As the lights came up on the Crowell Concert Hall stage last Friday, the silence was broken with one mighty, ringing beat from a Taiko drum. Throughout the evening that drum and a dozen others like it produced a myriad of sounds—beats with a pattering quality like rain or with a hoove-like insistence that clacked, pounded, and boomed. The members of the San Jose Taiko Company took their audience on a percussive tour de force, performing traditional Japanese Taiko drumming with a modern twist.
“Taiko is rooted in Japanese folk traditions and combines athletic percussion with movement and dance,” said Director of the Center for the Arts Pamela Tatge. “Company members of San Jose Taiko also incorporate African, Balinese, Latin and American rock and jazz rhythms.”
These rhythms were used throughout the concert to perform pieces inspired by various ideas and cultural components, including globalization, cultural unity, and the Asian-American experience. In their expression of these ideas, the performers made use of high-intensity drumming, high-energy martial-arts-inspired choreography, and a hypnotic communal vigor that kept the audience mesmerized and yearning for more.
“I wasn’t sure what I was going to think about the fusion of musical worlds element, but I ended up really liking it,” said Ben Sachs-Hamilton ’09. “I could pick out ‘Oh, that’s jazz,’ or, ‘Oh, that sounds like Cuban rhythm.’ I thought it was really great.”
Some pieces built their drumming into a textured tapestry of sound, while others emphasized a lone drum or flute. Regardless of instrumentation, the performance was an unrelentingly full-body, full-energy affair—at one point a drummer’s vehemence caused his headband to fly off mid-song. As one watched the performers leap, jump, and kick in carefully-choreographed sequences, it was not difficult to understand why the performance’s program noted that company members are expected to keep in top physical shape as part of the rehearsal regimen: the fervor needed to transport an audience the way San Jose Taiko did left all the performers grinning and soaked with sweat by the end of the night.
Such quality is in high demand as the Taiko art form gains popularity—in her opening remarks at Friday’s performance, Tatge commented on Wesleyan’s good luck at securing a San Jose Taiko performance.
“This is one of the oldest and best groups in the country and they very rarely come to New England,” Tatge said. “But they made a trip out here especially to see us.”
According to Tatge, San Jose Taiko was invited to perform at Wesleyan by the Concert Committee, a group made up of graduate and undergraduate music students, CFA staff, and Music Department faculty.
“East Asian Studies is… a major focus of study at Wesleyan and the committee is always looking for work that will complement the curriculum,” Tatge said.
The audience was very receptive of the group and gave the company two standing ovations.
“I had just as much fun as the drummers,” said Cecil Apostol ’08. “I really liked they energy the brought, it was really infectious. I could listen to them all night.”
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