Extasia Campaign #2

At the end of May, Yume Mitai (one of the groups I'm in) participated in a campaign to get the word out and sell tickets for the Exstasia taiko festival coming up in only two weeks! (July 19) Read here about Exstasia Campaign #1.


Yesterday (Sunday) we had Exstasia Campaign #2 for Yume Mitai. This time I played shime taiko instead of Nagado.

For this campaign we traveled down to the southern tip of Ishikawa, to Kaga city, where we gave two performances in the parking lot of a large shopping center. Other teams that performed were Hono Taiko, Hikari, Sasuke and Tedori Koryu Taiko. All of the teams that played yesterday (except for Yume Mitai) will also be performing at Exstasia.

We also did this same campaign last year. Last year, the bus broke down on the way there and in the afternoon, we had to deal with rain. The year before that (I wasn't there at that time) I hear that it poured rain the whole time. This year, everyone made it to the shopping center without any car trouble, the weather, although slightly hot, was sunny all day (I even got a slight sunburn) and we were able to set a record for number of tickets sold during this campaign. Compared with years past, everything went very smoothly.

The only thing that went wrong was that members of Hikari and Hono Taiko performed in bare feet. (Everyone else was wearing tabi shoes) I think everyone knows how hot an asphalt parking lot can get in 90 degree heat. Imagine having to stand on it barefooted for 20 minutes or so. I was watching their feet while they played and I could see how painful it was. They kept shifting their weight to different parts of their feet so they could lift up different parts to give them a break from the heat. In the end, though, they still burned the bottoms of their feet enough to get blisters there. (Hikari members mentioned it in their blog, if you can read Japanese) Not to worry, though, these girls are tough. The first time I saw them about seven or eight years ago, it was outdoors in freezing rain, barefoot and in tank-tops. I guess they have been used to playing in less than ideal weather for a long time now.
Here we are doing our little "Finale" to remind people that Exstasia is on July 19! (Notice the Hikari members - in bare feet - are all trying their best to stand on the white parking lines.)

Promotional performance

A couple weeks ago, we went to a mall near our house, where Asano Taiko was doing a PR performance for the upcoming Extasia Taiko Festival on July 27th. The group performing is Sasuke, consisting of all junior high or high school age students. Earlier this spring, they took part in the All Japan Youth Taiko Competition as a representative of Ishikawa Prefecture, and they received an award (not the top prize, though). Furthermore, I just learned yesterday that they have been selected to compete in another national contest in Tokyo later this summer.

Fame?

The Monday following the big concert this week was the "Children's Day" holiday in Japan. Following two weeks of nearly daily taiko practices, including some strange dancing, which exercised muscles I have never used before, and ending with two hours of stage tear down, moving large and heavy taiko around, my body was actually pretty sore. In fact, I probably aggravated a pulled back I hurt a few years ago moving a piano (it is all better now). I was actually hobbling around like an elderly man, a much different figure than the person who had energetically played taiko the day before. Still, instead of resting my tired body, we decided to take our two children to a park down by the Saigawa River in Kanazawa for a little carnival that was going on in honor of Children's Day. There were many craft tents, small amusement rides and international foods to sample. Of course, there was taiko too. Not just any taiko, but Toranosuke Taiko of Wajima City in Ishikawa's Noto Peninsula. We saw them a couple times before in the fall, and I even posted some video of their performance in Komatsu.

Anyhow, what is so special about Toranosuke is that this past March, they were awarded the top prize, for the second year in a row, at the All Japan Youth Taiko Competition. So they are a highly regarded group, even if they are not known so much outside of the Hokuriku area.

We tried to leave early, getting to the park about 30 minutes before Toranosuke was scheduled to play, but the parking lot was full. So I dropped off my wife and kids, and drove the car to her sister's house to park it there and walk back. My body being in its less-than-prime-condition, it took me a little longer than normal to get back to the park. I ended up only catching the last 60 seconds or so of the taiko performance. Most of those 60 seconds I spent trying to get out my video camera to record the performance. As soon as I had it ready to go, however, it was over. So I apologize, there is no video to accompany this.

After the performance, we were wandering around the park and we saw the Toranosuke members. I thought a picture with them and my daughter would be nice, and I asked her if she wanted to take a picture with them. She was shy about it, but she said okay. As I walked over to ask for the picture, one of them said to me, "You were in the concert yesterday, weren't you? Matto Yume Mitai?"

"Uh, Oh, yes. Yes I was. You were there?" I asked, immediately straightening up and trying to conceal that my back was hurting. "Did you enjoy it?" I asked.

"Yes, it was a lot of fun," they answered. Cool, I thought, I was recognized on the street. Of course, it's not as big a deal as it might seem. Although many of the other groups that performed were likely musically more memorable, as far as appearance goes, I was the only non-Japanese that performed on Sunday, so in that sense, perhaps I would be the most easily recognized on the street.

Anyhow, here is the picture of me and my family with Wajima Toranosuke Taiko.

Concert

Our Sunday performance was more or less a success. I was pretty exhausted afterwards, though. Not from the playing. I only played for 3 numbers and they were spread out through the concert. It was more the release of all the pre-concert stress, I suppose. It was a lot of work (mentally) for the three of us to prepare for this recital, not only the music, but putting together all of the clothes for our costumes (it probably cost me over $100 to get everything I needed), organizing car pools to get to the venue and so on. Needless to say, on Monday, I was able to finally exhale, and my exhaustion finally caught up with me. In spite of the exhaustion, you can bet that we were at our taiko practices the next two days after the concert. (they were a bit lighter than usual, though.)

