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!

Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles Performance

As the last 2 posts stated... we had a very busy Saturday last weekend. Not only did we have a gig with 30 Seconds to Mars and a birthday gig in San Francisco, we had a performance for the Episcopal Diocese of LA.

The performance was at the Long Beach Arena where they had an event for the consecration of the new bishops. There were lots of performances and it was quite a large event!

This gig also included some Bombu Taiko and Kitsune Taiko members! It's not TOO often that we get to all perform together, so it was a lot of fun!

We played two songs. The first one we played was "Here We Go Now" and we walked from the back of the audience and through the middle aisle. Then, we played a short arrangement of Many Sides. :)

And here we are!!!! Kevin, Jenny, Courtney, Kerry, Kate, Christy, Bryan, Claire, me, and Junko!

Right after the performance, Bryan, Courtney, Kevin, and Jenny rushed off to the 30 Seconds to Mars gig! You can read about that 2 posts down!!

Short trip to the Bay

This past weekend was definitely one of the busiest weekends that TAIKOPROJECT has had in a while. We had three separate performances packed into a single day as separate teams played at the Long Beach Arena, The Cliff House and The Greek Theatre throughout the day.

The San Fransisco team had an early start on Saturday morning as Darren, Emily, Brian and I met up at 3am and started heading up towards the bay. We arrived in SF a little after 10:30am at The Cliff House. The Cliff House is a beautiful restaurant that sits atop a cliff overlooking the Bay. It's been around since 1963 and we heard that they have a fantastic brunch menu...yum! The event was for Ted's 80th Birthday and we had a great time performing for all the guests. Thank you to Bobby, Ted's grandson, for bringing us out! As we were getting ready to go on stage that day, I received a text from Bryan saying that the Long Beach team was just about ready to perform too. Those performances may have marked the 1st time that 2 separate TAIKOPROJECT performances were going on at the exact same time =)

That evening, we all wanted to go out to explore and enjoy the city, but ended up all passing out in Emily's sister's living room (Thanks Kim for letting us crash at your place!) The next morning, we got up early to catch some dim sum in Chinatown, made a quick stop in Jtown, then headed back to LA to reunite with the rest of the group.