Taiko Show and Interpretation

Last night Janet and I played hooky from our batacuda class and went to go see Somei Yoshino Taiko Ensemble's show in the City. We got there half an hour early, and were amazed to find out that the show was already sold out. We heard it had been sold out the night previous, and I'm guessing opening night too. What a wonderful problem to have! We put ourselves on the waitlist, and with a little luck and a little help from someone I had taken a class with and who is connected to Somei (I'm so sorry! I don't remember your name! I know you and see you all the time at taiko events and you seem so nice!) we got into the standing room only section, which was actually a seat on the steps. Janet stood half the time--she absolutely refused to take my seat, which had a half-way decent view in between bodies and railings. I thought I was Japanese, but she's way more insistent and Japanese than I am the and the way she can order me to take a seat and all, well it's hard to put a fight up against--but hey, I'm working with a handicap, since I'm only half Japanese. I'll have to work on that.

The concert was a beautiful interpretation of a folktale I'm completely ignorant of--something about a horse seeing the reflection of the moon in a pool of water at night. I dunno. I was looking at the pretty arm movements and listening to the rhythms and watching their faces. Afterward, Janet kept asking me what I liked best about the show, and I was having a hard time trying to find ways to put my thoughts into words. For me, music is so wonderful because it transcends language, and one of the reasons why I love music so much is because it can do what language can't. This is coming from a creative writing major. There are whole worlds of emotion that reside in the nuances of the ma of a rhythm and in that lilting place between minor falls and major lifts (quoting Leonard Cohen, there). When I was writing my thesis for my MFA, I always wanted to try to incorporate the idea of music into my writing, but always found myself really frustrated because you can't really get the feel of a don to sit there on the page. Or arm muscles and intense faces and beautiful kata.

I think that I will need to be better at that--be better at being able to express myself from a more critical standpoint. Just another thing to practice.

Anyhow--chekere is almost done. Just need to decide how to attach the bottom ring to the rest of the net. I'll post when I get there.