Asano Taiko Fall Recital 2008 - 今響きが風になる。

Yesterday we successfully completed the 2008 Asano Taiko fall recital. I played in three groups (four, if you count the finale) without making any major mistakes. After all the strenuous work, and moving large taiko around, unloading and loading trucks on Sunday and Monday, I am not even sore. My back doesn't hurt either.

The actual playing in three groups was not so demanding. Each group only plays for about 10 minutes or so. Altogether, that means that I played for about 30 minutes. Weekly practices are 90 minutes, so physically, this type of concert is not so demanding. What was actually the "hardest" part of the thing was changing outfits for the three different groups. For the first group, Yume Mitai there was plenty of time to change after lunch, and it was an easy outfit, white pants and a white sleeveless shirt. After that, I had to change into the JIGEN clothes, which are not so complicated to put on, but there are a lot of pieces to it: pants, shirt, blue thing that goes over the shirt, apron type thing that goes around the waist, blue and black cloth to be tied around the waist and black wrist bands, that need to be tied (It's rather tricky). Then there was Matto Bayashi. This is actually the most complicated to get into because I need to tightly wrap my torso in white cloth, which I need help doing. Then there is another sort of apron thing, a special kind of Japanese pants called Matabiki tabi shoes (which take some practice to put on quickly) and wrist bands. For the finale, the members of JIGEN wanted to finish the concert in JIGEN costume, so for the four of us in Matto Bayashi, that meant changing back to JIGEN clothes following Matto Bayashi's performance. So altogether, I had to change costumes 4 times. That actually exhausted me more than the playing itself.

Sometime I may write more about the performance, but for now, I'll just post a few more pictures from the concert.

Yume Mitai performance (I'm the furthest person on the right)


The members of the new group, JIGEN!


The "boys" of JIGEN


The "girls" of JIGEN