Do Volunteers work harder than employees? Working at the Exstasia Taiko Festival

Four days of outdoor, physical labor in the hot sun, usually lasting until 10 pm or midnight and the only physical payment received was free meals and iced tea.

That is one way to describe volunteering for the Exstasia Taiko festival hosted by Asano Taiko. Although it was hard work, I don't have any complaints.

To be honest, I rather enjoy hard, physical work. One feels a sense of accomplishment at the end of the day, and the results are often concrete. Secondly, the experience of volunteering at a large event like this provides invaluable learning, especially for someone like me, who may be trying to put on my own taiko events in the not-so-distant future. It was almost like a mini-internship. Finally because I really enjoy playing taiko and being around other taiko people, and meeting such fine, professional taiko performers (Hono Taiko, Asano Machiko, Wadaiko Yamato, Fu-un no kai). I was very glad to volunteer for four days at Exstasia. I actually wish I could have volunteered more, and I hope to do it again next year.

It's kind of funny, but I was thinking while I was working that people will give a lot more as volunteers, when they are not getting paid, than if they are employees. I was imagining that most people, if asked by their employer to work 15 hour days for several days in a row, even if they were getting paid for it, would probably not do it nearly as gladly as those who might volunteer to do the same work. I guess it has something to do with having a choice to be there, as opposed to being told one has to be there.

Anyhow, I'll try to give you a quick idea of what the volunteer work was like.

Last year's Exstasia was at an indoor concert hall, so there was much less work to be done (or so I hear, I couldn't volunteer last year). This year, they returned to the traditional outdoor venue, the Matto Undo Koen/Park. I believe this is Exstasia's 15th year, and out of all those years, it has only been held indoors twice.

The main work on preparing the venue started about a week before hand. I was able to volunteer on Monday, and we spent the day filling sand bags and assembling partitions for a barrier, which would surround the venue so that passers-by could not watch the concert without purchasing tickets. Tuesday and Wednesday were slow days, and they said no volunteers were needed. Thursday I volunteered again starting around noon and spent the day driving metal stakes into the ground with a sledge hammer and using a fire hose to wash off the stone amphitheater seats where guests would sit. Friday I had to work (at my job) in the afternoon, but was able to show up to volunteer around 5 pm. We worked till about 10 putting up huge 10 meter banners around the sides and the back of the concert area (there were about 30 in all). On the banners was written this year's theme for the Exstasia Taiko Festival, which was: 烈火　挑発, which means "raging fire" and "provocation". These banners were hand "written" by a Japanese calligraphy artist, and took him around 14 hours to complete all thirty of them. He used a huge paint brush/pen. Writing them was not only physically, but mentally tiring as well, and he needed breaks between each banner as well. Here he is painting a banner:


And here is one of the finished banners standing up outside:



(These two images are from the Asano Taiko "Asano Tsushin" blog)

The whole process was quite impressive, and to top it all off, the artist did not make one single mistake while painting all 30 of these banners!

Saturday we put the finishing touches on the concert venue, and were pretty much done by 7 pm, which was when the dress rehearsal was to start. Traditionally, volunteers are able to watch the dress rehearsal, because most of us would not be able to watch the concert the next day. I was reminded of how it is often the little details that make a difference between a good and great performance as I listened to Mr. Asano's comments after the rehearsal. One of the areas he said was not yet at a satisfactory level was in the movement of the stage hands. These were the people responsible for moving around the drums to the correct locations between each group/number. He told them they still looked a bit sloppy and as if they weren't always sure exactly where they should be or what they should be doing. He asked them to study the diagrams more, meet together and even to walk in step as they moved onto the stage. Stage hands walking in step is not something most people would expect or even notice, but I guess it's one of those things that give the whole experience that extra something, the extra sparkle or whatever that just makes you feel like you are seeing something really special. After the dress rehearsal, there was one last quick meeting for the different departments and it was off to bed.

Sunday was the day of the performance. Volunteers had small jobs to do to prepare for the evening. For example, I was to work at the entryway, taking tickets as guests arrived, so my job for the morning was to fold programs which would be handed out at as people came in. Depending on there responsibilities during the concert, everyone had some jobs like that to do, but it was all pretty low-key because we had finished most of the major work on Saturday. But Mother Nature had other plans in mind...

During the morning and the afternoon, there were some final sound checks for the performers. Wadaiko Yamato had the first sound check in the morning, then at 11, we had the opening ceremony, and the other groups were scheduled to have their sound checks after that. During the opening ceremony, however, dark clouds began to roll in and the wind began to pick up.

