May 21, 2013
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2013 May 15 - 21 [ARTS AND SPORTS]
150,000 ‘Let’s Dance’ signatures submitted to Diet |
The Let’s DANCE Signature Promotion Committee has been collecting signatures since May of last year when musician Sakamoto Ryuichi and other public figures initiated the campaign.
A Dietmembers association for promotion of dance culture was launched on May 20 with more than 60 lawmakers participating. Liberal Democratic Party member of the House of Councilors Kosaka Kenji was elected as the president of the association, and Japanese Communist Party Lower House member Kokuta Keiji became an executive member.
At the association’s first general meeting held in public on the same day, member politicians listened to club owners and lawyers about what is happening in dance halls around the country because of the outdated regulations.
Kanamitsu Masatoshi, a former dance club owner, pointed out that the adult entertainment act classifies dancing clubs as “sex-related business”, but dance clubs are places for people to express themselves through music.
Representing a business owners’ group of the Amerikamura district which is considered to be a center of youth culture in Osaka, Ihara Masahiro stated that after Osaka police increased its crackdown on dance clubs, many of those clubs suspended their businesses, and shops and restaurants around them started losing customers. He added, “Dancing is a wonderful expression of culture. I hope that dance clubs and music venues will be excluded from the adult entertainment act as soon as possible.”
Related past articles
> Citizens petition Dietmembers to remove dance regulation [February 21, 2013]
>JCP obtains gov’t agreement to not unfairly intrude on dancing venues [June 18, 2012]
> Kyoto residents act against regulations against dancing [March 17, 2012]
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