Algorithm marchers put their best feet forward

Students performing the Algorithm march. Photo by Darren Boyd, College of Asia and the Pacific.

More than 150 high school students studying Japanese showed off their dance moves by performing the ’Algorithm March’ at ANU.

The Algorithm March is a Japanese dance fad which debuted on a children’s television series. Since then it has been performed by groups around the world as diverse as the Blue Man Group, the Vienna Boys’ Choir and the Japanese women’s football team.

The students who performed the Algorithm March are from schools in the ACT and regional NSW and were at ANU to take part in the inaugural ANU Japanese Secondary Workshop. Hosted by the Japan Centre in the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific, the workshop aims to give students the opportunity to experience learning Japanese and get a glimpse of that nation’s cultural life.

The two-day program includes an early morning session of ’rajio taisho’ - exercises to radio instruction - plus hands-on sessions in the digital learning studio, language workshops with native Japanese speakers, lectures from ANU Professors Tessa Morris-Suzuki and Kent Anderson and a film night watching the Japanese movie Sumo Do Sumo Don’t.

"Asia, and particularly Japan, are intrinsic to Australia’s future, and that’s recognised in the new national curriculum which has Asian Studies as one of its key areas. This workshop is a great opportunity to showcase the facilities we have for learning about Japan here at ANU," said workshop convenor Carol Hayes, a senior lecturer in Japanese at the University.

"We hope this workshop will help build relationships with the schools in our region so that ANU can engage, collaborate with and support high school students and teachers of Japanese in the future."