Taiko

New Zealand has a number of active taiko (drumming) groups, each of which has distinct links to Japan. This article introduces taiko in New Zealand in connection with the notions of authenticity and identity construction in transcultural context (i.e., connecting with two or more cultures – e.g., Kostogriz and Tsolidis 2008; Pratt 1992), for both Japanese and non-Japanese. The taiko settings under study are transcultural in that they are in New Zealand on the one hand yet inseparable from taiko’s real or imagined homeland of Japan on the other. The research focuses on the creative settings of musical performance and explores the various ensemble taiko groups that are especially active in New Zealand. While investigating the ways identity is constructed for players, questions are asked about the local setting and the context of migration, and how these factors might influence the construction of transcultural identity in New Zealand. A range of social and cultural influences offer a number of examples that show cultural flows, musical adoption, and identity construction for different reasons and in diverse case-study settings.

Although sociocultural theories emphasize the mutually constitutive nature of persons, activity, and environment, little attention has been paid to environmental features organized across sensory dimensions. I examine sound as a dimension of learning and practice, an organizing presence that connects the sonic with the social. This ethnographic study of taiko drumming underscores an acoustemological sense of knowing that configures the practice and performance of taiko as an Asian American soundscape of (re)composed cultural identity.

The second European Taiko Conference (ETC) took place from 9-12 February 2017. Like the inaugural ETC, it was instigated and managed by Kagemusha Taiko, a performing arts company based in the southwest of England. ETC2 took place at Hannah’s at Seale Hayne, an inclusive campus with extensive practice, performance and accommodation space that also houses Kagemusha Taiko’s purpose-built Taiko Centre.

This report summarises the evaluation model adopted by the author as well as the key findings. It makes recommendations for future iterations of the conference for consideration by the event organisers.

New Zealand has a number of active taiko (drumming) groups, each of which has distinct links to Japan. This paper introduces taiko in New Zealand in connection with the notions of authenticity and identity construction in transcultural context, for both Japanese and non-Japanese. The research focuses on the creative settings of musical performance, and explores the various ensemble taiko groups that are especially active in New Zealand. While investigating the ways identity is constructed for players, questions are asked about the local setting and the context of migration, and how these factors might influence the construction of a transcultural identity in New Zealand. A range of social and cultural influences offer a number of examples that show cultural flows, musical adoption, and identity construction for different reasons and in diverse case-study settings.

This article maps neo-traditional drumming in the Amami islands. Over the past two to three decades, a number of ensemble drum groups have emerged throughout the Amami islands. These drum groups cover three main styles of drumming: eisā, wadaiko and shimadaiko. With influences from Okinawa, mainland Japan and Amami respectively, and acknowledging that cultural flows are sometimes more complex, such styles of performance have captured the Amamian imagination and have been adopted by many community and school groups alike. This article maps the breadth of such drumming by classifying the performance styles across the Amami islands, while also exploring ideas pertaining to how and why these new styles of performance have gained in popularity in the Amami context.

"Tatsu Aoki
The Miyumi Project Live in Poland
(Southport/Asian Improv Records S-SSD 0125, 2008)

Francis Wong Trio
Early Abstractions
(Estrada Poznanska MIC02, 2009)

Bradley Parker-Sparrow
The New World
(Asian Improv Records AIR0076, 2009)

Jeff Chan
Horns of Plenty
(Asian Improv Records AIR0077, 2009)

Jeff Parker, Francis Wong, Elliot Humberto Kavee, Tatsu Aoki
3 Big Guys + 1
(Asian Improv Records AIR0078, 2009)

Some (especially improvised?) music seems to listen to you. Whether sitting like a child at quiet play, or lurking behind two or more glowing eyes in its own shadow self, or lurching suddenly onto four or more stalking legs to check out your intents in the bright light of day...it breathes more regularly, rapidly, relentlessly--until you realize you are the air it’s gasping for and gulping down. Then it takes a dreamy turn, making all such threads of thought and threat go right, somehow...
"

... Printed in the Netherlands Liora Bresler (ed.), Knowing Bodies, Moving Minds, 183-195 ... caring and maintaining instruments, volunteering at San Jose Taiko's performances, and engaging in the cultural expectations of the dojo (place of learning) such as bowing at the door of the ...

Although taiko drumming in America has been investigated by various researchers, from many different lenses, research is absent in this field that studies taiko ensembles at an amateur level. This ethnography aims to discover the meaning and values within the music-making of people who participate in Tora Taiko, a group of amateurs that specialize in Japanese taiko drumming, on the Princeton University campus. This study analyzed the actions and words of this amateur taiko ensemble as a lens for music education, through participant observations, interviews, and artifact collection. Themes of group identity and environment building emerged that showed the strength of the group as a cohesive unit. The ensemble represents a fusion of Japanese and American values that use music as a medium for musical, cultural, and social engagement. The success of the group in its ability to execute complicated musical patterns, without any prior musical training, in a meaningful way, points to a bigg...

This report presents data collected in May 2016 as part of the Taiko Community Alliance (TCA) Taiko Census initiative. It analyses responses provided by taiko players resident in the United States of America and Canada. Its purpose is two-fold: to present a snapshot of taiko as it is practiced in the USA and Canada; and to interrogate similarities and differences in the two countries. It is hoped that players in the USA, Canada and beyond will use the findings contained within this report to develop taiko – an art form that is clearly central to the lives of many census respondents.