Taiko in the United States

In the 1880s, Japanese laborers began to migrate in considerable numbers to the Kingdom of Hawai`i and the United States of America. The earliest recorded Obon with Bon odori in Hawai`i took place in 1885 on a sugar plantation north of Hilo with performances of "Iwakuni Ondo" and a second dance from the Yamaguchi prefecture. ^[1] In time, informal groups of singers, flutists, taiko drummers, and percussionists played for Bon odori throughout Hawai`i, especially among emigrants from Fukushima, Hiroshima, Niigata, Yamaguchi, and later, Okinawa.

Bon odori was danced on occasion in the continental United States in the 1920s and became a regular part of Obon observances in the 1930s, largely through the work of Reverend Yoshio Iwanaga, who taught Japanese folk dance and Bon odori to Jodo Shinshu Buddhist temple communities along the West Coast. Live music for Bon odori was featured in some areas with singers and instrumentalists playing the three-stringed shamisen, flutes, and taiko. The Seattle Betsuin Buddhist Temple bought a taiko in 1933 and constructed an elevated platform ( yagura ) for its musicians two years later. In Sacramento, the "Iwakuni Ondo" group played at the temple's first Obon with Bon odori in 1933 and purchased a new taiko the following year. In 1934, the first Nisei Week Festival in Los Angeles included singers and a large taiko. While accounts of drummers are rare, Mr. A. Yamamoto of the Guadalupe Buddhist Church was highlighted in the local and regional press as a "bizarre costumed" drummer who played with "quaint body contortions," while gradually disrobing throughout the evening. ^[2]

By the end of the 1930s, most communities played 78-rpm records for Bon odori, along with or in place of live performances. This practice was hastened by the unparalleled popularity of "Tokyo Ondo," a new Bon odori record released by the Victor Talking Machine Company of Japan in 1933 and immediately emulated in songs such as "Kobe Ondo," "Osaka Ondo," and "Sakura Ondo." Ministers and temple members often played along to the music on a taiko, supplementing the light percussion and weak bass frequencies on the recordings with loud hits to help the dancers hear the downbeats. In this way, Obon drumming ( Bon daiko ) refers to live drumming for Bon odori, whether in musical ensembles or as solo, improvised accompaniment to recorded music. ^[3]

In areas with larger populations, taiko was also used to accompany Japanese classical dance, amateur theater, and productions of kabuki, a dynamic theatrical genre encompassing music, recitation, acting, dance, set design, and costumes.

During World War II, traditional Japanese art forms from calligraphy, poetry, and painting to music, theater, and dance were practiced in the American concentration camps. When available, smaller taiko such as the handheld hourglass-shaped drum ( tsuzumi ) and the high-pitched drum ( shime daiko ) were used to accompany classical dance recitals and theater. Kabuki productions at the Heart Mountain camp, for example, were led by professional director Tomofuku Nakamura with narrators, shamisen, flutes, tsuzumi, and shime daiko. Likewise in Rohwer, Heiya Fukami (stage name, Shikaku Sawamura) directed numerous kabuki productions with narrators, shamisen, and a five-person ensemble of flutes and taiko. ^[4]

Obon with Bon odori was celebrated in many of the temporary detention centers and all ten of the concentration camps administered by the War Relocation Authority . In Amache , Jutaro Eugene Gondo and Frank Koshiro Kumagai played atop a tall yagura with a shime daiko, wooden clappers ( hyoshige ), and a western bass drum. The Obon in Rohwer showcased Isamu "Sam" Sugimoto playing on a flat drum ( hira daiko ) to recorded music along with singer Shokichi Morino and drummer George Hiki performing "Goshu Ondo" live. In Manzanar , Bon odori was accompanied with a large barrel-shaped drum ( odaiko ) on a yagura in the middle of the football field, and at the Gila River camp, inventive craftspeople built their own drum using an animal skin stretched over a keg. ^[5]

At the Santa Fe camp, run by the Department of Justice, the all-male population staged elaborate kabuki plays with costumes, props, and a musical ensemble of shamisen, flutes, shime daiko, and percussion. For the camp's Obon celebration, some of the men dressed as women in outfits from the kabuki productions and Bon odori was danced to the accompaniment of a large hira daiko on a decorated yagura. ^[6] While there is no evidence of Bon odori in the Hawaiian camps, a hira daiko was used for an Obon service on August 15, 1944 at the Honouliuli internment camp. ^[7]

