Drum beat goes on for San Jose Taiko
- September 9, 2010
I’m trying to imagine what it was like the first time San Jose Taiko performed in Japan in 1987.
The audience must have been expecting the kind of dignified, almost somber kumidaiko, or Japanese drum ensemble, that they were used to hearing at street festivals. After all, the performers from San Jose looked Japanese. The barrel-like taiko drums they rolled onto the stage resembled those played in the Imperial Japanese court centuries ago.
But from the first thundering drum beat, with its mix of Latin, jazz and African rhythms, it was clear that this was not Japanese taiko drumming; it was something entirely different. It was American: joyous, exuberant, colorful, sassy.
"We weren't sure how the people there would react," recalled Roy Hirabayashi, who formed San Jose Taiko in 1973. "We looked Japanese, but we spoke like Americans. And yet the response was incredible."
A new art form
That was when Hirabayashi and his ebullient wife, PJ, both third-generation Californians, realized that what began as a search for their cultural roots had become a new international art form. The Japanese taiko community dubbed it "California sunshine."
Roy and PJ have been spreading California sunshine for 37 years and have built a world-renowned teaching and performing organization that is a mainstay of the local arts community. Now, as they turn 60, they have decided it's time to step down.
"Sixty is a significant number, so this seemed like the right time to start a new chapter in our lives," PJ said. They hope to perform together, give workshops, travel and perhaps do some consulting. "We're not going anywhere," she stressed.
They will be turning San Jose Taiko over to two of the lead performers in the 20-member company, General Manager Wisa Uemura and her husband, Associate Artistic Director Franco Imperial.
Tonight, in the company's annual Rhythm Spirit concert at the Campbell Heritage Theatre, the foursome will perform a piece Roy wrote called "Transitions." It opens with PJ in a solo ballet, beating the drum to Roy's haunting flute melody, and ends with the founders literally passing the baton to their successors.
For fans of San Jose Taiko, it will be an emotional moment.
Taiko pioneers
You may know the story of San Jose Taiko. The Rev. Hiroshi Abiko of the San Jose Buddhist Church wanted to create a taiko group to introduce kids to their heritage. Roy, then a student at San Jose State University who knew nothing about traditional Japanese music, was one of two church youth leaders who got it going with help from the only taiko groups in America, one in San Francisco and one in Los Angeles. They made drums from old wine barrels (French oak is the best, Roy says) and performed in bell bottoms and platform shoes.
PJ had known Roy at Cal State Hayward and went to one of the first concerts. A trained dancer who had just returned from a year in Japan, she was hooked on Roy and on taiko.
"It was a time when we young Asian-Americans were searching for our cultural identity," she said. "I thought, 'Wow, this could be fun.' "
And it has been fun, as well as a lot of hard work. Teaching, composing, planning concerts, performing. PJ designed the group's colorful hopi jackets and headbands. Roy wrote songs and ran the Japantown office. They have toured Europe, Asia, Canada and Mexico, helping to turn taiko into an art form that is no longer only Japanese or only Japanese-American, but truly international.
"We're almost as ubiquitous as sushi -- maybe not quite," PJ says.
No, not quite. But on their recent European tour, the Hirabayashis did run into a former student who had started a taiko group in England and had been going strong for 11 years.
I'm trying to imagine what that group sounds like: California sunshine with a touch of London fog?
Read article: