taiko

Today, our base Taiko team came to perform. Some of our students (including one in my class) have been practicing with them to learn a few songs to perform in front of the school. After this, the Taiko team performed some of their favorite challenging songs.

Taiko (太鼓) means "wide drum" in Japanese. The art of Taiko originated as a form of spiritual worship, and it is now used in festivals and even movies. It is very rare that Americans are able to perform with professional Taiko, because the traditional Taiko forbade foreigners from participating. The Dragon-Eagle Taiko Team, coached by Kazuko Igarashi, is Misawa’s Taiko team and is one of the few American teams to have ever performed with Japanese professional Taiko. 

Here is one of the songs they performed: