Tawoo Rhythm 2016

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English: This year Tawoo and Gocoo turned 20 years old, so the annual taiko festival of Tawoo „Tawoo Rhythm“, which is already a great event, turned into a big birthday party! With 168 performers on stage, many fantastic teams of Tawoo Dojo, the partner dojos in Hokkaido, Ise and Germany (the German team was only Ingmar this time, supported only by Bea from Kion Dojo…), Usagi Daiko and Gocoo. It was so great to be there and to celebrate this wonderful world of taiko that Kaoly Asano and everyone who supported her has created over the years!

Taiko and Community

Last Sunday I went to a rehearsal in Tawoo Dojo again after a long time. It was a rehearsal of the mens team, that, as you can guess from the name, consists only of men, as a counterweight to the 60-80% of women in Tawoo Dojo. What the mens team is really good at, is to create a very energetic taiko, by using a very powerful way of playing and lot’s of voice and shouting. It lets other taiko performances look – sorry to say this – relatively comatose, I’m saying this without exaggeration. And for this team it’s not embarrassing at all, to be seen as bawling soccer fans… at least that’s what members of Kion Dojo said, when I showed them a video of the mens team many years ago. Of course there is only little connection between soccer and taiko (or maybe more than I am pleased to know). It is hard to do anything against associations, that come up, when people experience something for the first time. And the first thing, that came to the minds of the Kion members, when they heard the singing and shouting members of the mens team (including me), were the sport fans, with (almost) the same level of musicality… I was angry about that kind of interpretation of the mens team in those days, since I had felt a completely different joy as a member of the mens team than when watching soccer. But know, by knowing more about cultural differences, I can understand their reactions better. Well sure, the Tawoo men play taiko just a little less gracefully than the Tawoo women.

Taiko und Gemeinschaft

Am Sonntag war ich nach langer Zeit wieder bei einer Tawoo-Probe in Japan. Es war eine Mens-Probe, ein Team, wie der Name schon sagt, das nur aus Männern besteht, ein Gegengewicht zu den ansonsten 60-80% Frauen, die im Tawoo Dojo trommeln. Was das Mens-Team besonders gut kann, ist mit einer äußerst kraftvollen Spielweise und überdurchschnittlich viel Einsatz der Stimme ein unglaublich energisches Taiko zu erschaffen, das zahlreiche andere Taiko-Auftritte, mit Verlaub, wie komatös gespielt aussehen lässt, ich übertreibe nicht! Und es ist diesem Team so gar nicht peinlich, manchmal wie grölende Fussballfans rüberzukommen, so hatten es jedenfalls ein mal Kion Dojo-Mitglieder aufgenommen, als ich ihnen vor vielen Jahren ein mal ein Video des Mens-Teams vorführte. Natürlich besteht nur wenig direkter Zusammenhang zwischen Fußball und Taiko (oder vielleicht doch mehr als mir lieb ist?), jedenfalls lässt sich schwer etwas gegen Assoziationen tun, die sich bei der Rezeption einer Sache bei Menschen automatisch einstellen. Und das erste was den Kion-Mitgliedern eben einfiel, als sie die singenden und rufenden Männer (mich eingeschlossen) von Tawoo hörten, waren eben die nur geringfügig minder musikalischen Sport-Anhänger. Ich ärgerte mich damals über diese Interpretation der Kion-Mitglieder, ich hatte doch meine Teilnahme im Männer-Team mit einer ganz anderen Freude als beim Fußball empfunden, inzwischen kann ich das aber durch einen neuen Blick auf kulturelle Unterschiede besser nachvollziehen. Klar, die Tawoo-Männer gehen auch wirklich etwas weniger grazil an die Taiko als die Tawoo-Frauen..

New possibilities for taiko in Europe

The first European Taiko Conference took place in February 2016 in Newton Abbot in England. Over 60 participants from taiko groups from all over Europe and other countries  gathered and exchanged their experiences with taiko and played the drums together.

When I started with taiko in 2001, an event like the „ETC“ was not at all in our imagination. Although there was taiko activity in Hamburg before my first group Tengu Daiko started, whose members where mainly Japanology students at that time, Tengu Daiko was the first performance group in Hamburg, and probably one of only a few groups in northern Germany. A different situation than in other styles of music or for example martial arts, where groups, schools and teachers already exist nearby, so there are many possibilities to learn an art form.

