Longview, WA - reGeneration - 3.19.11

This past weekend, the TAIKOPROJECT stormed the Pacific Northwest and visited the small-town of Longview, Washington. Longview is a quaint town about an hour north of Portland, OR, so this show was a special event for me personally, as it was the first show that my parents were able to see. The Suda family originates out of Portland, OR, so it was a relatively short journey to experience taiko a la TAIKOPROJECT.

Team DTK (Darren, Tricia, and Kevin) left LAX in the late afternoon on Thursday, the 17th, in order to land and prepare for the following day's school show. The flight was delayed 30min as we had to wait for a crewmember who was running late. The funny thing is, the stewardess announced their colleague's tardiness over the intercom, instead of making up some excuse for them. Good friend.

Darren, Yumi, and myself entertaining ourselves while we waited to take off.

After running across the Seattle Airport to catch our connecting flight (we actually had to catch a train to get to the other side of the airport), we landed at PDX in the late evening. We were greeted by our driver, Ned Piper, who was a Longview native that had deep roots in the town, dating back to its inception in the early 1900s. We learned all about Longview and the interesting story of the Columbia Theatre, which was saved inadvertently by the Mt. St. Helens eruption in May of 1980. Apparently, the theatre was set to be torn down, but the St. Helens eruption required use of the town's heavy machinery, which gave Longview locals enough time to rally and raise money to keep it open.

After it's extensive renovation, the theatre looks beautiful! So in a way...thanks Mt. St. Helens.

photo courtesy of universetoday.com	photo courtesy of cplinc.com

Friday's school show brought roughly 100 students ranging from middle school up through high school. We performed our shortened school show set and afterwards had the kids come up to learn some taiko basics. After the show, we spiked for Saturday's show and hit the road back to our hotel.

It was on Friday night that we discovered the perfect set of tights for Tomomi. We found them at Target while searching for clear tape. Aren't they perfect?!

The second half of the team (Jen, John, Scott, Liz, and Courtney) arrived later that night and after a short dinner at the local Shari's, we hit the hay.

Showtime. Saturday we were prepping all day for the big show. Right before we went on, we got a message from the Getty cast (the other half of the group was performing at the Getty Museum in LA earlier that same day). They had posted a fun-loving picture after their successful show.

In anticipation of our own performance, we decided to take our own picture. (see if you can match up who's who!)

For this show, I was particularly nervous because I wanted to make sure that the first reGen show my parents saw was a great experience. The show went pretty well, and the crowd was very receptive. We saw many of the students from the school show, which was nice because they got to see the full production.

Mom and Dad loved the show! While it could have been cleaner at points, I'm just glad they finally got to see TP in action. Almost three years of hearing about rehearsals and tours, but now they got to experience the show!

It was so nice to be back in the Pac. NW and to see my parents, but it was also nice to return to LA and SoCal. I'll always love going home to Portland, but my taiko family is here in LA!