Double Performance and New Videos

Performance at 2010 Michigan Japan Quiz Bowl (University of Michigan)

Last weekend was pretty busy for Raion Taiko. We had two performances on Saturday and a rehearsal all afternoon on Sunday.

First we had a short, but exciting performance in one of the large lecture halls in the Modern Languages building on the campus of University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.  This was a short entertainment break for students from all over Michigan who had traveled to participate in the Michigan Japan Quiz Bowl competition. We performed a 15 minute set right before the final rounds. It was a quick performance, but when your audience is packed full of teenagers excited about all things Japan, you can't help but feed off their energy. We really enjoyed performing for them.

A few more pictures from the Quiz Bowl performance.

After the Japan Quiz Bowl performance, we quickly packed up our drums, loaded them back into the cars and headed over a few blocks to East Hall for the U of M Japan Student Association's spring festival.  There we had 30 minutes to play, so we added a couple extra songs.  It was kind of a cool place to play. We performed in an atrium with a high ceiling.  Here, as well, the audience was filled with guests who were interested in and enthusiastic about Japan. Even some of the teachers and students from the quiz bowl made their way over to watch our performance. We enjoyed playing for the guests here as well, although we hope we didn't bother the tea ceremony demonstration too much. (The serenity of the tea Ceremony and the high energy of taiko do not necessarily go together that well.)

These shows were quite different from the large production we put on last month in Marshall.  The show in Marshall was definitely enjoyable, but there was quite a lot of pressure and stress in putting it altogether.  The large productions are really fulfilling when you see it all come together, but these short performances are also enjoyable.

Still, if you missed our performance in Marshall last month, I finally have gotten around to getting some videos of it up on YouTube. (Thanks largely to the efforts of Tom, one of Raion Taiko's members)

Here are two selections from that performance. Enjoy them and if you like them, don't forget to rate them and leave a comment if you like. 

Here is our version of Yatai Bayashi

and our Encore of Kaga Mushi Okuri

More should follow in the not too distant future.

Marshall Middle School Concert

Raion Taiko

Marshall Middle School Concert, February 20, 2010

"Matsuri"

お疲れ様でした！Wow! What a weekend! What a week, for that matter.  Saturday, Raion Taiko held our first major concert (almost 2 hours long) at Marshall Middle School, in Marshall, MI.  That's quite an accomplishment considering that we only just started practicing together last November.

We arrived in Marshall around 1 PM to unload and set up.  Marshall Middle School has quite an old building, but it seems to be well taken care of, so it was very nice building, with a fairly impressive auditorium for a middle school.

The view from the stage. I wonder if we can fill up all the seats?

The reason for putting on this concert was as a fundraiser for some students who will be traveling to Japan in May. The more tickets they sold, the more money they raised for themselves. They had hoped to sell out the auditorium, which olds over 800 people.  Unfortunately, since this was really our first major performance, we don't quite have the drawing power to sell that many tickets. Most people are still saying, "Raion Taiko? Who? What is taiko, anyway?" Hopefully our performance on Saturday began to answer some of those questions.  In the end, however, we were only able to bring in somewhere around 150 (?) people.

Whether it was 100 people or 800 people, our goal was to give them an enjoyable evening.  Based on the reaction at the end of the show, I believe we accomplished that.  We had hardly finished playing the final note and there were calls from the audience for "One more! One more!" I can't tell you how happy that made us feel.  Although there are many parts of our performance where we wish we could have played better, we our pleased that the audience enjoyed themselves. We had a good time, too.

The Encore - "Kaga Mushi Okuri"

We were all fairly exhausted after a big performance like this. Here is what our day was like:

9 - 10:30 taiko class at our Novi studio

11:00 leave for Marshall

12:45 arrive at Marshall Middle School and unload truck

1:15 場ミリ - marking stage locations for drums

"Move it just a little more to the right." Doing "Bamiri" before the run-through.

3:30 - 5:15 Rehearsal, program run-through

5:15 - 5:45 dinner

Backstage getting ready

6:30 - 8:30 Concert!

Miyake Taiko

9:00 Pack up

9:30 depart for studio

11:00 miss exit on freeway add an extra 30 min onto travel time

11:45 arrive at Novi studio and unload

12:30 AM Bedtime

 After we finally got home, I said to Mayumi, "No wonder we're so tired, including the run-through, we actually played two full concerts today.  But just think, groups like Yamato or Kodo have this kind of schedule nearly every day!" I think she may have been asleep before I finished what I was saying, though.

Great job everyone. Thank you to the members of Raion Taiko: Tom, Eileen and Larry; Thank you to our families who all helped us out in getting this show together and thank you to the staff and students in Marshall who hosted us.  We all had a great time. 

