Taiko as REAL MUSIC in Tokyo

Not your everyday around-the-corner taiko, this is serious music that challenges the boundaries of ethnic tradition and identity and universal eternal art.
Isaku Kageyama with Daisuke Watanabe and Chris Holland of Amanojaku Tokyo's top taiko group led by master drummer and composer Yoichi Watanabe play in a collaborative concert with Yuu Ishizuka, and Makoto Sekine.
SUN Nov. 28 6 p.m.
at Roppongi SuperDeluxe
3-1-25-B1 Nishi Azabu Minato-ku Tokyo, Japan.
TEL: 03-5412-0515
3,500 yen w/advance reservation.
4,000 yen at the door.

Goals to go for

What I found and was happy to find from taiko drummer Isaku Kageyama and what is the dream of all arists:

I wanted to play at the highest possible level that was humanly imaginable.
I wanted a feeling that somehow the music I was playing was “my own.”

PS to Tadanori Yokoo on Twitter (2)

P.S. to Tadanori Yokoo on Twitter Part Two:
That is not to say that an artist isn't confident of one's value.
If you aren't sure you're worth godzillions of dollars, then you can't be an artist.
You would need to believe that to go on.
Yokoo tweets you just do what you do and then someone comes around who thinks it's great and pays for it.
He started out as a commercial artist and was extremely successful.
And then, in the 1990s he turned his back on all that suddenly and decided to become just an artist.
That's partly why his Twitter pronouncements about getting paid for art hold special meaning.

Tadanori Yokoo on Twitter (part three)

Tadanori Yokoo on Twitter drops names and makes you hungry.
He says Yoko Ohno came by and had sirloin "tonkatsu" in the middle of the day because she is a sizzling greasy hot person, and he himself was a bit worried about heartburn.
He also says Yukio Mishima ate steak at least once a week because he believed that art is about the body, not just the mind, and forgetting the body in art makes you a big-headed wimp.

Tadanori Yokoo on Twitter (part two)

Tadanori Yokoo on Twitter says, if you are doing what you truly believe in, what other people say ("hyoka" or social evaluation/assessment) doesn't matter.
No one really does art to get something back in return.
No one really knows if art is valid or not.
Evaluation/assessment is something that is determined by a commercial market, job contract or social hierarchy.
That's when evaluation/assessment becomes relevant _ and it must be fair and accurate or else someone is getting exploited, which goes contrary to what art is about from the get-go.
But it is important to remember that something monetary, contractual and social is involved in those endeavors in which evaluation/assessment takes meaning.
But art is not a job and has nothing to do with all that.
That is the privilege of art and also the painful difficulties of art.
Art by definition means you will never be properly evaluated.
No one will come pat you on the back and say: hey, your art is great.
Unless it is an evaluation/assessment that makes art commercial, a job or a reflection of social ranking, which isn't really about art at all but something just maybe related to art only in the sense that artists are human and need to eat and pay rent.
That is why doing any commercial marketing activity for your art is a big pain because you have to do it even though it isn't relevant or really meaningful.
At least, even if everyone ignores you and your art, you know you don't care.

The Autobiography of Yoichi Watanabe

Yoichi Watanabe, (photo by Naokazu Oinuma) leader of Tokyo taiko group Amanojaku, is relating his life history and his thoughts on taiko to Isao Tokuhashi and me.
It is a project that has just begun. And a lot of work still awaits.
But it fascinates me for what it promises to deliver in understanding of a great artist, an important era of post-war Japanese creativity and the conceptual and spiritual backbone of modern music called taiko.
Yoichi Watanabe founded Amanojaku in 1987.
But his story _ one man's journey in taiko _ began in the late 1960s, when he was about 10 years old.
He lived through the pioneering years of Tokyo-style taiko, playing with Sukeroku Daiko, founded in 1959 as this city's first professional kumi-daiko troupe.
An excerpt from "The Autobiography of Yoichi Watanabe _ as told to Isao Tokuhashi and Yuri Kageyama":