We tried to keep a positive attitude and told each other that it would blow over and we all went to lunch. After lunch, Hono Taiko was doing their sound check. The clouds got darker, the wind got stronger, there were a few distant rumbles of thunder. I said to one the other volunteers, "I guess the dress rehearsal last night called up the thunder gods." She responded to me with a story about Jige san (of Hono Taiko) in Mexico. Apparently, she was playing an Odaiko solo on top of a Aztec pyramid for a concert there. Before she began, the sky was clear, as she began to play, dark clouds began to creep across the sky. They remained covering the sun during her whole performance, and as she finished, they disappeared and the sun came back out. The power of taiko? The power of Jige san?

Sure enough, during Hono Taiko's sound check, the storm broke. Rain, thunder, wind... it was a major storm. In fact, the wind was strong enough to knock over about 6 of the large banners, and broke about 4 more. Once the storm passed, we had 4 banners to repair (it took two days to get them all up, so taking down four and getting them back up again in just a couple hours was not a small task) and wet seats and wet grass where the guests would sit. Needless to say, what looked like a fairly relaxing day, turned into a rather hectic afternoon. Although the clean up and repairs from the storm seemed to be impossible to complete before the concert began, we all set to work and were able to start on time (we even dried to seating area) and no one would have known that a few hours before, a storm had passed through. The concert was a success.

Next time, perhaps I'll write a bit more about the concert and why I think Wadaiko Yamato are not only excellent taiko performers, but good, quality people as well.

How Hot Does It Get in Japan? Not Too Hot for Taiko!

"Does it get this hot in Michigan?" "Does it get this cold in Michigan?" Japanese people seem to enjoy asking these types of questions. My answer is usually "Yes, sometimes it gets even hotter (or colder)." Now we are approaching the hottest time of the year in Japan and a typhoon that passed to the north has brought with it hot and sticky weather. It's actually only in the 90s (and in the winter, it rarely gets much below freezing) but the poorly insulated buidlings (and the humidity as well) makes it feel so much hotter. Everyone seems 10 times more irritable than usual because of the heat (especially kids).

Oh well, the nice thing about this time of year is that it means Asano Taiko's Exstasia is not far off. In fact, it is this Sunday! Today, I am heading off to the concert venue (a huge, outdoor park) to help work on setting up. Last Monday we had a meeting about how the stage and so on would be set up and what it would look like. It looks pretty cool. I'll try to get a few pictures today while I'm working. I am looking forward to helping out for this huge event. It will be a lot of work, and most of us are not getting paid for it, but it will be an excellent learning experience, I'm sure.

Anyhow, I just had a few pictures to post today, so that's what I'll do. First, on Saturday, our neighborhood had their 夏祭り (natsu matsuri - summer festival), which we attended. The neighborhood taiko group, Togashi Fujin Taiko was one of the performers, so I took a few pictures of them. Usually there are 5 members, but for some reason, only two of them could perform that day.




And yesterday, my wife had her recital for the Ishikawa Taiko Federation Intermediate Course (石川太鼓連盟中級講座). I was impressed by her Odaiko playing. Here is a picture, but the lighting was not so good, so the picture is a bit dark.

The recital was for three classes, the "first time" taiko class, the beginners taiko class, and the intermediate class. They had also invited several other groups as guests, though, the most well known being dazoku (打族) of Komatsu. They were quite good and have a lot of influence from Kaga Taiko style. The rhythms were very similar and there is a lot of stick twirling as well. Here is picture of their performance (again, in poor light).

How to be a Professional

As promised, here is the second half of the list (How to be an Amateur),I began a couple days ago. This list is called (naturally) How to be a Professional.

1. Never consider your product "good enough", you should always look for something to improve

2. Be confident in your strengths and take pride in what you have accomplished

3. Have clearly defined goals for today, tomorrow, this week, next week, next month, next year, in 10 years... you get the idea

4. Celebrate with others when they succeed

5. Challenge your one perceived limits and abilities

6. Believe in yourself

7. Have consistent, effective practicing habits

8. Be able to manage your time wisely and efficiently

9. Find ways to succeed instead of worrying about how you could fail

10. Make sure the way you spend your money is aligned with the goals you have set

11. Have a clear "vision" for your success

12. Focus on solving problems instead of finding out whose fault it is

13. Define your success by meeting your own goals, not by comparing yourself to competitors

So, there they are. I would say that after reading through these, many people would probably say that most of these are common sense. I would agree, but I also think sometimes we don't realize these things until someone points them out to us. It's kind of like the riddle you couldn't figure out and then when someone explains it to you, you slap your forehead and say, "Why didn't I think of that?"

Anyway, for all my fellow taiko amateurs (or aspiring athletes, musicians, Internet marketers, whatever) out there striving to reach that next level, I hope that these two lists are helpful to you and help you to stay on track to realize your goals. Best of luck to you. Remember: 10% inspiration, 90% perspiration... or is it 1% , 90%?