Harajuku Girls

The Harajuku Girls performing on the Harajuku Lovers Tour 2005

The Harajuku Girls are four young women who were hired in 2004 as backup dancers for American singer Gwen Stefani's Love. Angel. Music. Baby. album. The "Harajuku Girls" have continued to appear alongside Stefani, and are featured in the music videos for "What You Waiting For?", "Rich Girl", "Hollaback Girl", "Luxurious", "Crash", "Wind It Up", "The Sweet Escape", and "Now That You Got It". Coincidentally, both Love and Music have worked with Namie Amuro at some time, Music as a member of the group Super Monkeys and Love as Amuro's dancer for a period.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] The Girls

[edit] Maya Chino

Maya Chino ("Love") during a stage performance of Harajuku Girls

Maya Chino (stage name "Love") grew up in Tokyo. She started out doing ballet when she was three years old. Before dancing with Gwen Stefani, she was a backup dancer for South Korean singer BoA.^[1]

[edit] Jennifer Kita

Jennifer Kita (stage name "Angel"), born 1986, is a Japanese-American from Los Angeles, California. After graduating high school, Jennifer moved to San Diego and studied hip-hop at Mesa College. She later joined the dance troupe Culture Shock San Diego, where she performed for two years, then joined the hip hop entertainment company Urban FX, where she danced for a year.^[2]

[edit] Rino Nakasone

Rino Nakasone (stage name "Music"), born June 10, 1979, grew up in Okinawa. She became interested in dance after watching music videos by Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson and mimicking their moves. At the age of nineteen, she went to Los Angeles to study dance. She later taught dance at a performing arts centers, and formed the dance group "Beat Freaks".^[3]

[edit] Mayuko Kitayama

Mayuko Kitayama (stage name "Baby"), born February 17, 1983, grew up in Osaka. She eventually moved to New York, where she practiced in several dancing studios, after dancing in Japan for several years. ^[4]

[edit] Criticism

In an interview in the January/February 2006 edition of Blender magazine, American comedian Margaret Cho calls Stefani's Harajuku Girls a "minstrel show" that reinforces ethnic stereotypes of Asian women.^[5] Writer Mihi Ahn said of Stefani's "Harajuku Girls": "Stefani has taken the idea of Japanese street fashion and turned these women into modern-day geisha."^[6]

[edit] References