To be honest, I am not sure anyone would want to read a book about my life.
Besides, 10 years from now, my thoughts are bound to have changed, and I would need to write another book.
But I’ve always wanted to write down a certain philosophy on life that I have arrived at over the years in my own small way.
There is such a thing in life as the correct path _ a “seido.”
I am no different in having pursued what I thought was this correct path for me.
I have been doing it all my life.
I was in fourth grade when I decided I wanted to be a taiko drummer.
And I have never swerved from that path.
And it was just one path.
It was not an easy path, one filled with thorny bushes along the way.
But I have developed a way of looking at life through taiko.
And so this book is not a manual about how to play taiko.
Please look at a DVD or a read a manual textbook for that.
Everyone starts out with a dream, and then many people arrive at another way of life to make a living.
You may want to be a doctor or a pilot. But if you can’t realize that dream, you may have to settle on a more realistic job.
We are supposedly in the worst crisis in a century.
People are all working hard.
Perhaps they would be encouraged to find I have never gone far astray from my path over all these years.
I don’t have anything all that special to say.
It’s very ordinary. It’s no different from everyone else’s dreams.
If you keep yourself open, then you will realize your goal in all its depth and breadth.
That kind of spirit has been lost, this spirit I have strived to pursue all my life.
It’s human to seek the easy way, but I have stuck to the way even if it meant hardships.
If people tell me to go one way, then sometimes I question that and go counter-clockwise.
I have always been a rebel, an Amanojaku.

money for art 2

Hozumi Nakadaira (with Hybrid Soul guitarist Chris Young at a Tokyo gallery, which recently had a retrospective show) has been taking photos of jazz musicians for decades.
His photos of John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington and other legends are a documentation of history _ and gorgeous testaments to their art.
He was one of the few who had bothered to take their photos _ legends making history.
Only the musicians appreciated he was there, snapping away with so much creativity their moments of creativity.
That's amazing.
What's even more amazing, Nakadaira has never made any money off his photos.
Making giant prints for exhibits is very expensive.
He can't sell them because they don't fit in any homes.
He sells smaller prints at a fraction of their cost at a several hundred dollars a piece, or replica post cards at cheaper prices even I can afford.
They don't make up for what he has had to spend on travel to take photos at concerts and clubs around the world.
Nakadaira complains people don't understand photography is art.
They ask to borrow his negatives _ for free _ as though the fruit of hours of effort and talent and work of love is an accidental commodity at a push of a button that can be borrowed and returned.
Nakadaira runs a cafe called "Dug" in Tokyo, where he used to have concerts by musicians you wouldn't expect to hear up so close.
But he had to stop the performances. His neighbors didn't like "the noise."
He still doesn't expect to make money from his photos _ those photos he takes carefully on old-fashioned film, those photos that have become album covers of famous artists, some taken right at Dug, transformed in his photo to a dramatic backdrop that claims its rightful place in the history of art, no longer a tiny, dark basement cafe.
There is no money. But he won't stop.

money for art

This is what I heard from a dancer.
But the biggest stars of Tokyo Butoh troupe Dairakudakan, not just the student dancers, don't ever get paid to perform.
Instead, they must bring in money from outside jobs to a pool of funds that has been set up to support the group's performances and other artistic activities.
So they are paying to dance _ never mind worrying about getting paid to perform.
The question has already been answered.
You dance to dance. That's it.
The dance is separate from livelihood _ which must be dealt with outside of dance.
That's why I think Dairakudan performers exude that absolute confidence.
They look at us with disdain because they know they are pure and we are not.

Isaku gets interviewed

Photo by Naokazu Oinuma.

Isaku gets interviewed on his views on music, identity and the art of AMANOJAKU taiko in Isao Tokuhashi's "My Eyes Tokyo." A Podcast is in the works.

