Honban wa Renshuu
Reflections on the second decade of Bakuhatsu Taiko Dan
Speech given at the Cross Cultural Center, University of California, Davis, on May 30, 2022 at the Bakuhatsu Taiko Dan end-of-year banquet.
It's finally time to say goodbye to my time as collegiate taiko player! It's been so much fun, Bakuhatsu Taiko Dan! I've learned so much and have got to play with so many wonderful people in all kinds of spaces. Thanks for all the memories! It's kind of cheesy, but I really am who I am today because of you. Okagesamade~
This team really helped me understand a lot about my world. I'm a yonsei Japanese American who grew up in Utah, but through this ensemble, I found a community that challenged and deepened my understanding of identity. In this group, I drummed along with shin-niisei, international students, and a whole host diasporic identities that performed an evolving (Asian) America together. I think taiko is this conversation, time and time again, imaginative of the worlds we remember and the worlds yet to come. Perhaps that's why, for me, the line between musician and organizer is increasingly blurry.
As someone who also studies the more distant past, I'm not sure if the taiko I played ever really felt ancient to me, as in some traditional art from a time beyond historical memory. But it did feel imbued with an ancientness beyond the lived memory - the same way I feel when I consider my grandparents' time. I owe a lot of the wonder that I felt to the taiko masters and cultural knowledge holders who shared these visions with me.
One master taught me to "shake" instead of sitting out of a song I didn't know. Another taught me to play as if it would make the sun rise. Another taught me to get low when you dance and open your mouth wide when you sing. Another taught me that leadership was temperate and kind. Another taught me that mistakes are in the unreachable past and to play in the moment. Another taught me to make most people happy, most of the time. Another taught me that success was getting the booties moving. Another showed me that this is just the beginning. They all taught me joy.
As collegiate taiko players, we are lucky to be in an ecosystem of artists with big hearts and big visions. It's not something we create alone, disconnected from the body. There is a deeply intergenerational nature to the art, and I feel the weight of that history deeply.
At our end-of-year banquet last spring, I gave a talk: "Honban wa Renshuu: reflections on the second decade of Bakuhatsu Taiko Dan." In this farewell address, I share an oral history of our team and highlight some directions it has taken and discourses it has engaged in. I reflect briefly on the resilience this community of players has overcome during the pandemic. It's not super interpretive or persuasive in style - I hope it provides a clear and thoughtful examination of the evolution of a collegiate taiko team. I'm sharing it here for anyone interested.
It's been real, Bakuhatsu Taiko Dan! Time for me to be that other fool for a while - I'll be watching from the crowd next time! Ganbare!!
Video recording by Sarah Miller. Editing and slides by Gregory Wada.
Attribution Information: Wada, Gregory. “Honban wa Renshuu: Reflections on the second decade of Bakuhatsu Taiko Dan.” 30 May, 2022, University of California, Davis. https://youtu.be/z5OIRjVBrrU.
