|
Crossings
Portland
Taiko with guest composer and artist Kenny Endo and guest
artists Obo Addy and Jeffrey Peyton
Portland
Center for
the Performing Arts, Newmark Theatre, 1111 SW Broadway,
224-8499. 8 pm Friday and Saturday, Sept. 8 and 9. $17.50-$23.50.
Portland
Taiko is
the only taiko ensemble in the Northwest and one
of the few full-time groups in the country.
NPR's
Morning Edition will air a
special segment on the upcoming performance.
|
|
According to Japanese legend, Amaterasu, the sun goddess who
brought the sun and light to the earth, was provoked by her
competitive brother Suzano into a test of power. Amaterasu
won the struggle, but the hotheaded Suzano trashed the heavens
in a rage. Disgusted, Amaterasu hid herself away in a cave,
plunging the world into darkness, which continued until one
clever earth dweller turned over a washtub and beat on it
to coax her out. Thus the first taiko, or drum, was
born. When the taiko summons her at the close of winter
each year, the goddess emerges.
It's a story the members of Portland Taiko, the Northwest's
only Asian-American drum ensemble, often tell. For co-founders
Ann Ishimaru and Zachary Semke, ties to the 2,000-year-old
tradition of Taiko are essential in their contemporary expression
of the art form.
It's paying off for the six-year-old group: Portland Taiko
was selected as the Oregon representative of Continental
Harmony, a national project of the American Composers Forum
and National Endowment for the Arts. A representative organization
from each state in the country was selected to commission
a work by a contemporary composer. In the midst of the classical
choral groups and chamber music squads, Portland Taiko emerges
as an against-the-grain choice.
Founded in 1994, Portland Taiko is relatively late to the
table.
"We're a third-generation group," says Semke, alluding
to the heritage of contemporary Taiko. He and his wife Ishimaru,
both in their late 20s, met as music students in high school.
As they clip each other's sentences and glance back and
forth at each other, their decade-old bond is evident. Together
they tell the story of Taiko's history.
Since the 1950s, "new" Taiko, or kumidaiko--has
surged far beyond its prior role as accompaniment to religious
and social ceremonies. Today the form melds unison-percussion
passages with synchronized movement into a whole other realm,
resembling a musical martial art. Taiko took hold in this
country in the 1960s, says Ishimaru, when young Japanese-Americans
hit upon it as a means of expressing who they were.
The music, she adds, offered a means of coming to terms
with the perception of shame that Japanese-American citizens
inherited after internment during World War II. "It's very
loud and powerful," she says. "It encourages a political
voice, not letting injustices stand."
"The Continental Harmony acceptance is the culmination
of six years of hard work," says Semke.
It's also an artistic validation of Taiko. "We can approach
Kenny from a Western viewpoint, as a composer," says Ishimaru,
"which is so important in acknowledging Taiko as a significant
art form."
"Kenny" is Kenny Endo, the composer whom the group chose
to commission its Continental Harmony work. The L.A.-born
San Francisco-based Taiko guru has done more than any player
in the past 25 years to legitimize the Japanese art in the
States. Though he began his musical life as a jazz drummer,
Endo went on to explore the heritage of the drum, which
then took him to Japan for a decade of study. He became
the only non-Japanese national to earn a natori or
formal stage name for drumming.
Endo's vision went beyond the grant's specs. He devoted
a month to work with the group and stipulated that Portland
Taiko reach out to other artists in the city in a true spirit
of continental harmony. Endo, Semke and Ishimaru chose Portland
Ghanaian master drummer Obo Addy and Third Angle-Oregon
Symphony percussionist Jeffrey Peyton as collaborators.
The result, Wind, Water and Wood, is full of what
the Japanese call nori--what we'd call groove. "There's
funky stuff in it--it's like the jazz of Japan because of
the intricacies of the rhythms, the improvs and the way
that the players work together," explains Ishimura.
The piece incorporates the musical fusion of Endo's contemporary
ensemble and is a departure from Portland Taiko's usual
kumidaiko style. Players interpret the sound of Japanese
wood shutters in the wind, merge Asian and Latin rhythms
and toss downbeats from musician to musician in a practice
called "hocketing" popular in Cuban playing.
It's also a step away from the group's usual synchronous
wave of body and footwork. "We're going to be so focused,"
says Semke in deference to the lack of choreography. "I'm
certain it'll move us into a new phase of work. Where it
will take us is unknown at this point."
|