Literature, music and dance Aug. 23 at GAMUSO

A message from organizer David Hoenigman:
Please don't forget PAINT YOUR TEETH vol. 4
Sunday, Aug. 23rd.
Gamuso in Asagaya.
6:30 door opens
A NIGHT OF PUSHING THE ENVELOPE OF LITERATURE, MUSIC AND DANCE
opens with IN MINOTAUR!!! going on at 6:45PM.
still only 1,000 yen ! (including 1 drink so really only 500 yen)

DEFEKTRETTS no boys allowed incarnation of junk machine sound pioneers DEFEKTRO: one dj and two noise makers.

David F. Hoenigman reads from his antinovel in progress "Squeal For Joy"
with a slide show featuring artwork by Yasutoshi Yoshida.

Yuri Kageyama has collaborated with musicians, dancers and visual artists in performances of her poetry. She has read with Ishmael Reed and Shuntaro Tanikawa among many others.

Kei Kunihiro death metal crooner and Internet sensation. 435,540 views and counting!

LIVING ASTRO the Joe Meek adoring rock/sample/synth mutant pop duo.

SHIT _ slapdash assembly of area experimental musicians on a burning ferris wheel: OWKMJ, Taishin Inoue, Ezra Woolnough and many others.

see you there!
David

Neoteny Japan

Bejeweled gourds and intricately decorated dolls from Mayu Kikuchi make for yet another but superbly whimsical statement in Japanese neoteny art.
I asked her why so much of Japanese art looks this way, and she says that's so established these days, that's what sells and what art teachers steer you toward.
"Before, I used to do more grotesque pieces, like a knife stabbing the head," she motions with her hand toward her forehead, smiling, "and then things are spurting out."
She and her mother were selling her lovingly handmade works at an annual summer craft fair in Shiodome, Tokyo.
She has huge dolls, characters from strange tales in her mind, modern-day versions of Bunraku puppets.
Those weren't for sale because they had taken so long to make, said Kikuchi, 25.
Other works weren't quite so priceless.
And so one of her cloth fish and "kokeshi" madames now hang in our living room, swimming with joy and doubt about where they stand in the world of universal art.

A Taiko Quizz

A quizz for taiko-drummers from Isaku Kageyama (found on the Amanojaku Hozonkai Web page):

こんな経験はありませんか？

意気揚々とやぐらに上がったが、途中で音が取れなくなってしまい、焦る気持ちとは裏腹にどんどんズレていく。　踊り手がこちらを見ている！　ヤバイ！

カッコよく盆太鼓が打てるように8月2日、9日は滝野川で17：00-21：30まで盆踊りの稽古をします。　稽古では次のポイントなどをやりますので奮ってご参加ください。

1．　炭坑節が裏に返るところは？

A） Aメロの4小節目　B）Bメロの4小節目　C）炭坑節は裏に返らない　D）炭坑節って何だっけ？

2．　八木節の1バースは何小節？

A） 8小節　B）12小節　C）16小節　D）八木節は小説とかそう言う問題ではない

3.　郡上踊りのテンポは？

A） 55bpm　B）65bpm　C）75bpm　D）85bpm

4.　相馬盆唄や北海盆唄など「盆唄」のテンポは大体95bpm。　これは洋楽のどのジャンルと一緒？

A） ロック　B）ジャズ　C）R&B/ヒップホップ　D）レゲェ

答え合わせは8月2日、9日の稽古で！

The Giant Drum

"Tamashii no Hibiki" ("Soul Beat") by taiko master Yoichi Watanabe (right in above photo), leader of Amanojaku, is a truly beautiful "odaiko" (big taiko) piece.
It is storytelling in percussion _ the talking drum _ at its height Japanese-style.
The video (in the link below) shows how my son Isaku Kageyama played it as a guest at the Tokyo International Taiko Contest.
He won a couple of contests himself with this piece, starting with the 2000 Mount Fuji contest when he became the youngest player at 18 to ever win the honors.
Please go to the site below, scroll down and download "Soul Beat."
It takes a while but I think it's worth the wait.
Video, though, never quite does taiko justice because of the physical sensation of taiko that goes beyond just hearing it _ imagine the walls, your blood veins, the insides of your brain and all the spaces of air around you shaking.

http://www.isakukageyama.com/english/profile/

Suzushi Hanayagi

La Femme à la cafetière
Uploaded by iVoltR

Suzushi Hanayagi in Robert Wilson's "La Femme à la Cafetière" from 1989.
His homage KOOL with Carla Blank opens at the Guggenheim Museum later this month.

