Hiroshima's Spirit of the Season Holiday Show!

About two months ago, I got an email from June and Dan Kuramoto of the popular Asian American band, Hiroshima, asking me if I'd be interested in playing an opening koto set for their annual Spirit of the Season Holiday Show. They stumbled across "Seiza" from TAIKOPROJECT's Surrounding Suns CD and fell in love with it. To quote June, she exclaimed, "My heart is exploding!" It's quite an honor to be asked to open for Hiroshima, so I couldn't pass it up!

I had no idea what to perform other than "Seiza". Since I haven't written any songs with just koto, I didn't have much to choose from. While performing with Jodaiko at UC Irvine, I co-wrote a koto/taiko piece entitled "Enkai" with my good friend Michael Gusukuma. Hoping that I still remembered how to play the song, I decided to play "Enkai" as the second number of my set.

I was so excited when Darren, Jen, Maz, Tomomi, and Yuri agreed to accompany me, especially since they are such amazing taiko players that I admire both as musicians and as my friends. They put forth a great deal of effort to learn Enkai and they really transformed the song by adding some TP flair to it!

THE DAY OF THE SHOW:

We arrived at the Japan America Aratani Theater in Little Tokyo, welcomed by the sounds of Hiroshima wrapping up their sound check. At that moment, everything was incredibly nostalgic for me. Every other year when I was young (from about age 4 to age 12) I used to come to the JAT to perform koto concerts with the Koto String Society. At that time, June would perform with us and I would always admire the finesse with which she played. She was, and definitely still is, my koto idol and a dear family-friend. Watching her rehearse with Hiroshima brought me back to those days when I was young. It was such a warm feeling!

After our sound check, we ate some delicious food with the band. We spent a good amount of time hanging out with Shoji Kameda (former musical director of TAIKOPROJECT and composer of "Omiyage"), which was really nice. It was my first time formally meeting him! To be honest, I was a little star-struck...I hope I didn't act too much like a fan!

Finally it was show time! We performed "Seiza", "Enkai", and "Many Sides". Everything went pretty smoothly and it was a lot of fun! I could hear my small fan-base of family and friends cheering for us in the audience, thanks to my mom who invited almost everyone she knew (she's a huge TP fan).

It's been my dream to perform koto at a gig like this. I'm particularly grateful that I got to share the stage with my TAIKOPORJECT buddies! This was definitely a performance to remember :)

Escondido School Show & HP Software Kick-off 2010 in Vegas

Last week we went to Escondido for a school show and Las Vegas for the HP Software Kick-off 2010. This was my first school show and the first time I got to travel with TAIKOPROJECT so I was excited.

We drove down to Escondido on Wednesday morning. The performance was at this really nice Center for the Arts. About 1,000 elementary and junior high school students came in from different schools in the area. We played a couple of songs, talked about the history of taiko, and demonstrated the different types of drums and instruments. It was really fun and interesting to see how much the kids enjoyed everything. Near the end of our performance we had some kids come up and try playing. Jenny and I went out into the audience to pick the kids. I felt bad though because there were SO many kids that wanted to come up, but I could only pick a few. It was awesome seeing the kids playing on the drums though and how much fun they were having. After the kids played then we asked if some of the teachers wanted to try. Some of the teachers looked even more excited than the kids. My favorite part was actually after the performance. After most of the students left, there were a group of deaf students that came up. They put their hand on the drum while Maz hit it so they could feel the vibrations. It was really amazing seeing their reaction when Maz hit the drum. Overall, it was a really fun performance and I'm glad that the schools could do events like this for the kids because they all seemed to really enjoy it.

Thursday morning we left for Las Vegas for the HP Software Kick-off 2010. We got to the Venetian and unloaded all of the equipment for the rehearsal. We were at the rehearsal for a couple of hours to figure out how everything would go for the next day. After the rehearsal, we checked in to our rooms. We each got our own room at the Venetian! I think I might've gotten a little spoiled for my first traveling experience. We had the night free so we decided to see the Jabbawockeez. The show was really good and it was a lot more theatrical than I was expecting. After the show we all went back to our rooms since we had a long day and we had to be up early for the performance the next day. For the performance, we opened the program to get everyone awake and pumped up. After we played, Bryan led an audience participation exercise. Each audience member got this small drum so they could play with us. There were about 200 people there so it got to be pretty loud in the theatre. Then we introduced the CEO and he came in playing an okedo. He seemed to have fun playing and the audience was really rooting him on. Then we hung out backstage while their program went on. We came on again at the end of the program to pump everyone up and get excited for the coming year. After the performance, we loaded up, stopped to eat something then headed home. Overall, the performance went well and it was fun hanging out with everyone.

Thanks to everyone involved in the Escondido school show and the HP Software Kick-off 2010 show!

Congratulations Mr. & Mrs. Tanabe!