With the end of the war came the closing of the concentration camps, the establishment of new Japanese American populations in the Mountain States, Midwest, and East Coast, and the gradual revival of many communities on the West Coast. Obon with Bon odori returned in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and in the decades that followed, Bon daiko was provided by community members such as Isamu "Sam" Sugimoto, Henry Inouye, Kazuo Hombo, and the "Fukushima Ondo" drummers in Sacramento, and ministers like Reverends Bunyu Fujimura, Masao Kodani, Hiroshi Abiko, Shuichi Tom Kurai, and Joshin Dennis Fujimoto. ^[8] In Hawai`i, musicians performed at Obon festivals in informal groups based out of temples and prefectural associations ( kenjinkai ), and formal organizations like the Hilo Bon Dance Club (ca. 1937), Aloha Bon Dance Club (1947), Ewa Bon Odori Club (1948), Iwakuni Odori Aikokai (1952), Honolulu Fukushima Bon Dance Club (1953), Aiea Taiheiji Yagura Gumi (1962), and the Higa Masatada Bon Dance Club (1965). ^[9]

Taiko was also used in the rarefied genre of gagaku, ancient Japanese court music using winds, strings, various taiko, and percussion. Professor Robert Garfias taught gagaku at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) beginning in 1956 and the University of Washington in the 1960s. Reverend Masatoshi Shamato led a gagaku ensemble at the University of Hawai`i at Mānoa starting in 1962 and formed the community group Hawaii Gagaku Kenkyukai in 1968. Japanese Imperial court musician Suenobu Togi became the gagaku director at UCLA in 1962, and additionally taught members of Kinnara Gagaku from the Senshin Buddhist Temple beginning in 1969 and students at the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Berkeley in the 1970s. Since then, gagaku ensembles have been formed or reorganized in New York, Berkeley, and Seattle.

Women sang and played the shamisen, koto, shime daiko, and percussion in Japanese folk music ( minyo ) ensembles, and sang in Hawaiian Bon dance clubs. However, strict gender roles prevented women from playing the larger drum for many decades. On the Hawaiian island of O`ahu, the first woman to play the odaiko for Bon daiko was Professor Barbara Smith with the Iwakuni Odori Aikokai beginning in 1959. ^[10] As a 10-year-old, Kay Fukumoto (née Watanabe) was a fourth-generation Watanabe family drummer and the first girl or woman to play Bon daiko on Maui in 1970. As best as can be determined, the first woman to play Bon daiko on a regular basis in the continental United States was Merle Mieko Okada at the New York Buddhist Church in 1973. She was followed in the 1970s and 1980s by women in New York, Anaheim, Gardena, and Sacramento, many of whom first gained experience by drumming in taiko ensembles. ^[11]

The phenomenon of musical ensembles with different types and sizes of taiko, referred to as group drumming ( kumi daiko ) or Japanese drumming ( wadaiko ), began in Japan in the 1950s with Daihachi Oguchi and Osuwa Daiko in Nagano prefecture and Sukeroku Taiko in Tokyo.

The first taiko ensemble in the United States was the San Francisco Taiko Dojo, established by Seiichi Tanaka in 1968. Born in Tokyo, Tanaka retained a close connection with Japanese taiko, studying and performing the repertoire of Osuwa Daiko, Sukeroku Taiko, and Gojinjo Daiko with a dynamic ensemble of young performers. In 1969, Kinnara Taiko was formed at the Senshin Buddhist Temple in Los Angeles by Reverend Masao Kodani and George Abe after a long night of Bon daiko and improvisation. Kinnara Taiko members composed new music and made drums from oak wine barrels, an innovation they readily taught to emerging groups. ^[12] Inspired by Kinnara Taiko and informed by Asian American activism, San Jose Taiko was founded at the San Jose Buddhist Church Betsuin in 1973. With Roy and P.J. Hirabayashi as its directors, the group created its own repertoire, toured internationally, and developed a strong educational program. In the decades to follow, new taiko drummers and ensembles would often study and build relationships with these founding groups.

In the 1970s, taiko groups were formed within Buddhist temple communities in Denver (1976), Chicago (1977), Anaheim (1978), and New York (1979). Taiko was performed at pilgrimages to former concentration camp sites and used in new musical settings by drummers Johnny Mori, Kenny Endo, Russel Baba, and Jeanne Aiko Mercer, and the bands Hiroshima and Warriors of the Rainbow. The first taiko groups in Canada and Hawai`i—Katari Taiko and Hawaii Matsuri Taiko—were formed in 1979 and 1984, respectively.

