{"id":3001,"date":"2015-03-06T10:45:43","date_gmt":"2015-03-06T01:45:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kodo.or.jp\/blog_en\/?p=3001"},"modified":"2015-03-06T10:47:33","modified_gmt":"2015-03-06T01:47:33","slug":"some-lessons-i-have-learned-from-north-american-taiko-groups-by-tomohiro-mitome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.kodo.or.jp\/blog_en\/posts-by-kodo-ensemble-leader\/20150306_3001.html","title":{"rendered":"“Some Lessons I Have Learned from North American Taiko Groups” by Tomohiro Mitome"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Mar. 1, 2015<\/p>\n

Hello, everyone! How are you all doing?<\/p>\n

This is Tomohiro Mitome<\/a>, leader of taiko performing arts ensemble Kodo.<\/p>\n

March is here and it is getting\u00a0warmer and more comfortable day by day. While we are happy that spring has arrived, some of us are unfortunately suffering from hayfever here at Kodo Village.<\/p>\n

The “Kodo One Earth Tour 2015: Mystery” North America\u00a0Tour<\/a> started at\u00a0the end of January and is now over halfway through its two-month-long journey. In North America, there are many people who have been very kind and helpful to us since the days\u00a0of Kodo’s antecedent group, “Sado no Kuni Ondekoza,” in the 70’s. They are members of taiko groups in the USA and Canada.<\/p>\n

\"Photo:<\/a>

At one of the 2005 North America tour performances<\/p><\/div>\n

I heard a lot of stories about North American taiko groups from senior Kodo members\u00a0before I had even joined Kodo, many of which are featured in the Kodo 30th Anniversary Publication Inochi Moyashite, Tatakeyo \u2013 30 Years of Kodo –<\/span>\u00a0(in Japanese)<\/a>. In this blog post, I am going to write about my own personal experiences. I was last on tour in North America about eight years ago. At that time, I recall that their style of\u00a0taiko featured traditions that had been passed down for generations\u00a0and in addition, a new “North American taiko style” was beginning to emerge.<\/p>\n

\"Photo:<\/a><\/p>\n

In Kodo’s early years, our ensemble toured in\u00a0North America every year and the local taiko groups at each performance destination helped us so much\u00a0and welcomed Kodo with great warmth.\u00a0Among those many groups, one in particular, San Jose Taiko\u00a0in California, even let us use their rehearsal space to store our stage props and tour equipment.<\/p>\n

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\nRecently, both San Jose Taiko and Kodo have experienced a shift in generations, and now Kodo’s senior members don’t go abroad on tour very much. So, one year San Jose Taiko organized a time for us to sit down together in a circle and talk to\u00a0each other (pictured above). They arranged this opportunity because they felt that it was necessary for us to reignite our\u00a0communication and exchange,\u00a0in order to\u00a0understand more about each group’s history, about taiko, about the Japanese-American community in the U.S., and to discuss the past, present and future ties between Kodo and San Jose Taiko.<\/p>\n

When we visited them and watched them\u00a0rehearse, I was very impressed by their solid etiquette and good manners, such as bowing\u00a0before they stood on the tatami mats and began their practice. Kodo can\u00a0practice any time, so we did not create\u00a0a “boundary line” like that to shift\u00a0our mindset before our\u00a0practices. But\u00a0now, since experiencing that, we have changed our own habits and now we create the right environment and mindset when we begin our practises, for example, by\u00a0putting on\u00a0tabi<\/span>\u00a0(split-toed socks or shoes). That visit made me realize that they really treasure their Japanese identity and uphold their\u00a0Japanese culture and spirit by passing it on to new generations.<\/p>\n

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Pictures from North America Tour in 2005. (Former Kodo member Kaoru Watanabe is in the middle of the picture above.)<\/p><\/div>\n

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When we go abroad, we need to have\u00a0sound knowledge of Japanese culture so that we can explain it to others, but that\u00a0is no easy task. We recognize a lot about ourselves during our\u00a0overseas tours by\u00a0comparing the differences between\u00a0our cultures and lifestyles. One thing I noticed is\u00a0that in Japan we\u00a0are good at arranging different foreign culture, such as cuisine, to best suit Japanese people.<\/p>\n

I hope that the 2015 North America tour members have been discovering and learning\u00a0many things on this tour, too.<\/p>\n

\"tomohiro_s\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"20150127oet\"<\/a><\/p>\n

“Kodo One Earth Tour 2015: Mystery” North America Tour<\/strong>
\nhttp:\/\/www.kodo.or.jp\/oet\/index_en.html#schedule13a<\/a><\/p>\n

\u25bcPromotion Video for Kodo One Earth Tour: Mystery at BAM<\/a>
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