This past Saturday, 11/13... one more Deguchi sister was wed. And back by popular demand, TaikoProject was asked to perform at her wedding... or rather... my sisters took full advantage of their performing monkey...=( In either case, members of TP graciously came to celebrate the union of my sister and her new husband along with 300 guests (and 150 were from JAPAN!) The ceremony and reception was held at the beautifully expensive Langham Hotel in Pasadena and true to my sister's taste... it was an extravagant affair!

since no post is complete without a few visuals.. here are some photos from the wedding

The newest addition to our family of girls:

TP with their newest/youngest fans (my cousin's son and daughter, Troy and Kelli)



Back in October, Liz wrote about my mom's 60th birthday. And just like his auntie, my little nephew has just been CRAZY for the drums....So after our performance at my mom's party, he came straight to the drums and starting playing Expanding! (just kidding)
*Note: he requires no guidance to this drum... he went all on his own =D



After my sister's wedding performance, he wasted no time and just went straight to the drums. He proceeded to follow me even as we were packing up.

Presenting the future of American taiko






(Disclaimer: No drums were harmed or dirtied in any of these photos... =D)

Kris and Maz's Cross Country Adventures!

Day 1, October 31
Kris and I leave the group after a nice show in beautiful Fresno, CA! I didn't realize that we were going to pass by Kris' parent's place near Tehachapi until the night before. Kris called his mom and we met up with her for lunch (his dad was traveling to France). Kris usually brings "Takeru-kun", which is a small 2 cup rice cooker, and makes his own food when we're on tour, so I decided that I should join him and be healthier this time around since I always gain weight going through the midwest. Indian curry from Trader Joe's was on the menu today! Kris' mom made us a nice loaf of bread. We drive to St. George, Utah and try to go bowling, but it was closed!

Day 2, November 1
Drove to Denver, Colorado. It was a beautiful day driving through the Rockies. Snow had just fallen and it sparkled in the sun. We had a fun sling okedo workshop with Denver Taiko. Thank you Aiko and family for housing us and for feeding us well.

Day 3, November 2
Drove to Davenport, Iowa. This was a 13 hour drive... so long! Kris downloaded some podcasts from NPR which included Car Talk, This American Life, Film Week, and Science Friday to keep us from getting too bored. I decided that I needed to get my blood pumping, so I went running, went swimming, and sat in the hot tub.

Day 4, November 3
Drove to Novi, Michigan to have an Omiyage workshop with Great Lakes Taiko Center. We taught the main part of Omiyage in 2 hours! It was tough to get through it, but they hung in there! Thank you Brian, Mayumi, and their family for housing us. We begin to feel the weather getting colder.

Day 5, November 4
My gps took us through Canada to get us to Geneseo, NY. Bizarre! We got to the Canadian border with no passports, but they still let us in. Apparently the gps took us on the fastest route and apparently it happens all the time, so we were all good. We met up with Darren, Emily, and Scott (our technical director) for dinner at Applebee's! After eating with Kris who's a vegan and eating vegan food for the past 5 days, I kinda go crazy and get ribs. Yum!

Day 6, November 5
I got an oil change in the morning then Kris, Emily, Darren, Scott, and I loaded in the theater, set up the instruments, set lights, set up some costumes, spiked the first half of the show, did a sound check, and ran a public workshop. Jen, Yuri, Tomomi, Yumi, and Kevin fly in and we met up to eat pizza at Mama Mia's!

Day 7, November 6
Show day! Tech and run through went really well. We found ourselves with a lot of downtime which is really rare. The show went well considering it was only the second time we've done it. Only a few hiccups here and there, but for the most part I was happy with the show. After the show, we ate at Denny's in honor of Bryan. Then we went to my room and had fun stacking stuff on sleeping Darren. The crack from the rock chip in the van windshield started to grow to about four inches. I think the cold had to do something with it. Thank you Lindsey, Kellie, and Cary of the SUNY Limelight and Accents Performing Arts Series in for putting on the concert.

Day 8, November 7
Kris and I part ways with the rest of the group =( and drive to Dublin, Ohio to finish teaching Omiyage to the Dublin Taiko Boosters that Bryan and I started this past April. They learned it all! After the workshop, we had a two hour private lesson with Eric Paton who is a professor at Capital University and teaches percussion and taiko. Thank you Susann for organizing the workshop and to her husband for providing us a nice hotel room. The crack in the windshield grows to about 8 inches

Day 9, November 8
Drove to St. Joseph, Missouri. There's nothing out here!

Day 10, November 9
Drove back to Denver, Colorado on a small, two-lane highway through the north part of Kansas. Nothing but prairie out there. Boring!!! But, we passed through some interesting small towns with lots of character. Towards the end of the drive, we drove right through a blizzard. Scary! When we arrived in Denver, we played ping pong and pool with Aiko's sons, Matthew and Connor. Fun! Thanks again to Aiko and her family for housing us!

Day 11, November 10
Drove to Moab, Utah. I was a little concerned going over the Rockies because of the blizzard the day before, but it was fine. Nice and sunny, but quite cold, so the windshield wiper fluid hose froze. I had to stop to defrost it because the windshield was really dirty and I couldn't see very well. Had a good workshop with Moab Taiko Dan. Taught the new rhythms to Tomodachi To Isshoni which we taught when Bryan and I passed through in the spring. Thank you Hop and Sheila for housing us!

