Fly on the wall: Hear Taiko roar

I always find it embarrassing to catch myself in a situation where my preconceived notions of a campus group color my expectations of their performance. Such an instance occurred recently when the members of Princeton Tora Taiko stood solemnly in Woolworth Music Center for a hybrid moment of prayer and calisthenics in meticulous preparation for their weekend rehearsal.

Co-presidents and founding members Julie Han ’12 and Max Manzanarez ’12 had just explained to me that Taiko is a style of Japanese ensemble drumming. Back in Japan, the art is generally associated with colorful varieties of traditional theater, such as Noh and Kabuki. For many Japanese, the powerful rhythms of Taiko performances are also tied inextricably to Buddhist ceremonies and Shinto festivals. These religious roots explain the drummers’ tradition of bowing to the circle of drums and muttering a prayer in Japanese before any rehearsal.

A recent boom in popularity stateside, however, has seen Taiko depart from strictly religious and theatrical contexts. Student troupes on the West Coast have transformed it into an exciting and independent musical tradition that instead focuses on the drummers. While maintaining the traditional nature of the performance, they have been able to emphasize the music rather than the content that it supports. These Taiko drummers, like their Japanese inspirations, use enormous wooden drums that can sometimes accommodate several performers at once.

Because such drums are outrageously expensive, Princeton’s Tora Taiko drummers have adapted in a characteristically resourceful way. Although they share two authentic drums, the rest of their inventory is composed of tape-covered trashcans whose timbre and resonance sound remarkably similar to their wooden cousins’. The club also has ambitions of making their own drums from scratch; such adaptations are indicative of the wave of innovation that has swept American Taiko. Recently, students and teachers alike have also been fusing Taiko with seemingly disparate Western musical styles like jazz and hip-hop.

Such innovators include Kaoru Watanabe and Noriko Manabe, who taught a course together at Princeton in fall 2010. Han describes the course as a formative one; it inspired her and classmates to start Princeton Tora Taiko. The course covered the role that Taiko has played in Asian-American youth culture. Americans of Japanese, Korean and Chinese descent have latched onto the art as a way to express themselves musically outside the tradition of Western classical music.

Additionally, the course’s prerequisites had demanded that applicants be physically fit. Such was evident during the group’s warmups, which consisted of stretches, lunging, squats and gyrations that seemed more commonplace at Dillon than Woolworth.

Regardless, I was still surprised when this eclectic group of shy students — they were not all Japanese music majors as I had expected — began to play. Words cannot accurately portray what it is like to experience a Taiko performance. With incredible precision, these previously quiet students beat away ruthlessly at the assortment of traditional drums and slapdash trashcans until all of Woolworth seemed to quake. I felt, at first, intimidated and assaulted, but those feelings eventually gave way to admiration for their strength and dedication to Taiko; the discipline clearly required a physical and mental determination that seems more appropriate for martial arts than music.

Despite Taiko’s simplicity, it is unexpectedly aggressive, jarring, bellicose and provocative. I felt as though I was intruding upon something both spiritual and intimate at Tora Taiko’s rehearsal; unlike other groups’ musical performances, this activity seemed to be a pure passion of its performers. It was spontaneously natural and carefully calculated. Whatever the impression you get from Princeton Tora Taiko, I can guarantee that members’ passionate precision will not disappoint and that they will surprise you at every turn.