Taiko Voices

Since 2011, thousands of people have become a part of our greater community and I am repeatedly humbled by the remarkable individuals who share their energies, talents and stories - the students, performers, collaborators, guest artists and, certainly, the audience. I am thrilled that we can now offer an opportunity for everyone to gain insight into the true lifeblood of Mark H Taiko and I hope that you will find their voices as inspiring as I do!
– Mark H

Taiko Voices: Four Questions with Art Lee

02.25.2020 by Linda Lombardi //

1. TELL US WHO YOU ARE – WHAT YOU DO OTHER THAN TAIKO, AND A LITTLE ABOUT YOUR TAIKO HISTORY.

I’d like to start out by saying, I’m not the professional taiko player, Art Lee, just the adult rec taiko player, Art Lee. I am a retired US Army Medical Service Corps (MSC) officer with a doctorate in Environmental Engineering (Go Penn State!). My wife, Anne, and I were married in Tokyo. She is also a Penn State graduate and an MSC officer.

I was stationed in Japan for four years at Camp Zama in Kanagawa Prefecture and traveled as much as possible within Japan and the Republic of Korea (ROK). I loved the people, the cuisine (katsu, natto, banchan and kalbi), and the landmarks. I ascended Mount Fuji four times, twice in eight days, with Anne (we were a lot younger then!). As a young captain, I performed engineering surveys at most of the US Army installations in the ROK, including Panmunjom in the DMZ.

We started learning taiko at the Settlement Music School with KyoDaiko in 2011. Shout out to our instructors, Kris Rudzinski, June O’Neill, Audrey Tuckerman and Paul Butler for all their patience. I am a woodworker (past president of the International Wood Collectors Society) and built several beta, naname and odaiko stands for KyoDaiko. I learned how to re-head drums from Stan Kaneshiki of Hoh Daiko in Seabrook, NJ. Here is a picture of me, Stan, Paul Butler and Tom Mistretta in Stan’s garage a few years ago.
Anne and I started attending Mark’s adult recreational classes back in 2016 and really enjoy his philosophy of taiko and the camaraderie of the other players. Mark teaches the Areas of Respect and Exchange of Energy. Although he is a great taiko instructor, he is also really teaching life lessons: learn new things, do your best but enjoy yourself and make friends, don’t stress too much about trying to be perfect, don’t compare yourself to your neighbor, have a beer after class and share a meal, chat with your classmates, learn about their life journey, be present, don’t overthink things.

2. HOW HAS LIFE PREPARED YOU FOR TAIKO?

As an Army officer, I went to Airborne School to learn to parachute. As a military instructor and a professor, I learned to overcome the fear of public speaking. After retiring from the Army, I wanted to learn another skill outside of my comfort zone. I was not a musician but I enjoyed watching taiko performances. Life taught me to try something challenging (but do-able!)

3. HOW HAS TAIKO PREPARED YOU FOR LIFE?

Taiko has taught me to enjoy what you are able to do with the skills you have now. Playing kumidaiko is very empowering. We usually play a recital piece after each eight-week class. The feeling of energy from the drums, the audience, and from my fellow players is amazing. Mark has taught me to be generous with your time, and forgiving of mistakes (your own and others’). Sometimes, we do not have enough practice time (in my opinion) before performing the pieces. We perform with what we have and most times it works out. The life lessons being “Do the best you can with what you have. Look like you should be there. Don’t make a sour face if you make a mistake, find your spot and catch back up.”

4. TO END ON A LIGHTER NOTE: WHAT’S YOUR… FAVORITE HOBBY, other than taiko?

I am a woodworker and wood collector. I enjoy talking and learning about wood from other enthusiasts. I am an occasional docent at the Japan House (Shofuso) in Philadelphia. I enjoy talking about the history of the building and the design and construction. It is a post and beam structure, which is not fastened with nails. The roof is hinoki bark that is two feet thick in some spots, and the house has a great wood and tatami smell to it. One time, I took two architectural students through the house. I showed them the garden while sitting outside on the veranda, then moved them ten feet inside the house and showed them the view looking out towards the garden while sitting in the main tatami mat room. Their eyes got real wide and they quickly wrote in their notebooks. As a former professor, those “Aha” moments make your day. From inside the house, the garden and pond are framed by the beautiful wooden posts and beams, and the late afternoon sun illuminates the scene just right. The difference of the perceived beauty between the two locations just ten feet apart can be amazing.