Day 12, November 11
Last day of driving! It was long and we ran out of NPR podcasts, but we finally made it back to Higashi to unload and practice a little bit. Otsukaresama deshita! The crack in the windshield ended up being about two feet!

Facts about the trip:
-5,509 miles driven according to google maps
-Passed through California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Michigan, Ontario (Canada), New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri
-40 NPR podcasts listened to
-Dishes created in Kris' rice cooker: rice and indian curry, Jamaican rice, chocolate cake, and oatmeal
-Besides being in Geneseo, we made all of our meals
-5 workshops and 2 private lessons conducted
-The crack in the windshield ended up being almost two feet long

Picnic time in the Rockies

Fun with snow in the Rockies

Somewhere in Missouri...

Desert in Utah

Geneseo, New York

Picture by Yuri Yoshida

This weekend TAIKOPROJECT went to Geneseo, New York with TAIKOPROJECT for a performance. We first stopped in Cleveland for 30 minutes or so then transferred onto a “putt-putt” plane that flew us to NY. When we left Los Angeles it was in the high 90's but when we reached Geneseo, it was in the mid-30's. 60 degrees difference! Brrrrr!

We got picked up and finally met up with Emily, Darren, Maz, Kris and Scott. We went to go eat pizza at Mama Mia’s. Then Saturday we arrived at the theater around noon and got to work. We spiked the rest of the second set and did some prep work before run throughs.


I had a lot of fun hanging out with everyone. Tours are always fun-creating and sharing new memories together. Can't wait for the next tour!

...And we're back from Geneseo, New York!

Darren, Kevin, Yuri, Jen, Yumi, Tomomi, and I just got back from a gig in Geneseo, New York this past weekend! (Maz and Kris also played with us, but they're currently driving back to L.A., holding workshops along the way until Thursday.) We performed TAIKOPROJECT's new Continuum show for the Limelight & Accents Performing Arts Series at the State University of New York (SUNY - pronounced "soo-knee") at Geneseo. The show was held on campus in the Wadsworth Auditorium, which seats nearly 1,000 people!

It all started on Thursday morning, when Darren and I flew out of L.A. with our lighting director, Scott. After about 6 hours of flying and a 40-minute drive, we finally arrived in Geneseo! We met up with Maz & Kris at the hotel and went to a late dinner at Applebee's. It was my first time eating there, even though I know there are plenty of Applebee's restaurants in southern California. Has anyone else not eaten there at some point in their life, or am I just a rare case...?

The next day, we prepped for the show as much as possible, loading in all the equipment, checking sound, spiking the stage, and setting & steaming costumes. I was amazed that we were able to do all that with only four people! The rest of the cast flew in from L.A., so Scott and I headed back to the hotel to help them settle in, while Maz, Kris, and Darren stayed at the auditorium to hold a workshop. We all met up afterwards and went to dinner, then headed back to the hotel to rest up for the show.

Saturday was the big day! The show went great and we were well-received by the big audience. Thank you so much to everyone who came out to watch! After the show, we got to meet and talk to the members of Yamatai, Cornell University's taiko group. Everyone was really nice, and I hope we keep in touch :)

On Sunday, we said our goodbyes to Maz & Kris (who left early that morning to drive out to Dublin, Ohio) and headed to the airport. After another long day of flying, we arrived home safely! A BIG thanks goes out to Lindsey Hebell and the rest of the Limelight & Accents crew. Thank you for having us! It was a pleasure working with you all and we had a great time in Geneseo!!

Fresno Concert Show

On Saturday we took a trip up to the beautiful town of Fresno, CA for the debut of our Concert Program, Continuum. We split into two groups for this show: group one drove north on Friday early morning to perform for a school show, while the remainder of the eight person cast followed early Saturday morning.

The show was sponsored by the Fresno Lively Arts foundation, and we played at the gorgeous Shaghoian Hall. When we got there, we took one look at the brand new Shaghoian Hall and were immediately impressed. The facilities were enormous! Not to mention the acoustics on the inside of the theatre got us all excited for a great show.

This was the debut performance of our Concert Program, so we were a bit nervous as to how well it would be received, but the crowd was amazing! So receptive, so welcoming, they not only welcomed us into their theatre, but were gracious enough to let us stay with them as well. A HUGE thank you to all of Fresno Gumyo Taiko as well as our homestay families: Sharon, Reba, and Kathy! (your food was delicious!!! )

After the performance, TP held a short 3 hour workshop with Fresno Gumyo and other neighboring taiko groups. We gave pointers on basics, stage presence, and taught a little of our very own Omiyage and it was all very well received.

All in all, the trip, performance, and community feeling we experienced in Fresno made this trip a huge success. Thank you to all for coming, for housing and feeding us, and for all of the fresh FRUIT! (I probably ate half of it on the way back, and that's saying a lot considering how many lbs we had...)

Feel free to check out the introductory article by Fresno's very own Fresno Bee. Thanks for the great introduction!

