Monday, September 29, 2008
Students in the University’s Taiko Club and the Okinawa Dance Group drummed to a different beat Saturday during performances at the Greater Kansas City Japan Festival.
The groups showcased two types of Japanese Taiko, music created by combining beats and pitches of different types of drums.
Hayley Fry, Wichita senior, said the end result was a rhythmic, powerful pulse.
Hayley Fry, Wichita senior, plays the chu daiko during her performance for the Amateur Talent contest at the Greater Kansas City Japan Festival. Fry, who also plays the shime daiko, has been playing with the Taiko Club for a little under a year.
“When you hear it, you heart doesn’t beat, the drum beats,” she said.
While Taiko’s origins are still debated, scholars agree that the rhythmic beating of the drums has been in practice for at least 2,000 years. The Taiko drum was frequently used in battles, to signify the arrival of the army, to intimidate the opposition or to call for backup. Over time the use of drums was refined and had spread from the battlefield to the emperor’s court by the seventh century A.D.
While Taiko drums come in all shapes and sizes, the most popular are nagado-daiko, characterized by a high-tension drumming surface stretched over a hollowed-out section of tree trunk. The shape and size often resembles a wine barrel, and the sound is generally deep and resonating. Fry said that hearing these types of drums her sophomore year was what interested her in Taiko.
“I was completely blown away,” she said. “The sounds just vibrated through me.”
The University’s Taiko Club practices modern Taiko, also known as ensemble Taiko, and wasn’t established until the early 1950s. According to Japanese author Takeshi Takata in her article “The Thundering World of Taiko,” the formation of modern Taiko stemmed from an increased international culture exchange after World War II and the need for “something completely different and fresh” for the war-torn Japanese culture.
One type of Taiko is the Okinawa dance, which combines synchronized drumming and music with choreographed dancing.
Hayato Shinjo, Okinawa sophomore and president of the University’s Okinawa Dance Group, said the dance and colorful purple costumes were unique because they were inspired by a mix of Japanese, Chinese and Korean culture. The island’s location to the south of Japan made it more susceptible to influence from other cultures, specifically Buddhism.
“The dance is meant to channel Buddha to welcome the Asian soul,” Hayato said.
Hayato’s brother, Kazufumi, Okinawa senior, said learning the traditional Okinawa dance was common on the island, and that he and his brother knew the dances from childhood and felt closer to home when they performed.
One of the differences between the Taiko Club and the Okinawa Dance Group, aside from the dancing, is the emphasis on percussion and how the beats are decided. In the Okinawa dance, drums are used as accents to particular movements or to invoke certain feelings. Traditional ensemble Taiko music relies only on the different sounds of the drums to create a melody. Also, Okinawa dances are carefully choreographed and are largely passed down from one generation to the next. Modern Taiko can be written, re-written and even improvised. Fry said that for now the Taiko Club’s teacher wrote most of the songs, but members of the club ere encouraged to come up with their own melodies.
“We all pitch in on what we think would be a little better, like a little more force or an extra beat,” Fry said. “It’s just the memorization of sound.”
Both the groups said that they hoped to spread the Japanese cultural dance and music, and that participation in these activities gave a new perspective on East Asian culture — one that can’t be replicated in the classroom.
— — Edited by Rachel Burchfield
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