Saturday, November 14, 2009

Open House a Success!

Today TP hosted an Open House to show our new studio off to the general public and thank you to everyone who came out to see it! Actually, last week, our donors got to come check it out first, but today, we opened up to the public!

The studio is still under construction, as the owner has been delayed by city processes and permits, but lots has been done. When we first moved in, it was just a concrete box (with flames on the walls). Since then, we've installed theatrical drapes around the perimeter of the space to absorb some of our noise and improve acoustics, we've hung up some of our show banners from past Rhythmic Relations shows, we've built and started storing our equipment on industrial shelving in the space, we've installed a sound dampening wall on our shared wall and installed a 32' x 6' wall of mirrors, and a 32' x 32' raised, insulated stage. In the next couple of weeks, we'll have two new bathrooms and drywall will be installed in the space, which should insulate our sound pretty well. After that,we'll just have a few other projects that will complete our renovation and we'll be ready to go!

Thank you to all the Long Beach and South Bay folks who came out (as well as my Aunty from Huntington Beach)--and all the taiko groups that came out--folks from Togen Daiko, Kishin Daiko, Kodama Taiko, Touzan Taiko (the new collegiate group from Pomona), UCI Jodaiko, Shin3, TCLA, Kinnara Taiko, and Kitsune Taiko! Stay tuned for more photos and updates about our new studio!

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Kris' first performance with TP

Last weekend was my first performance with TaikoProject since beginning rehearsals with the group a few months ago. We performed at the beautiful Aquarium of the Pacific. I'm still learning the pieces so it was a bit nerve-wracking for me, but thanks to Liz, Yuri, Bryan, and Maz, I survived and had a great time. Looking forward to more!

We took a quick photo after the gig... Liz was off changing, as you can see... :)