Taiko Voices: Gearing up for the busy spring season with Miyako Taiko

02.11.2020 by Linda Lombardi //

This week’s post is by Abena Oteng-Agipong. Abena took her first taiko class with Mark six years ago and is now a member of Miyako Taiko, the community group of the Mark H Taiko School. She says, “My first encounter with taiko was in college when my lion dance group, Cornell Lion Dance, did a collaboration with the taiko group on campus, Yamatai. I tried to drum once in lion dance, decided I was terrible at it, and didn’t try again until I came across Mark’s school. When I am not playing taiko, I work in the ‘fascinating’ world of IT and web development. On a more interesting note, if I am not playing taiko, I may be practicing martial arts (I started wushu – Chinese contemporary martial arts – in college as well) or trying out something new – this year it is ballroom dancing.”

Abena wrote for us about Miyako Taiko’s busy spring season of performing and organizing events. Enjoy! -Linda

three taiko players at a performance — Abena with Kat and Trish at the 2017 Sakura Taiko Fest

Spring with Miyako

The spring season is probably the busiest time of the year for Miyako, but also the most accomplished. It starts off with the Shinshun Matsuri at the Washington Marriott in Woodley Park. This event takes place in late January or early February. As the first performance of the year, it serves as a marker of the upcoming performance season.

Each year that we do this performance, I can see how our group improves in the logistics side of a gig: our sets get tighter, transitions smoother, load in, setup, take down, and load out faster. This year, our set was exactly on time at twenty minutes, which is impressive considering we have twenty people playing, positioning, and moving drums in between songs. We also did a somewhat impromptu procession in the morning before our set as kickoff for the festival. We only talked through what we were going to do the morning of, but we were again, exactly on time at four minutes. As Mark puts it, we are working towards becoming that well-oiled machine. And of course, our playing gets better each time!

Shinshun Matsuri is also a special performance for Miyako as it is usually one that most of our members can participate in. Miyako is a big group, about twenty members strong, so it is hard to get everyone in the same place at the same time. But on the rare occasion that we can all play together, it is amazing! As soon as we started with our first song, Ringu, I could feel the excitement and engagement not only from my fellow members, but the crowd as well. This year, every member of Miyako was able to perform and share our energy with the Japanese community of the DC Metro region.

Miyako Taiko after their 2020 Shinshun Matsuri performance

After the Shinshun Matsuri, we go into full Sakura Taiko Takeover at the Tidal Basin/Sakura Taiko Fest (STF) mode. We may have other events going on, such as attending and sometimes even performing at the East Coast Taiko Conference, but our main focus is putting on this event. One area where I feel like Miyako really shines is supporting each other. Every member of the group will, without hesitation, be there to lend a helping hand to ensure the event runs smoothly.

Organizing a full day event like STF is no small feat, but every year, I am amazed at the show our community puts on. It has been getting bigger each year, involving more groups from the United States and even Canada, different branches of the Mark H Taiko school and, yes, even more equipment and drums. And on top of the organizing, Miyako is also working on our own set for the performance. It is a lot of work to pull all of this off, but it is very rewarding.

Miyako Taiko performs at the 2019 Sakura Taiko Takeover at the Tidal Basin

While Shinshun Matsuri connected us with the Japanese community of DC, STF connects us with community groups, collegiate groups, and other taiko players in North America. I look forward to seeing familiar and new faces each season. Being part of the National Cherry Blossom Festival also allows us to engage with a huge audience. The best audience members, without a doubt, are the kids rocking out in the front while we play. I can’t wait to see them again this year!

We can’t rest quite yet after STF, as we usually have a few more gigs after that. These are usually smaller gigs, such as the Freedom Walk or Lantern Lighting Festival. One of the advantages of having a big group is that we can split up for the smaller gigs. We also play at the Sakura Matsuri, the DC area street festival associated with the Cherry Blossom Festival.

Each performance is a little different in nature, and sometimes not everything goes according to plan, but Miyako has a remarkable ability to recover and adapt. All the members of Miyako put a lot of energy and effort into spring performance season, I really enjoying playing with my taiko family and representing the Mark H Taiko school in the DC area. With these amazing people behind me, I have no doubt we will have another successful performance season this year.

After performing at the 2018 Sakura Matsuri

Taiko Voices: A Look Back at CONNECT 2018

01.28.2020 by Linda Lombardi //

For today’s Taiko Voices we’re going to meet Kim Morrison, a member of Miyako Taiko, the community group of the Mark H Taiko School. We talked about how she got into taiko and asked her about experience at CONNECT 2018, which will be of interest to those of you who might be considering signing up for CONNECT 2020!

