My snow driving skills put to good use… So much fun to be in a show with such other wonderful musicians… Attack of the curtain!.. Thank goodness for the extra help, or we would have never made it to the next appointment!.. I was certain she’d said “Last time!”… Bananas and a rubber chicken… Testing my new camera by taking pictures of Tiger Okoshi… Good thing I carry my own hachijo bachi… Amazing to see the girls so enthusiastic… MC’ing because I’m loud and the mic is broken… A night sky filled with confetti… 4 shows in 4 days is my taiko limit and when someone offers you nuts, take them!… Great fun to jump into a piece I hadn’t played in 6 months… Improvising on stage as people file in… Too many things to mention… Temporary tattoo for Sheilarae… My first parade and being very colorful… Playing Reimei at dawn… I can’t help but thank my closest taiko friends for letting me drag them to a mountain and order them around… Playing in the back of a pick-up truck and dancing in the street… Manny, the world’s largest athlete introducing us and waiting for Martin Short before we can set the stage… Forgot a drum stand, time to improvise!.. Made our own hachimaki in the time between shows… The ONE family bond is stronger than my personal fears… Canceled due to tornado warning!… Solidified the relationship of performer to audience… This street isn’t big enough for all the noise we make!.. Many amazing taiko groups under the apple trees… So many of us were sick, but we still gave it our all… Even sick, you can’t stop me from fue!.. Almost everything that was said about their dojo, we could echo about ONE. It was amazing to see their strength of community and what it had built… My first MC’ing where I got to think about it ahead of time… ONE working towards its own street fair! Plus I made a new shime stand.

A few of the year's taiko moments.

I feel exceptionally blessed by taiko in 2009. I can only hope for what 2010 might bring.

Beth, that's not a bachi.

The first way was a purely personal blending of old and new. Sheilarae and I were co-running a taiko workshop. Neither of us had ever run a workshop before. The 6th anniversary of my first taiko workshop is coming up at the end of the month and here I was running one! Thank goodness for Sheilarae! There is no way I could have done it alone and she was so much more engaging than I was. Our first workshop was a little shaky. We didn’t quite know how to time things out.

Our second and third groups were much better though, in no small part to the students who arrived full of energy and interest. Our last group was quite small, but the two enthusiastic women who showed up out kiai‘d the other two groups combined. It was a wonderful note to go to the performance on.

The performance. Now here was a real blending of old and new.

Karen and Greg had been working on their stick flipping for a traditional standard, Matsuri. They needed a third to join them, but none of us had quite mastered it well enough to perform. Beth stepped up to the plate however, but instead of her skill in flipping, she employed her skill in comedy. This is why, two days before, on a dreary afternoon, I went to meet a friend to borrow his rubber chicken. Rubber chicken, two bananas (one real and one plastic), taiko and Beth’s comedic timing made for the most “new” Matsuri I’d ever seen. Bachi flew everywhere, and so did bananas and the chicken, making its plaintive cry as it flew through the air.

Will we ever see the chicken again? Time will tell, but this was definitely a memorable performance and a testament to creativity. Were we making a mockery of the tradition? I don’t think so. I think we were paying tribute to the difficulty of the things that some taiko players make look too easy! Plus we were taking the spirit, old and new, and taking it in our own direction.