-Kevin

Asian American Music Festival '10

Yesterday, Liz and I performed at the Asian American Music Festival as part of the Pan Asian Arkestra, which was put together for this show by Gary Fukushima. The festival is a 3 day event featuring Asian American music of various genres. The event took place at JANM's Democracy Forum.

The festival has 5 "movements" and we were a part of the second movement. It started off with Gary's GF3 Trio, featuring Gary on piano, JP Maramba on bass, and Miles Senzaki on drums. Liz and I sat in the audience and watched their performance. So awesome!!

They were followed by Jon Jang's solo piano performance. It was amazing to watch him perform!

Then, we were up. The Pan Asian Arkestra performed Jon Jang's Reparations Now! Concerto for Jazz Ensemble and Taiko (which was composed in 1988 to bring attention to the Japanese American reparations movement), and Hitomi Oba's new piece, The Generation Tree. We shared the stage with the Trio, Hitomi, Ian Vo, Michael Birnbryer, Josh Aguiar, and Nick DePinna.

What an awesome experience! It was an honor to perform with a group of such amazing musicians!

As I stated here, it was the first time that I collaborated with a Jazz ensemble, so I was a little bit nervous at first. Not only that, Liz and I had to read music with Western notation (we mainly learn taiko music through kuchi-shoga). It's a good thing both of us played piano and flute! It's been like over 10 years for me....and it was like riding a bike....ha! We practiced and practiced (thanks Gary and Hitomi for meeting up with us to go over the music!) and we became familiar with the music.

I had a lot of fun at this performance and was kind of sad when it was all over!! We made new friends and I'm totally inspired! As we loaded our drums and left the venue, Liz and I talked about how awesome it would be if we could do something like this again some time.

Thanks Gary for bringing us on board! And thanks Paul (Festival Director) for putting together a great event!

Fun fact: one of the people working on sound at the theater was Joel Mankey, a former TP member! :)

Another fun fact: Liz and I shook hands with Jake Shimabukuro!

A few photos!

Gary's GF3 Trio performing.

Jon Jang on piano

Me and Liz with Gary

Happy 60th Birthday, Mrs. Deguchi!

Last Saturday a few of us helped Mrs. Deguchi (a.k.a. Courtney's mommy) celebrate her 60th birthday at the Friendly Hills Country Club in Whittier, CA. The guests were so elegant (especially the birthday girl), the food was delicious, and the atmosphere was amazing! It really was a lot of fun and a great way to spend the evening. Plus, now we all know Courtney and her family a little bit better! :)

PS - if any of you want beauty tips on how to look 40 when you're 60, ask Courtney's mom. Seriously. :)

This Saturday: Asian American Music Festival!

Taikoproject was invited by Gary Fukushima to perform this weekend at the Asian American Music Festival with the Pan Asian Arkestra!

Liz and I have been studying the music and we rehearsed on Tuesday with everyone! It's going to be awesome. For me, personally, it's the first time that I'm collaborating with a Jazz ensemble, so I'm super excited.

We'll be performing 2 songs: Jon Jang's Concerto for Jazz Ensemble and Taiko, and Hitomi Oba's new piece, The Generation Tree. Hitomi actually played a little taiko at UCLA with KYNK and Yukai Daiko and knows some of us in TP!

Asian American Music Festival will take place this weekend (10/15 to 10/17).Our 'movement' will perform on Saturday, October 16.Click here for ticket information!! We hope you can come!

Here are 2 photos from the rehearsal!

(re)generation show in Torrance recap!!

Hello TAIKOPROJECT friends, family, and followers! Here is a recap post about our (re)generation show on October 2nd, 2010 at the Torrance Cultural Arts Center, not from a performers perspective, but from the stagehand trainee perspective.

The day started very early with many of the guys heading over to our studio in Long Beach to pick up any remaining drums and equipment we needed for the show. But most importantly we needed a lot of strong hands to get our Ohiradaiko (weighing over 330 pounds!) loaded up and ready for the show.

Once the entire cast was present at the Torrance Cultural Arts Center, we all helped setting up equipment, unpacking the drums, and prepping for the show. One of tasks some of the trainees were assigned was to setup the risers for the show, with the help of some older members we managed to set them up just fine. The risers added some great level changes to the show and it looked really good. I also got the chance to retie some of the okedo (roped taiko drums, normally played with a sling) which I have never done before. It was a surprisingly difficult task causing me to break a sweat, but I guess it didn't help either that is was progressively getting warmer outside too. Once all the equipment was set it was time to start spiking the performance and we moved all of the drums to the stage.

Photo Courtesy of Tomomi Hongo

Once on stage the cast practiced the songs for concert while lighting and crew were setting up backstage. This was one of my first experiences of a big show with taiko on stage and I've never realized how much goes on during the setup. For example when the stagehands want to alert the performers that something will be lowered to the stage, they say "(whatever they are adjusting) coming in" at which point all performers have to repeat the call so the stagehands know the performers know its coming in. After spiking and making final adjustments to the show, it was only a matter of time before show time.