Kim performing taiko at ECTC — Kim performing at ECTC 2019 (photo by Benjamin Pachter)

Tell us a little about who you are outside of taiko and what brought you to the area.

I’m a native of the San Francisco Bay area, born and raised. It was such a unique and wonderful place to grow up. After finishing grad school in Boston, I came to DC in 1996 and have worked in the federal government for 22 years. I have a lot of wonderful friends here and DC is definitely my home now.

How did you first encounter taiko?

So, this is kind of crazy. There were all kinds of opportunities to learn and perform taiko growing up in the Bay area, but I didn’t know about it until I was in college, at UCLA. I was on the women’s crew team. One of the members worked at the performing arts center on campus and one morning she came to practice and she said, “Kim – I saved you a ticket. It’s the last performance. It’s the most amazing and incredible thing you’ll ever see. You HAVE to see this.”

I said “what is it?” and she said it was the Kodo drummers of Japan, and I said, “oh that does sound really cool. How much is the ticket?” Now, this was 1988/89, and I’m a poor undergraduate with student loans. The ticket was 30 bucks or something – it was steep for a student. I immediately backpedaled, but she was bossy, and she insisted. She said, “No, you’re going!” Mind you, she’s a very successful litigator now… And indeed it was one of the most life changing things I’d ever seen. What stuck me was juxtaposition of something incredibly creative and artistic and musical, balanced with the performers who are like Olympic level athletes.

So then, you ran right out and took a class?

As soon as I saw the performance I thought, oh my god I have to take a class to learn how to do that! But then I immediately talked myself out of it for some reason, thinking, oh, it must be like the circus, you have to be born into a family that does it… And meanwhile I’m in Los Angeles, I grew up in the Bay area, there’s all kinds of taiko groups. But this was the days before the internet – we just had the yellow pages – and it didn’t even occur to me to ask.

Years went by, and every time Kodo came to the US, I never missed it. And then, I don’t even know what prompted me to do this – I do think that life puts you on a timeline when things are meant to be – it was January 2016, I was doing some shopping online, and out of the blue, maybe a guardian angel was whispering my ear, I typed in ‘taiko drumming classes Washington DC” and of course Mark’s website popped up. It really was fate. I called and was told there was one spot open in an intro taiko class the next Sunday. From that first day, I was so filled with joy and delight – it was even more fun than I thought it would be. I was completely hooked.

What are some things that stood out about your experience at CONNECT last time?

Kim in PJ Hirabayashi’s workshop at CONNECT 2018

One of the most memorable things was the diversity of taiko players – you’d expect a lot of east coast folks – but we had for example Wendy, who was from Minnesota, and even some from other countries like Naoko from Canada and Meg from Taiwan. It was such a wonderful opportunity to network with like-minded taiko enthusiasts.

I also liked that the four instructors each brought something very very different, so I never felt like I was repeating stuff. I think Mark was very strategic in who he asked to come, because all of it felt fresh and different.

How did it compare to other taiko conferences you’ve been to?

Compared to other conferences where everyone is running off to do their own thing, CONNECT felt more like we were all in it together. It felt more cohesive because the structure of CONNECT is that everyone is rotating though the same four instructors, instead of a whole menu of different workshops. So there’s a common theme and a shared experience tying everyone together. When we’re talking between things, we’re about to go to the workshop that the person is raving about that they just came from.

It also feels more intimate – sort of like how people describe going to a small liberal arts college where everyone knows everyone and it’s more like a family. For me personally that’s more meaningful.

What are you looking forward to at this year’s CONNECT?

I’m especially excited about Ryo Shimamoto, who is coming back – that was one of my all time favorite workshops I’ve ever taken anywhere.

I can understand how he and Mark are close because I see a lot of similarity – their passion for taiko, and their passion specifically for teaching. Mark has said many times that as much as he loves performing taiko, his calling is teaching taiko, and I see that in Ryo – his incredible passion and amazing energy. It’s so inspiring and so much fun to take his workshops.

Anything else you want people to know, if they’re thinking of signing up?

I know people have to worry about cost, time off from work, traveling, family – life challenges that don’t make it easy – but I think it’s such a unique taiko community experience and learning opportunity. I think if people knew what they were missing, they’d regret it. For me, during CONNECT 2018, I was supposed to travel for a work training class. I decided to bow out because I figured, I could do that any time – when I am going to get to do this? I’m so glad I made that choice.

Be sure to join us for CONNECT 2020 – registration opens Feb 1st!