It's not what you play, but how you play it
Visitors to Morton Arboretum will travel vicariously to the Orient this weekend. There will be a little origami, tai chi, martial arts, ikebana, bonsai, stick-dance, Chinese medicine and Japanese taiko drumming at its "Empress and the Dragon: Asian Cultural Celebration."
Among the demonstrations and entertainment, internationally renowned musicians from the JASC Tsukasa Taiko will energize audiences with their performance on varied wooden drums in a 1,500-year-old tradition. Musician, composer and educator Tatsu Aoki is executive director of the Asian Improv Arts Midwest and has recorded more than 100 albums.
Q. What does taiko mean?
A. Taiko literally means "large drum" in Japanese. It is one of our culture's ancient traditional instruments. It is about 21 inches or larger in diameter with a wood body and skin on both sides.
Q. What instruments do you personally play?
A. In the performance, I play the taiko and will do the educational parts of talking about the songs and the group. Sometimes I play a shaimisen, which is one of our ancient lutes, and among the Japanese string instruments.
Q. What does the music do for you personally?
A. It brings me back home because I am an immigrant. I started to play when I was about 5 years of age.
Q. What do you hope the audience learns by the presentation?
A. We offer the chance to learn about the rich artistic heritage we represent. Most of our artists are internationally acclaimed, so we will display their artistic excellence. We hope to share our ethnic community and also make the general public understand a little bit more about our heritage.
Q. What are the ages of the performers?
A. We will have kids, our students, and adult professional players to demonstrate the taiko. It is an icon to our community.
Q. Does it take a long time to perfect a level of skill?
A. If it is a simple composition, kids can come to drum school and learn it in 10 to 20 weeks. But for the more complex songs, it would take four to six years to play. We offer classes and twice a month we have a one-day workshop. That information is on our Web site at taikolegacy.com.
Q. Is this music still evolving or do you stay only with traditional music?
A. It is both. We will do both new and traditional compositions. The movement of having a community taiko group started in the late 1950s throughout North America and was created by Japanese-Americans. They seem to have maintained the traditional concepts and ideas much more than the ones in Japan.
Q. What is the mission of your group?
A. Basically, we want to encourage our own cultural identity and share that with the general public. We dress in traditional costumes. We would be happy to perform for educators who want to bring our traditions into their schools and to their students. We actually do a lot of school visits and average giving a performance to 5,000 students a year.
Q. What is a secret of the trade?
A. If you look at the Japanese arts in general, the tea ceremony, flower arrangements, martial arts and the classical dance, form is very important. So in drumming it is not about how many times you hit the drum, but how you hit it. Choreography is a vital part of the tradition and a discipline of drumming a student learns. How a person drums is the art in taiko. With other percussion instruments, it is all about playing the instrument, but in taiko it is more about how you play and what you wear.
Q. How many people are on stage?
A. We will have 15 to 16 people, but not everyone is on stage at one time. There will be four professional performing groups plus our students. Individualism is not stressed in taiko. It is an ensemble group dressed in the proper taiko playing costumes.
Q. Is that equivalent to our marching band uniforms?
A. Yes, you could say that. It is in a different form, but it is the same idea of wearing a uniform to play.
Q. What advice would you give patrons?
A. If you have never seen a taiko performance there is no doubt you will enjoy it.
-- Joan Broz
If you go
What: "Empress and the Dragon: Asian Cultural Celebration"
When: Events run 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday; JASC Tsukasa Taiko performs at 3 p.m. Sunday
Where: Morton Arboretum, 4100 Route 53, Lisle
Cost: Included with arboretum admission or $9 for adults, $8 for seniors, $6 for ages 3 to 17
Info: (630) 968-0074, mortonarb.org or taikolegacy.com