I hope to eventually get some video up of our performances, but in the meantime, several audience members gave us some nice pictures from the performance (and some of the practices) which I will post here for your enjoyment.

Here's my daughter ready to practice


More practicing...


... and the performance ...


My wife at Matto Bayashi practice...


Me at Matto Bayashi practice...


Here is the Matto Bayashi group before the concert...


Me (in the back) peforming with Matto Bayashi...


My wife (on the left) performing with Matto Bayashi...


Wow, there are a lot of pictures to post
Here is the Yume Mitai group picture before the concert...


Me at Yume Mitai practice...


Yume Mitai performance...


and a close up during the performance...


Oh yeah, I got interviewed again after our Matto Bayashi performance...


That is Kinoshita san of Hono Taiko interviewing me.

And the finale...


So, that's it for the photo essay of our performance. Be patient for videos. It will likely be a couple weeks before I have a chance to get them up. In the meantime, enjoy the pictures.

Toranosuke - Don Don Matsuri Festival

Greetings. I just returned from four days in Tokyo. It was not necessarily taiko related, but I did have some experiences that I feel that I'll just have to share with my dear readers. One in particular was the scene outside of the Takarazuka theater. But this is not the time I will share it. Right now, I am just taking care of posting some videos which have been waiting for nearly a month to be seen. As I mentioned in the last post, I've been rather busy, though, and this is the first chance I've had to introduce them.

There are three videos here, all from the same performance. This performance was in Komatsu, Ishikawa, Japan. At the Don Don Matsuri (festival) at the end of last month (October). The group is called Toranosuke. They are a group mostly composed of children, but as you'll see, there are also adults in the group. They are from the Noto peninsula of Ishikawa prefecture. I also just learned this week, that just last weekend they participated in a taiko competition near here and may have won the top prize. At least they won something, I am sure. Please enjoy the videos. I think much of their style is very typical of the taiko in this area of Japan.

A Milestone?

I've been waiting several weeks to post this blog. I waited, because I was not sure if it would actually happen or not, but it did. On Sunday, I was able to perform on the Odaiko on the same stage, at the same time as Hono Taiko. For those of you who do not know, Hono Taiko is an internationally known (they just returned from a tour in Spain) group of three women taiko players from Matto. I wrote about them back in July or August and noted them as the first real live taiko performance I experienced. When I saw them 9 years ago, I never would have dreamed that I'd be sharing a stage and performing along side them.

Just to make it clear, it is not necessarily through any great ability of mine, that I was able to have this opportunity. It wasn't as if they invited me to perform with them, but rather, I was allowed to perform with them. It also was not just the three Hono Taiko members plus me. It was the three Hono Taiko members, plus about 20 other people as well. It was a big finale to an outdoor concert. At any rate, it was quite exhilarating to play along side performers of their caliber. I do not think I will ever forget it, and it has only furthered my resolve to continue with taiko studies.

I was sincerely hoping to have a fair amount of video from this concert to post, including a video of my own performance. We were all set to tape, and right before the concert began, they asked people not to take videos or other recordings of the performance. We weren't even able to get pictures. Oh well. There is a chance, though, that we may eventually be able to get our hands on something.

The concert was an outdoor concert in the parking lot of a large shopping center located in Togi, Ishikawa, Japan. Togi is located on Ishikawa's Noto Peninsula. Some may remember about 6 months ago, there was an earthquake in Noto. It was unfortunately soon forgotten because of the larger earthquake in Niigata a few months later, but there are still many people in need and recovering from the Noto earthquake as well.

It has been several years since I have been up in the Noto Peninsula and it was nice to return there. It is very beautiful. The shore is often rocky, and sometimes reminds me of the coast along the Pacific Northwest. One of my favorite parts of Noto are the pine trees near the shore line. They are always slanted about 60 degrees, facing inland, as a result of the constant wind off the ocean.

It seems that the festival where we played was in its second year. It was about 4 hours altogether, but the first 3/4 was filled up by local performing groups, including other taiko groups, high school bands, and dance troupes. The main attraction was, of course, Hono Taiko, along with 3 other taiko groups sponsored by Asano Taiko. These groups are not known internationally, but are still quite good, and are well known in the area. They are Hikari, Sasuke, Matto Yume-mitai and the Shin-Mattobayashi Hozonkai (of which we are members, and why I was able to have the opportunity to play).

Our group was playing in the middle of the program. I think I have mentioned before that the piece, Shin-Mattobayashi, is quite long. I am playing the Odaiko (large drum) part, which does not play for the whole song. There are two sections, though, where it is featured. I have learned the shorter section, but am still memorizing the longer one. Since I have only learned the shorter part, I was not able to play when our group performed. Fortunately, the encore planned to be only the shorter part of that song, which I have learned, so they allowed me to perform with them for the encore. As I already mentioned, it was quite an experience and I will never forget it, and hopefully, it won't be my last opportunity to perform with these people.

There was one more thing I learned from this experience, but it has more to do with fashion, than taiko, perhaps. All four groups met at Asano Taiko in the morning to carpool up to Togi. I wore a dark green shirt, and jeans. When we arrived, I felt a bit out of place. Every single person there was wearing all black. When I thought about it a little more, the taiko groups I've seen here always wear black, when they are together as a group, and not performing. I guess I'll wear black too, next time we have a performance to go out to.