So KOOL at the Guggenheim

The first time I met Suzushi Hanayagi, she was in a wheelchair in a home for the elderly, a frail woman with gray hair, who muttered, grunted and smiled, appearing sweetly lost in her own strange world, happily munching on chocolate-covered cookies shaped like mushrooms that her grandson playfully handed her.
During the 1960s, Suzushi Hanayagi _ who looks more robust, determined and focused in the bespectacled shots I have seen of her past _ ventured alone to New York, in a rather unusual act of courage for a Japanese woman of her generation, armed with training in Hanayagi-school and other traditional dance to forge a new form of modern dance with American collaborators.
One of them was Carla Blank, whom I have known for years. When Blank was in Japan about five years ago, she went to visit Suzushi. She was worried. The changes were already starting to show in her friend.
Last year, Carla was back in Japan again, this time with Robert Wilson, to film Suzushi Hanayagi for a Guggenheim Museum performance piece.
I was there, mainly to see Carla and to meet Suzushi whom I had heard so much about.
I have to be honest: I was depressed.
If she had ever been a dynamic artist, I couldn't see a shadow of that in the old woman sitting so innocently in the wheelchair, savoring her cookies, nodding agreement, or approval, to nothing in particular, as though she didn't have a care in the world.
In her prime, Suzushi choreographed pieces for Wilson, performed with Carla in Judson Church and worked with Merce Cunningham, Anna Halprin and Martha Graham. Back in Japan, she performed in avant-garde spaces in Tokyo like Shibuya Jean Jean, but often did classical pieces as a top student for revered dancers like Han Takehara and Yachiyo Inoue.
Suzushi saw dance as part of everyday life, like an extension of her breathing, walking, mothering, all the things she did as a Japanese woman. I would have loved to see the performance piece she did with her toddler son. To her, the barrier that divided art and life held no meaning.
Carla says Suzushi had kept detailed journals of her dance ideas. No one can find those diaries today. So much of her legacy has been lost like wisps and whims maybe still there somewhere in Suzushi's mind but strangers like me can no longer hope to grasp as concepts.
Carla Blank and Robert Wilson are piecing it all together in homage of this great but largely forgotten Japanese artist, tracking down dance footage, recreating her choreography, translating her words.
"KOOL _ Dancing in My Mind," it's called.
"She is still so full of life, isn't she?" a solidly upbeat Wilson said after visiting Suzushi in the home.
I didn't know what to say. I mumbled something like: "I am happy you are able to say that."
But, of course.
Art can only be what the artist perceives and then communicates.
It's not there until the artist perceives it for you.
And he could see it because he was there and he was part of it and he is an artist.
I have to go and see what Robert Wilson has created with Carla Blank at the Guggenheim for us to see _ a multimedia portrait of the real Suzushi Hanayagi and her Dance.
The piece is not just a documentation of this woman and her work.
It is about what binds people together over time, cultures, fading memories, sickness and aging.
It is about how an artist must see beyond what's there.
It is about how life, artistic productivity and our time with those we love must end _ and about how they never really end.

Dance by DAIRAKUDAKAN's Akaji Maro

Maro in "Symphony M." Photo by Nobuyoshi Araki.