See you next year!

See the rest of the pictures from the concert in the photo gallery:

Marshall Middle School Taiko Concert

A New Year

2009 is coming to a close in just a few more days.  I think I will remember this year as a transitional year for us.  We made the move back to Michigan from Kanazawa, bringing with us our taiko drums.  Much of the first half of the year was spent making preparations for that move.  This fall we have kept ourselves busy with settling in and getting organized. It's been quite a year, with a fair amount of uncertainties, but nearly the same amount of excitement about all that we hope to accomplish in the coming year.

Since we returned in the fall we have had a few small performances, given a few group lessons, help support a group in Detroit get a taiko program off the ground, set up a studio, held an open house and expanded the members of Raion Taiko from two to five! (We'll have to introduce them soon.)

So far 2010 looks to be an exciting and promising one.  We are on track to start a couple classes at the end of January.  We just set up a page with information about when and what type of classes we will be offering. Please take a look at the Taiko Classes page for more information. If you are interested in enrolling, be sure to send us an email to let us know (raion.taiko@gmail.com).

There are also several performances coming up for Raion Taiko. We have confirmed performances in January, February, March, June and several more in the works.  The January and February performance details are posted on our Performances page and the others will be put up as details are worked out. Please stop by and check out the dates and if we're performing in your neck of the woods, we would love to have you come out and see us.

Wondering what you might see if you come out?  Here is a little clip from our last practice.  We still have a lot of work to do and we haven't even made all the stands that we require for certain songs, but that's alright.  Just remember, these are works in progress. 

"Why the towels?" you ask? Of course, it is to cut down on the sound. Good for our eardrums and the neighbors.  Still, I hope we won't always have to play with towels on the drums.

Happy New Year everyone! See you in 2010!

Open Studio Report

Greetings!  無事に終わりました！this past weekend we held a successful "Open Studio" at our Warehouse-Studio-Practice space in Novi.  From 1:30 - about 5:00 PM we opened our doors to anyone who was interested in learning more about taiko. 

I'm terrible about estimating numbers of people, but over those 3.5 hours, I think we had about 100 guests.  The guests came from all over.  They were friends, neighbors colleagues and people who learned of us through our website, or through the recent article in the local Japanese newspaper in Detroit.  (Thank you Japan News Club for your help and support!)  Some guests even traveled from three hours away just to be there!  (Glad you made the trip, E.G.) Thank you to everyone who came out to the open house, and a special thanks to Eileen Ho, and my parents, who worked multiple roles as baby sitters, greeters and answering questions.  We couldn't have done it without you.

During the open house we had three mini-performances and two mini-workshops.  Once again, I was reminded of one of the reasons I am so drawn to taiko, and one of its most enjoyable aspects.  That is the joy that it brings to other people. Sure, I suppose there are some people who probably wouldn't enjoy listening to loud drums, but almost everyone that I have encountered really enjoys taiko, whether they are watching a performance or learning to play.  As we did our mini-performances and taught the mini-workshops I saw happy, excited faces, from 3 year old toddlers to grandparents.  It is wonderful to feel that you are bringing happiness to so many people.  I can hardly wait to begin the classes.

Speaking of classes, for those of you who expressed an interest in beginning classes in January, we will be contacting you shortly in order to determine class sizes and times.  In the meantime, please enjoy some photos from Saturday's event...

More photos can be found in our photo albums.

Open Studio, Next Saturday (Dec. 12)

Greetings.  I'm wondering whose idea it was to host an open studio in the middle of the holiday season.  My head is really starting to hurt from trying to keep up with a job, get ready for Christmas, take the kids Christmas shopping and prepare to have an open studio next Saturday.

I just spent the afternoon preparing this video to advertise the event:

Something I thought would take 20 minutes ended up taking the whole afternoon.  Therefore, there is not quite as much time for a detailed blog entry.  So just a reminder to stop by next Saturday if you can and visit.  The schedule (and the same video from above) are on the front page of the website.

In other news, we've received our first "Press".  We are very pleased to be featured in the December edition of the Japan News 倶楽部 newspaper.  A Japanese language newspaper from the Detroit area.  A reporter from the paper, Ms. Masuta, and several of her friends came buy a few weeks ago for a trial lesson and interview.  We had a good time and Masuta san wrote up a nice article about us and our plans for taiko in Michigan. 

There is a PDF file of the article on the taiko resources page of our website.  I will also post a link to the PDF file here.  If you are prompted to choose a program to open the file, choose Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Even if you cannot read Japanese, there are a few pictures for you to look at.

Japan News Club Article (日本語)

Great Lakes Taiko Center がノバイ市を拠点に活動開始

Many Thanks again to Masuta san for the article.  I hope we will see a lot of people there.