Photo Courtesy of Tomomi Hongo

Once all the equipment was prepped on stage and backstage, costumes were set, and everyone was warmed up, the show was ready to kick off. It was so exciting even though I spent most of the time backstage prepping equipment for the upcoming songs along with my fellow trainees. When we had the chance we would get to watch a glimpse of the show from the sides of the stage and it was so cool to see the energy not only from the performers but also from the audience's applause. What I also enjoyed was the unspoken dialogues between the performers off stage, since we had to be so quiet when adjusting equipment a simple smile or sign of acknowledgment seemed to say "keep up the good work" or "let's keep doing our best!". I think the highlight of my night backstage was when we had a little bit of stage time when we took off some of the drums for the finale song "Here We Go Now!", sure it might have been only a couple of seconds, it was better than nothing. :)

Great job with an amazing show TAIKOPROJECT and this was definitely an educational show for my many performances in the future. Thanks to all the friends and family who came to watch the show and I hope you enjoyed the performance as much as I did. Being a local performance it was great to have so much support from the home crowd as well as other taiko groups in the area, thank you so much!! If you missed this performance of (re)generation, TAIKOPROJECT will be hitting the road for our next (re)generation show which will be in Longview, Washington on March 19, 2011!! Thanks for reading and see you next time TAIKOPROJECT followers!!

Photo Courtesy of Tomomi Hongo

Performance with 30 Seconds to Mars at the Epicenter

Last weekend TAIKOPROJECT had another opportunity to perform with rock band, 30 Seconds to Mars. The cast members drove down to the Epicenter in Fontana. It was EXTREMELY hot. Right when we got out the car we were sweating bullets. Luckily, Shannon Leto, the drummer from 30 STM let us borrow their dressing room where they had air conditioning and fresh fruits! We spent the time preparing for the show although we weren't really sure what we were suppose to play until moments before the show. But...it was so much fun! We played for their opening song, "Escape" and the last song "Kings and Queens." The last song was especially fun. Jared Leto, the main singer for the show allowed a number of audiences to gather on the stage to sing and dance along. People gathered and rocked out! TP played along with the music and shared some awesome moments with the fans. It was awesome. Pictures from the performance will be up soon!

Watts Towers Day of the Drum Festival

Last weekend was a busy weekend for us!

We started off by performing at the Watts Towers Day of the Drum Festival. It was super hot, but the crowd was amazing and we had a lot of fun!

It was a longer set and we were able to play one of our newer songs, Island Groove, where I got to be a Groovette! If you don't know what a Groovette is, you have to come to our (re)generation show this weekend in Torrance, since we'll play Island Groove for sure. :)

Here we are after performing.

Like I said, it was super hot... but it didn't compare to what we were about to face the next day for our performance with 30 Seconds to Mars! Be on the lookout for an entry and photos from that gig!

Target Kaleidoscopic Fashion Spectacular!

In early August, I got a call from the folks at Squeak E Clean Productions, music producer Sam Spiegel's production company. I first met Sam in early 2008 when he called us in to do a taiko recording which seemed at first to not really seem like a big deal.

It was in his home studio and I didn't know what would come of it--later, we found out it was for Nike's "Fast Forward" commercial, featuring Kobe Bryant, Maria Sharapova, and a number of other top athletes, training and being victorious all to the tune of our taiko-laced tracks.

Later that year, he contacted me again and we were in a bigger studio recording taiko tracks for Kanye West's "Glow in the Dark Tour." Anyways, that's the history of TP and Squeak E Clean. This most recent call was about "an event for Target," so I thought "cool, I go to Target, why not?"

Kris, Emily, Jen and I headed to the legendary Capitol Studios (where everyone from Frank Sinatra to Green Day has recorded), and started working with Sam on his concepts for the "Green" section of the show.

After a short few hours in the studio, we were done! We didn't hear anything about how it turned out, so we decided to just look on YouTube to see if we could find out what the event was, and found the following video--our section starts at about 3:40 and goes to about 7:00. What a production it was!

Target apparently rented out all the rooms on one side of the Standard Hotel in New York City for the production, equipped them all with colored led lights, and put on an amazing show!

We're proud to have been a part of such an innovative project. Thanks Sam and Chris at Squeak E Clean, and enjoy the video below! You can watch it on Facebook too, from different angles and such--

Indiana State Fair

We just got back from a quick quick trip to Indianapolis, where we performed at the Indiana State Fair! Three days, three shows per day. We were part of the "Bridges to Japan" exhibit this year, organized by the Japan America Society of Indiana. In addition to live performances, the exhibition included Japanese pop culture displays and delicious Japanese food.

We arrived in Indianapolis on the evening of Thursday, August 12th. At the airport, we met Theresa Kulchzak, Executive Director of the Japan American Society of Indiana. She is absolutely wonderful, and worked so hard all weekend. (Thank you Theresa!) After arriving at the hotel, we went to grab a quick bite at Rock Bottom Brewery. Yummmmy! Then, bed time!

