Friday Night

After our exciting day, becca and I drove to Takefu to meet peaches, rob, matt and sarah to go off to see a taiko performance. Taiko is traditional Japanese drumming which used to be performed to motivate troops before war. I attempt to play the drums in my Wednesday lessons. It is really exhilarating and a good work out too. However, until you see Kodo, you cannot understand quite how out of this world Taiko can be. Kodo is the name of the group and it means ‘heartbeat’ or ‘children of the drum’ depending on your translation. Both of these are very fitting. It has been stated that children in the audience have fallen asleep due to the rhythms belted out by these drummers! Which is hard to believe considering how loud it is, but apparently the rhythms are soothing for children. The group originated in 1981, and today it has 48 members who all live on the famous Sado Island off of the west coast of Japan. These are not just any old drummers though. Firstly they train day and night to be the athletes that they are. Secondly, they can sing and play other musical instruments such as the wooden flute (fue) and the shamisen. Thirdly these men (and women actually) eat, sleep, walk, dream, live drumming. They are pure drumming machines.

When we arrived at the venue there were lots of eagerly waiting fans of kodo ready for the performance (including some other tsruga gaijin). We then found out that we had to take part in some ridiculous queueing up with specific numbers game- which only the Japanese could enforce. We were all made to wait outside until our numbers were called, but the thing was, there were seats not filled and the whole painful ordeal was ridiculously unnecessary and infuriated us! Anyway, the performance made up for it… although we were numbers 280 upwards, we managed to sit two rows back from the stage. We were all in such a state of excitement after seeing the artistic posters and hearing good reports, the performance began by the drummers entering from a side door in the theatre. That initial noise of the first beats of the drum are awesome. It is so loud and it just shoots through your entire body. The drummers were dressed in black and white robes, with white headbands, and the white socks becca is strangely obsessed with! They also wore the biggest smiles I think I have seen in Japan!
The next hour and forty minutes was exhilarating and I don’t think I can really convey the whole body experience that the show has. You cannot help but sit there open mouthed, amazed at the speed, strength and synchronicity of their drumming. You cannot help tapping your feet occasionally to the beats ringing in your brain. The drummers took it in turns to perform, and they created such original and creative pieces. Some of it was funny, some of it was mesmerizing and some was just pure intense, loud banging! For some of the performances, the drummers were arranged in the most painful positions where they still executed genius drumming. On one occasion they were crouched down, and in another they were practically lying on the floor whilst drumming. They truly are athletes. Their muscles were out of this world. There was not a mm of fat anywhere on these bodies. Just ripple upon ripple. And as the show progressed we got to see more of these ripples as more clothes were removed. Three of the men were now simply dressed in the mawashi (the white cloth nappy type thing worn by sumos). Amazing- obviously in artistic appreciative way. We were so close that we saw sweat running down their bodies and the pained grimaces on their faces as they focused on ignoring the pain they were enduring. Towards the end of the show two of the drummers used a large O-daiko which is made from the trunk of a large, African Bubinga tree. Its heads, each measure over one meter in diameter, are made from the hide of one large cow. The weight of the drum together with the stand (yatai) on which it rests is a staggering 400 kg. (882 lbs.).
At the end of the show, the audience was on its feet and left amazed and actually shaking with adrenaline! We went into the foyer talking nonstop about how great it was. Sarah was brave enough to ask to meet one of the drummers and sure enough we got to meet him and have our photo taken with him. The icing on the cake.
I know I have reiterated how amazing I thought they were but it really isn’t an exaggeration! This group travel around the world and here are some of the comments from press:

‘There is a strain of
peace that flows through the almost terrifying din, and the perfect control
of these artists removes any sense of tension.’

Dynamic, electrifying vision ....Nothing will prepare you for the 1,000 lb.
drum assault, the precise timing or the wall of sound. An essential
experience."


I think you get the picture……

After the show, we all headed to a scrummy yummy packed out Italian/Japanese restaurant in Takefu. The food was yum and the price wasn’t bad either. Then Jordana and I meandered home back to her flat to rest before our weekend adventure in Kyoto.