Tours by Japanese taiko ensembles Ondekoza and Kodo introduced the art form to a global audience. Japanese drummers Etsuo Hongo and Yoshihisa Ishikura moved to the United States to teach and perform, while American drummers Kenny and Chizuko Endo, Maceo Hernandez, Tiffany Tamaribuchi, and others studied and performed in Japan. Women gradually made up the majority of taiko drummers in North America and all-women groups such as Jodaiko (1988), Sawagi Taiko (1990), and Raging Asian Women Taiko Drummers (1998) were founded.

Collegiate taiko began in the 1990s with Kyodo Taiko at the University of California, Los Angeles (1990), Stanford Taiko (1992), and Jodaiko at the University of California, Irvine (1992). The first annual Intercollegiate Taiko Invitational was hosted by Stanford University in 1995 and the first biennial North American Taiko Conference was held at the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center in Los Angeles in 1997.

Two new groups, TaikoProject and On Ensemble, emerged in the early 2000s with innovative approaches to composition, style, and presentation. In recent decades, American drummers have specialized in different facets of taiko artistry including odaiko soloing, slant-stand drumming, flute performance, lion dance, folk and contemporary dance, theater, composition, and recording techniques.

In addition to artistic pursuits, some taiko groups have aligned themselves with social issues such as the anti-nuclear movement, LGBTQIA+ rights, immigrants' rights, Black Lives Matter, and fighting anti-Asian rhetoric and hate crimes following the outbreak of COVID-19. Groups like San Jose Taiko, Seattle Kokon Taiko, and Portland Taiko have revisited the legacy of World War II in their works, drummers have continued to perform at camp pilgrimages and Day of Remembrance events, and grassroots organizations have used taiko to protest American detention centers and discriminatory immigration policies.

There are hundreds of taiko groups throughout the United States based out of religious institutions, community centers, primary and secondary schools, and colleges and universities. Many groups offer workshops and classes, and dedicated taiko schools and studios have been established across the country from Hawai`i to the East Coast. The American taiko community has been chronicled in articles, books, documentaries, and museum exhibits, and the sounds of taiko have been featured in western classical music, jazz, rock, pop, hip hop, television, movies, and videogames.

Ahlgren, Angela. Drumming Asian America: Taiko, Performance, and Cultural Politics . New York: Oxford University Press, 2018.

Akiyama, Linda Cummings. "Reverend Yoshio Iwanaga and the Early History of Doyo Buyo and Bon Odori in California." Master's thesis, University of California, Los Angeles, 1989.

Asai, Susan Miyo. Sounding Our Way Home: Japanese American Musicking and the Politics of Identity . Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2024.

Bender, Shawn. Taiko Boom: Japanese Drumming in Place and Motion . Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2012.

Kiyama, Wynn. " Ministers, Dry Cleaners, Farmers, and Gardeners: The Original Taiko Drummers in the Continental United States ." Discover Nikkei , May 2024.

Pachter, Benjamin. "Wadaiko in Japan and the United States: The Intercultural History of a Musical Genre." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pittsburgh, 2013.

Tasaka, Yoshitami Jack. "Bon Odori." East-West Journal , Aug. 1, 1990, 27.

Van Zile, Judy. The Japanese Bon Dance in Hawaii . Kailua, Hawai`i: Press Pacifica, 1982.

Waseda, Minako. "Extraordinary Circumstances, Exceptional Practices: Music in Japanese American Concentration Camps." Journal of Asian American Studies 8.2 (2005): 171-209.

Wong, Deborah. Louder and Faster: Pain, Joy, and the Body Politic in Asian American Taiko . Oakland: University of California Press, 2019.

Yano, Christine. "Japanese Bon Dance Music in Hawai`i: Continuity, Change, and Variability." Master's thesis, University of Hawai`i at Mānoa, 1984.

Angry Drummers: A Taiko Group from Naniwa, Osaka, Japan . Directed by Yoshitaka Terada, National Museum of Ethnology, 2010. 85 minutes.

Because of You, I Am . Produced by Pear Urushima, Menuez Pictures, Kanreki Productions, 2023. 30 minutes.

Big Drum: Taiko in the United States . Exhibition, Japanese American National Museum, July 14, 2005 to Jan. 8, 2006. See also videos produced in conjunction with the exhibition .

Great Grandfather's Drum . Produced and directed by Cal Lewin and Victoria Lewin, Opticus Corporation, 2011. 57 minutes.

Hidden Legacy: Japanese Traditional Arts in the World War II Internment Camps . Produced by Shirley Kazuyo Muramoto, Murasaki Productions LLC, 2014. 57 minutes.