Friday was by far the most interesting day. Jen, Jenny, Yumi and I started the morning off with a quick television promotion performance, where the hostess was mesmerized by our "ninja turtle shoes." The best part??? - Complementary oatmeal cookies! According to the kind gentleman behind the counter, they stayed up all night baking them. Our first group show was in the air conditioned International Pavilion. Then, as the clouds began to roll in, we moved all of our drums to an outdoor free stage. Unfortunately for us, those clouds became thunder, lightening and rain during our third set! Thank you to the 8 troopers who sat through the crazy weather to watch the show! I actually thought it was pretty awesome to play along with thunder. :) Some Perks of the Day included green tea ice cream, yakisoba and our very own RV trailer green room! (We're all not-so-secretly hoping that TP's next big purchase is an RV!) Dinner on Friday was delicious pasta from the Old Spaghetti Factory in downtown Indianapolis!

We were back at the fair on Saturday morning. In addition to performing and touring the fairgrounds, we met the members of the New York City based dance group, 10tecomai, who practice the tradition of Yosakoi Dance. I really enjoyed their energy and style of dance, and I know the audience did as well. Perks of the Day included Okonomiyaki, listening to Keith Urban from outside the grandstand and again, green tea ice cream! Dinner on Saturday was the unique cuisine of Adobo Grill, with the best margaritas and guacamole ever. :)

Sunday was our last day at the fair. We were able to do all three shows inside the International Pavilion this day. We were very thankful to be able to stay out of the Indiana heat! We deviated from the set list a bit on Sunday and tried some new/old pieces. Fun times! Perks of the Day included Henna tattoos, green tea ice cream (of course), and a free Selena Gomez performance (from our trailer window).

Special thanks to Thersa Kulczak, John Lajiness, Tamayo Fukumoto and driver John, as well as the rest of the team at the Japan America Society of Indiana! We had a blast!

ShastaYama 2010

A few weeks ago we took a roadtrip up north to Mt. Shasta,CA where we had the honor of sharing the stage with Russel Baba, Jeanne Mercer, Michelle Fujii, Toru Watanabe, Shasta Taiko, and Somei Yoshino Taiko Ensemble at ShastaYama 2010.

Thursday 7/29/10

Bryan, Jen, Darren, Courtney, Tomomi, Emily, Andrew, and I arrived in Shasta. Maz and Kris had left earlier in the week and were already there.

The log CASTLE!...where we stayed while we were in Shasta.

Friday 7/30/10

Since we had some down time in the morning, we decided to go hiking to Mossbrae Falls. Although it was quite a walk to get there, it was totally worth it! It was soo gorgeous!

After our hike, we headed over to tech rehearsal. The stage was set up on a large open field facing Mt. Shasta. It was really refreshing playing taiko while surrounded by such beautiful scenery. Shasta Taiko also taught us a fun dance that we were going to perform with them at the concert.

Tech rehearsal went ok overall but we did have two injuries. One of them resulted in Jen being sent to the ER! We were all really worried but after about an hour and a few stitches on her leg, Jen was back on her feet. She even played during run-throughs! Go Jen! The second injury was another leg injury. Kris accidently cut his leg on stage. Thankfully, he did not have to go to the ER! I think everyone was being REALLY careful after that so that we would not have any more injuries.

Saturday 7/31/10

Today was the day of the concert. After a deliciousbrunch at a local cafe and some souvenir shopping earlier in the day, we headed back out to the concert venue. There were about 1,300 people in the audience! Over 1 thousand people, Mt. Shasta in the background, Taiko drumming, and Shasta Taiko banners waving in the wind…the concert was very epic! :)

Sunday 8/1/10

After an eventful few days in Shasta, we headed back home to LA. It took us 12 hours and Bryan drove the ENTIRE time!!! Thank you Bryan! Otsukaresama!

Here are some more pictures from Shastayama 2010 :

http://picasaweb.google.com/TAIKOPROJECT/ShastaYamaFestival#

Thank you very much Russel Baba and Jeanne Mercer for inviting us! We had a fantastic time!

Higashi Obon 2010!

Hi everyone!

A couple weeks ago on July 24th, we performed a 45-minute set at the Higashi Honganji Obon Festival. We played a few TP favorites such as Expanding, Many Sides, and Omiyage, and also three of our newer pieces, Island Groove, Tsuki E and Seiza. Higashi Obon has got to be one of my personal favorite places to perform because of all the friends and family that come to watch. It's always nice to spot some familiar faces in the crowd!

Check out this great picture of Yumi during her solo for Many Sides!

Dancing in Tsuki E

All smiles in Island Groove

Here's a video of Seiza from the performance:

Thank you to Mickey from Higashi Honganji for recording the video and posting it on YouTube for us!

Afterwards, we all treated ourselves to some tasty eats. Higashi seems to have the most diverse menu out of all the southern California obon festivals. They had everything from chicken teriyaki and udon to tamales and chili rice. The cold somen and shaved ice were refreshingly delicious after performing in the hot sun. Yumi and I especially liked the popular "Dango Dogs", which were like little corn dogs, but instead of the traditional corn batter, the hot dogs were covered in a sweet Japanese donut batter. I wish I had a picture to share with you all, but I guess you'll just have to go to obon next year and try them for yourselves!