The four suit-clad cynical undertakers perpetually wait for death with their scrutinizing flashlights.
The followers, their naked bodies painted in white, twisted red cords of umbilical cords dangling from their heads, crack their whips in merciless sadism.
And the troupe's leader Maro Akaji _ the corpse, the mother, the imbecile _
softly fluttering his sinewy arms in the dark silence like a deformed but beautiful swan, confronts his own death and the legacy of Butoh in his "Symphony M."
The work, his first piece centered around his solos in seven years, had a four-day run this month at Setagaya Public Theater in Tokyo.)
DAIRAKUDAKAN pieces are often filled with kitsch references to pop culture and everyday life.
The latest work is more stark, almost devoid of the usual musical score.
Stomps, the hiss of falling sand and the breaths of the dancers are what we hear.
At the opening, a rope that looks like a chain of fossilized bones and a mirror are the only props.
Often, Maro, 65, leaves much of the dancing to the younger members, and makes his appearance to mainly deliver his presence _ his energy and his message.
In this piece, he dances.
And what a dance it is _ in one moment, writhing on the floor in a painful muscular tension that defies disease and death a la Hijikata, in another, sputtering nonsensical lines as he shuffles from one dancer to another examining their poses in befuddlement.
Ultimately, the piece is all about the relationship of the artist with the future _ Maro's complex but totally honest relationship with his dancers _ not just the dancers who accompanied him on that stage but also all the dancers and non-dancers everywhere.
It is a testament to that relationship _ and his success as troupe leader, master and teacher _ to witness how his 14 male back-up dancers are all very strong and in superb form.
They deliver so completely Maro's choreography in both technique and spirit.
In one scene, Maro acts as a commander for his dancers, soldiers standing at attention in line.
When he shouts his final order, the dancers crumble in unison, trembling and mumbling at once, transformed into the trademark Butoh style.
It is a perfect moment _ an expression of defiance and integrity in choreographed stupor.
In the closing sequence, Maro dies, his arms outstretched like Christ, at the center of a white cube of nothingness and the eternal universe.
The dancers arduously roll that box around on the stage like the mission they are inheriting from their teacher.
But as Maro dies, he also gives birth, his face contorted in a muted scream, his legs open to the audience and to the world.
And he gives us himself, a Buoth legend.

with singer Robby

with Yumi Miyagishima on violin

African and Japanese Percussion

ISAKU KAGEYAMA, award-winning taiko drummer, and WINCHESTER NII TETE, acclaimed African percussionist, meet for a conversation using the universal language of music. The duo’s music, deeply rooted in the traditions of Japan and Ghana, flows like a conversation between two close friends, with jokes, laughter, questions, and their answers scattered throughout the evening.

EDO BAYASHI CONVERSATIONS
Taiko and African Percussion Performance
Isaku Kageyama (taiko), Winchester Nii Tete (African Percussion),
Daisuke Watanabe (taiko), Chris Holland (taiko)
FRI Jan. 9, 2009 20:00 (Doors open 19:00)
Shinjuku Live Takanoya
5-2-3 Shinjuku Shinjuku-ku Tokyo 160-0022
3,600 yen (includes one drink)　
All seats are non-reserved
For Tickets and More Information: Shinjuku Live Takanoya
TEL: 03-5919-0228
Sponsored by The Embassy of Ghana

ISAKU KAGEYAMA – http://www.isakukageyama.com
Isaku Kageyama is one of the bright young stars of premiere drum ensemble Amanojaku. Introduced to the traditional Japanese art form at the age of 6, Isaku is an expert at playing the Odaiko (large drum), and is a two-time National Odaiko Champion.

WINCHESTER NII TETE – http://www.niitete.net
Master percussionist Winchester Nii Tete hails from the honorable Addy-Amo-Boye families of drummers in Ghana. A complete and versatile musician, Winchester has performed with the Ghana national troupe, Sachi Hayasaka, Yoshio Harada, Takasitar, Naoki Kubojima, Tsuyoshi Furuhashi and many other artists.

Fiction at Ben's Cafe in Tokyo

I'm going to the Fifth Sunday Fiction Series at Ben's Cafe in Takadanobaba, Tokyo.
Sunday, August 31, 5 PM
I will read my short story "Seeds of Betrayal," published in this 1995 anthology "On a Bed of Rice," edited by Geraldine Kudaka.
The featured reader will be Janice Young, author of the novel "Sweet Dauma: a Japan Satire." Also reading will be Japan Times writer and novelist Michael Hoffman.
The host is Hillel Wright, author of "Border Town."