
Eru “Live Streaming”