RHYTHMIC RELATIONS 2010

Hi all!
RHYTHMIC RELATIONS 2010 was a huge success! Thank you to friends and family who came to support TAIKOPROJECT, as well as Bombu Taiko, Kitsune Taiko, and the new Chibi Kitsune and Loma Pacific Taiko! It was a weekend that I would truly cherish forever. We became one huge family with one main goal: Putting on an AMAZING show and sharing this moment with each other and the audience.

TP and other crew members from the Ford theater got in early on Saturday to prep for the show. TP had a morning show which was a lot of fun! The weather wasn't too bad until...it started raining 2 hours before the show! We all ran outside to cover the drums since they were getting wet. The Ford theater guys were pro and handled everything in a calm matter. I on the other hand was freaking out! I prayed and I prayed and I prayed. I prayed that it'll stop raining so that we can put on this show. All the groups worked extremely hard putting together this show and it would of been a big disappointment if the weather conditions didn't allow us to play. Fortunately...THE RAIN STOPPED! It was a bit cloudy but nonetheless we were able to perform! So we did and the feeling of sharing the stage with great people was amazing.

Here are some pictures I took during our time at the theater:


Run through of Expanding


Meeting before the first show


Yuri, who is also a member of TP, couldn't play with us because this year because she is pregnant! But she came with her husband, Hiro and supported us from the audience! (She actually had her baby today! Congrats to her and Hiro!!!)

















Visit our Facebook for more pictures and upcoming performances! Have a safe summer everyone!

Tomorrow's the big show!!

After weeks and weeks of intensive rehearsals, Rhythmic Relations 2010 is tomorrow!! It's been a long haul, but in the past few months, we've written and refined six new songs, put together a new taiko group at our Long Beach Studio, taught ten 8-year olds how to play taiko, recorded and produced our first CD, published a 10-year Anniversary book, put together our first TP calendar, and pieced it all into a great show. (and in between it all we took some time to play with 30 Seconds to Mars and Stevie Wonder)

Now all we can do is give it our all tomorrow and Sunday and hope everyone enjoys the show! There are still tickets available, so if you want to come see the show, come on by and buy tix at the door, or come early to picnic and have a glass of wine before the show--it'll be an unforgettable summer night at the Ford--

It's Here!!!

Yesterday I picked up the new TAIKOPROJECT CDs, called "Surrounding Suns"! I'm totally excited that it's finally here. Lots and lots of hard earned hours went into the process. Tasks included: remixing old material, writing new material, a three-day recording session, editing and mixing the tracks, mastering the album, designing the packaging for the album, putting the album into replication, and now we distribute! I'm so happy it's here! Pick yours up at Rhythmic Relations 2010! You can check out our website for a preview song.

Thanks everyone for your hard work! Couldn't have done it without you.

Rhythmic Relations 2010 - June 10 & 11, 8 pm

Come one, come all! This summer's Rhythmic Relations concerts are going to be the most epic ones yet--we are debuting six new songs, we have a whole bunch of new taiko players, and a new taiko group, AND we have a new CD (our first one) being released at the show--you can only get them at the show!

Check out our promo video below:


Hope you can make it! Our past shows at the Ford Amphitheatre have sold out, so get your tickets soon!

Cleveland Residency/School Shows

May has been a pretty busy month for us. We started off the month in Cleveland, Ohio, where Bryan, Maz, Jen, Courtney, Liz, Kris, and I did a weeklong residency as well as a couple of school shows. I was able to experience soooo~ much in the week that we was there, I could talk for hours about all of the events that happened!...but I’m going to attempt to limit myself to this post.

pictures can be found here: http://picasaweb.google.com/TAIKOPROJECT

May 2, Sun – DAY 1

Courtney, Kris, Liz and I flew into the Cleveland where we were greeted by Bryan and Maz(they had flown in a few days before) who came to pick us up. We then drove to Oberlin where we did an Expanding workshop with Oberlin and Icho Daiko. Kris and I were assigned to teach one of the Shime/Okedo set parts. I was really amazed at how quickly everyone was able to pickup the complicated beats, let alone learning four different parts!

May 3, Mon – DAY 2

My roomie for the week, Liz, and I were getting ready in the morning in our very lovely Wyndham hotel room when I turned the tv on to find ‘TAIKOPROJECT” written across the screen. The Wyndham had included us into their main hotel channel! I found this very amusing and exciting! Today was the first day of the residency. For 5 days, 5 hours each day, we worked with 7 high school students: Jacob, Jeni, Erika, Nathan, Zack, Brittany, and Andrew, in a taiko intensive. And let me tell ya, this was DEFINITELY not just an intensive for the students. Everyday consisted of an hour intensive running/warm-up session, lead by a different member each day, that we all participated in. Today was Courtney’s turn to lead warm-ups. Although I was sore for pretty much then entire week, it was a great workout not only for the students but for us “oldies” as well. Today’s instruction focused on taiko basics

May 4, Tues – DAY 3

Throughout the week, Liz and I took advantage of every possible minute of free time we had to go explore the city. There was a FREE trolley that takes you around the downtown area that we loved to ride on. Today was Day 2 of the residency. After warm-ups, which were led by Liz, we jumped right into teaching the 2 songs that the students were going to be performing at the end of the residency. The students were very enthusiastic and worked very hard to learn the pieces in just a few days!

