ABSTRACT
When I began taking taiko classes in 1997, I had already wanted to learn the art for many years. I had seen San Jose Taiko and San Francisco Taiko Dojo in concert performances and Soh Daiko in several outdoor festivals in New York City, and every time I saw these groups I felt as if I would literally jump out of my skin with excitement. Part of it was the unadulterated energy and power of the drums themselves, but much of it was seeing Asian Americans playing this forceful music and feeling it viscerally in my own body at the same time – this was central to my vicarious pleasure in taiko. Hearing taiko made me want to be able to do it: I have never been particularly athletic, but hearing and seeing taiko performed made me want to get beyond the vicarious to real experience – made me want to be strong and loud like those Asian American musicians I so admired.
