Yamatai

It has been a month since the end of this year’s East Coast Taiko Conference (ECTC), but the time passed has not reduced the excitement that Yamatai experienced during that short Taiko-filled weekend at Brown University. This was the first ECTC where all members of Yamatai were able to go, and I can say, without a doubt, that each member returned having learned and gained a new passion for Taiko. However, this year’s ECTC was, by far, most significant for Ingrid Tu, a Senior member of Yamatai, who was largely involved with the planning and execution of ECTC 2013:

First, I would like to apologize for the delayed blog post, but I was reluctant to acknowledge that it was officially over…. What can I say? The aftermath of this life-changing event was far more powerful than I ever imagined it would be.

The most valuable part of ECTC was meeting the inspiring, humble, and incredible professional musicians from all around the world. As amazing as they were, they were even more humble. You would think that they were just trying to act modest, but no, they were really the most down to earth people I had ever met. Kenny Endo, the Father of North American Taiko, brought us chocolates from Hawaii! Kris Bergstrom, a founding member of On Ensemble, forgave me for misspelling his name fifty times… Stuart Paton, who drove forty-six drums to ECTC, shared a t-shirt with me in his workshop and called me sport! Kazuhiro Tsumura, the actual family member from Miyake Taiko, flew all the way from Japan but would not go to his hotel and rest until first meeting and greeting me. As for Art Lee…I texted Art Lee… ‘nough said. I was not able to participate in any of the workshops this conference, but I think I learned much more than what a workshop would have taught me.

Putting together the joint ECTC concert was also an incredible experience. The hardest and the best part was that there were absolutely no guidelines, tradition, or even a concept to follow. The first ECTC concert was a very small scale collegiate one, where people could write down comments for each other on notecards. Last year’s concert was an amazing professional lineup – a mesmerizing aural experience that filled our hearts with an indescribable sensation of music. This year, we had the opportunity and potential to do whatever we wanted… but what did we want? We wanted to create something unique, something that only we could do here in ECTC. After hours of long Skype sessions with Gendo member Sam Huang, we decided to present the diverse scene of the Taiko community through the concert — collegiate groups, community groups, and professional groups. We had not realized at the time, how much detail would go into producing a concert – especially one that consisted of 10+ performing groups. But, needless to say, everything was worth it when Soh Daiko opened the show and loud cheers echoed through the stadium. It is indeed an implausible atmosphere when the audience is a crowd full of Taiko players – the whole stadium immediately fills with soaring energy and towering passion. Yamatai performed Gaifuu right after intermission, and it was not until then that I began to understand what Mark H Rooney meant about the exchange of energy between the drummer and the audience.

Now, I have to stop myself somewhere in case I start to write a 10 page essay about ECTC. I am going to end this blog post thanking everyone who made this year’s ECTC possible. Moving hundreds of drums from building to building, labeling and distributing the drums until 4 am, running around and around and around Brown University’s campus, would not have been so smooth without the cooperation of all the ECTC participants and workshop leaders! But I want to give a special THANK YOU to all the members of Gendo, and my two homeboys: Sam and Scott!

-Ingrid
(Intro by Esther)

School has been in session for about two months now. Yamatai has recruited new members, performed at Ennichi, participated in workshops from Mark H Rooney (keep an eye out for a blog post on this as well!) — lots of things have happened— oh yeah, I even had two major accidents. But, I am here to fulfill an old promise: a blog about my Summer Taiko adventure in Japan! It is almost a bit painful to reminisce about the sound of cicada now, but I would still like to share with you the most amazing Taiko adventure ever!

It began with a family trip to Izu Peninsula. In order to have my family accommodate my odd Taiko obsession, I picked a popular vacation spot with famous hot springs… and also a local Taiko Competition! :) Walking along the streets of Japan, you can really see and feel how Taiko has been engraved in the culture. Here is some of the Taiko that I encountered:

After the little getaway at Izu, I travelled back to Tokyo and had a Yamatai Reunion with some alumni: Haruki, Naomi, Hassei, Tang, Miki, Leo, and Ananya! It was a nostalgic night, and we chatted our way to dawn. The next morning Ananya and I made our way to the Nagano prefecture for Tokara Taiko Bootcamp, and my adventure continued!

We basically ate Taiko for breakfast and dreamt about Taiko in our sleep. We practiced eight hours of Taiko a day, watched Taiko performances at the local festivals, and shared Taiko experiences with fellow participants for a week. It was FANTASTIC! Training under Art Lee was an absolutely incredible experience. Despite my impression of him playing miyake, he was the most soft-spoken sensei I had ever met.

My favorite part of practice was “uchikomi,” which literally means to pound into the drum. It is essentially playing a very basic rhythm over and over again without stopping. It is the concept of hitting the drum at its purest form, trying to produce the best possible sound no matter how tired your body is. After thirty minutes, your body begins to find the most efficient way of hitting and eventually develops an ultimate “way to transfer the impact of the strike through the arms to the body’s core and down to the feet.”

The Taiko journey continued as we took the ferry to Sado Island for Earth Celebration, the annual music festival organized and produced by Kodo! I find it very difficult to express my experience in words. I have been contemplating how to describe it for a while and decided to present the top three highlights of Earth Celebration in a list:

1.) Being a Hobo: Napping on benches in a park at midnight, camping in Sobama beach with no flashlights, squeezing into a small tent, getting stung by jellyfish, taking showers without hot water, lining up for concert tickets at 5am in the morning, sleeping on the deck of the ferry- all of these were part of the experience :)
2.) Overloaded with Testosterone: Shirtless Taiko players with glitter sprinkled all over their bodies stood on stage at the concerts. The moment they hit the O-daiko, the lightning in the background split the purple sky in half. It was an integration of nature and Taiko, of music and earth, of awesomeness and awesomeness!
3.) Sharing the experience: Of course, I wouldn’t have had the same amount of fun if I were not with Ananya, Leo, Sam from Gendo, and Alex from Maizake Taiko! We even air-played Yatai-Bayashi at the EC info center after the concerts and people thought we were weird…

My taiko adventure in Japan has come to an end, but I carry the same passion and am continuing the journey with Yamatai!

-Ingrid

After a week of grueling auditions and late-night debates, we have finally concluded our recruitment process! It is our pleasure to announce Yamatai’s 8 newest members:

Reshma George ‘15, Nancy Ha ‘15, Richie Ito ‘15, Charles Lai ’16, Noreena Lau ‘16, Akito Nicol ‘16, Christopher Reed ‘16, and Eri Tomita ’15!

We had an incredibly vast and diverse pool of talent to choose from this year, and it was with great difficulty and discussion that our newest members were chosen. We thank everyone who participated in this year’s tryouts, and hope to see some of the same faces try out next year!

-Esther

The time for auditions has come again! Yamatai will be recruiting new members this fall starting MONDAY, AUGUST 27th at 10pm with a mandatory information session! The info session will be held in Lincoln Hall, room B20! And no experience is necessary to try out, just bring your enthusiasm!

Yamatai will also be performing all throughout this week at various events, so come watch us perform at…

-The Asian/Asian American Reception on August 20 @ 1pm, Balch Courtyard

-The Street Fair on August 25 @ 10:30pm, Ho Plaza

-The Club Fest on August 26 @ 1:30pm, Barton Hall

And feel free to come up and talk to us before and after the performances!!!

Watch our  promo video  for auditions…join the  facebook event …and GET EXCITED for TRYOUTS 2012!

-Esther