May 5, Wed – DAY 4

Jen flew into Cleveland early in the morning. Liz found a farmers market nearby that had a crepe place so we decided to go in the morning to get breakfast crepes. The crepes, although a bit messy with the oozing chocolate, were amazing! Awesome find Liz! I think many of us were able to get some souvenir/gift shopping done there to so that was great! In the afternoon, we went to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Museum. My favorite exhibit at the museum was a drumset that was titled Sasquatch. As you could probably guess from the name, it was a drumset that was covered entirely with white fur. We weren’t allowed to bring cameras into the museum so I didn't get a picture of it but…It was awesome! Today was Day 3 of the residency and was my day to lead warm-ups. I really enjoyed the idea of having someone different lead warm-ups each day. It was a great way of keeping things fresh and different. I think a different part of my body was sore each day! We continued to work on the two performance pieces today. In addition to learning the beats, we also began to focus a lot on movement, form and stance as well. Putting movement and beats together is pretty difficult to do but the students picked it up really fast!

May 6, Thurs – DAY 5

We were asked to do a short segment for the news so Bryan, Liz, and I went to the theatre in the morning to do a short Nidan performance. Kris came with us to photograph the event. Thank you so much Kris! Although we didn’t get to see ourselves on tv for it was broadcast live, it was still very exciting! Later that morning, we had 2 school shows. This was Liz and my first time doing a school show. I was very nervous for the first show, especially because I had a speaking part. The first show, I felt was really rough, personally. After some helpful tips by the veterans of the group, I felt a little more confident after the second show. Overall, both shows went well! Today was Day 4 of the residency and Jen lead the warm-ups. Today was similar to yesterday where we spent the first hour or so working on form, stance, and striking, and the rest of the time we worked on the performance pieces. 4 days into our intense taiko boot camp and all seven of the students were still showing up! I was afraid that after our daily running and exercising, someone was going to end up hating us. Jacob, Jeni, Erika, Nathan, Zack, Brittany, and Andrew…you guys rock!

May 7, Fri – DAY 6

We had 2 more school shows this morning. The set was the same from Thursday so I was definitely more relaxed than I was the day before. I felt better about my speaking sections today, and I think the shows went really well overall. Today was the last practice before the performance. Since everyone was such a good sport about the running/warm-up all week, we decided that today we would play Capture the Flag…or in our case, toilet paper… instead. Taikoproject versus Atsumari Daiko!

***Atsumari Daiko is the official taiko group name that the students came up with for themselves. Atsumari, in Japanese, means: a gathering of people. They chose this name because they are a group of high school students, who come from different areas in Ohio and attend different high schools, who have gathered together in Cleveland to learn and play taiko.

Guess who won?!...not us. Although we didn't officially keep score, I’m pretty sure we got our butts kicked by Atsumari Daiko. We want a rematch!!! After our hour of being silly, it was crunch time! The remaining hours of practice were dedicated to working on and cleaning up the performance pieces.

May 8, Sat – DAY 7

This afternoon, Atsumari Daiko had their debut performance at the Idea Center in Cleveland! We were originally scheduled to play outside but due to rain, we ended up performing inside at the Idea Center. Despite the weather and some changes made, we had a large audience and both the performances we did went well. Awesome job and congrats Atsumari Daiko! I hope we get to see you guys again sometime! After giving our congratulation and goodbye hugs *sniff* and saying our closing aisatsu, the residency came to an end. Since it was just around dinner time when we finished loading up our equipment back into the trailer, we decided to go eat at a nearby Mardi Gras themed restaurant called Fat Fish Blue. After a quick dinner there, we headed to our next destination…dessert! We found a place called Chocolate Bar that had an amazing selection of sweets that we could choose from. The line to be seated was really long though, so we ended up going across the street to a bowling alley to kill an hour. After bowling, we went back to the Chocolate bar and were finally able to get a table. I think we were all on a sugar high for a few hours afterwards…I definitely was! It was a great way to end our Ohio trip!

May 9, Sun – DAY 8

Jen, Courtney, Kris, Liz and I head back to LA(Thank you Bryan and Maz for the ride to the airport and for driving the trailer all the way to the east coast and back), and Bryan and Maz begin their drive back to the west coast, making stops to do more workshops along the way. I couldn’t believe how fast the week went by! This week was not only just a learning experience for the members of Atsumari Daiko, but was definitely one for me as well. Since it was my first residency, I wasn’t sure what to expect, or how to go about things. Although I know that there is still much I need to improve on, I feel that the next time I get to take part in a residency such as this, I will definitely be more confident and have a better understanding of how things are supposed to run. I had an amazing amazing AMAZING time! Also, thank you SO MUCH Playhouse Square for allowing us to have this residency and letting us use your theatres for a week!