Beobachtungen bei der Europäischen Taiko Konferenz

Ich habe bei der European Taiko Conference in England viele (natürlich nicht nur) junge Taiko-Spieler getroffen. Viele dieser Spieler waren von den lokalen Gruppen Kagemusha Taiko, oder zugehörigen Gruppe Tano Taiko, also waren die Gastgeber der Konferenz.

Alle diese jungen Taiko-Spieler, Jugendliche oder junge Erwachsene Anfang 20, waren hervorragend gute Trommler, aber das war nicht das, was mich am meisten beeindruckte. Vielmehr war es ihre Aufrichtigkeit, Hilfsbereitschaft, ihre Offenheit, Neugier und Kontaktfreude! Sie halfen wie selbstverständlich beim Transport der Taikos während der Konferenz, sie sprachen fremde Menschen ohne Schüchternheit an und kamen mit ihnen ins Gespräch, und ihr Selbstbewusstsein trat aus ihren Gesichtern deutlich hervor!

Taiko Conference Observations

At the European Taiko Conference in England I met a lot of (not only) young taiko players. Many of those young players were from the local groups Kagemusha Taiko and Tano Taiko, who were the hosts of the conference.

All of these young drummers, around the age of 20, were fantastic skilled drummers, but that wasn’t the part, that impressed me most. It was their sincerity, their helpfulness, their openness and curiosity. They helped out moving drums around during the conference, talked to strangers without hesitation and their confidence could be clearly seen in the expression of their faces.

Young people can often be seen, sunken into the screens of their smartphones, even if they are sitting together in a café, unable to recognize the virtues of real communication opposed to digital communication. I’m sure that’s not only a phenomenon in Germany, but in many countries of the world. That doesn’t only relate to young people, but as the younger generations grew up with mobile phones and later smartphones, and never experienced a time without those devices, it’s more difficult for them to see their negative sides.

The young members of Kagemusha Taiko, although they owned smartphones of course, they almost never fell into smartphone zombie mode. Instead they chatted, danced, played games and just had a wonderful time with everybody.

This is just a small example, but there were also many other aspects of their behavior, that showed that these were young adults, that many parents or teachers probably would have loved to see as a result of their efforts in education.

But it must not (or not only) have been school, or their parents, that were responsible for the optimistic nature of these young people, there must have been a connection to them playing and learning taiko together in a group! Through Taiko Jonathan Kirby is able to communicate values. That’s something many school teachers of religious education and similar subjects struggle to achieve when they discuss with their students in class.

So what’s the difference? I can only guess. But I suppose that the determining difference is, that playing Taiko is just simple fun, opposed to debating around about values and behavior. Taiko offers practical challenges that give you an opportunity to learn, and it can’t work without teamwork! Through his taiko program at schools, that Jonathan has been doing for a long while, he probably could have much more positive influence on these young people, than he could ever have through teaching French (I’m sure, he wasn’t such a bad French teacher either though!).

Jonathan, you have my greatest respect for your success in not only teaching nice rhythms, but „making possible“ (rather than „teaching“) much more than that!

Taiko kann man nicht können

Es gibt, nachdem man mit einer Taiko-Gruppe irgendwo aufgetreten ist, immer wieder ähnliche Fragen aus dem Publikum. Sie wiederholen sich häufig, weil ganz einfach Taiko bei den meisten Menschen, die es zum ersten Mal sehen ganz ähnliche Assoziationen oder Fragen auslöst.

Ich bemühe mich natürlich, diese Fragen freundlich zu beantworten, und so, als hätte ich sie noch nie gehört.

Welcher Taiko-Spieler kennt diese Fragen nicht?

Frage: „Das kann man aber nicht unbedingt in der Mietwohnung üben?“
Antwort: „Doch doch, jeden Abend 18:00 bis 24:00 Uhr, ich habe verständnisvolle Nachbarn und ihnen eine Runde Ohrstöpsel geschenkt.“

Frage: „Das ist aber ganz schön anstrengend was Sie da machen.“
Antwort: „Jupp, aber es macht Spaß, weil es anstrengend ist!“

Frage: „Wie lange braucht man denn, bis man das kann?“
Antwort: „ääääh, hmmm“