Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on August 2010
As artistic director of the acclaimed Earth Celebration music festival in 2007, Kaoru Watanabe had gone just about as far as a disciple of the taiko drum could go. The question became: what next?
Watanabe answered in two ways. The first was to move to New York and launch the Kaoru Watanabe Taiko Center. The second was to create a series of “Resonance” events, which explore the possibilities of the taiko as a launchpad for cross-disciplinary improvisations with all manner of musicians, performers and artists.
“This project started as a one-off performance, an offshoot of Earth Celebration really,” Watanabe explains by email from New York. “But when it was over, everyone kept saying we should do this again.”
The first Resonance saw Watanabe directing a cast that included the stunningly adept New York-based tap dancer Tamango; vocalist Mio Matsuda, an interpreter of the languorous Portuguese ballad style known as fado; and artist D.H. Rosen, who created a stage set of ceramic objects that Tamango rhythmically demolished. With additional contributions from avant-garde cellist Hiromichi Sakamoto and live calligrapher Koji Kakinuma, the event was a case study in how to pull off a performance involving wildly different styles of music and art.
Watanabe avoided the crossover cliché of taiko-meets-electric guitar or shakuhachi-meets-techno-beats by choosing an unconventional cast and then giving it latitude to create something new.
“The number one lesson I learned is to pick your partners well,” he says. “I like to create interesting combinations of players who can improvise with each other in a way that both challenges them and provides an opportunity to express themselves fully. Then, manipulating tension and drama through the sequencing of these encounters, I try to create an abstract narrative that keeps the audience swept up in the ebb and flow [from when] the first note is sounded till the lights go up.”
What are the risks of free-form improvisation with so many artists? “The more people there are, the more each individual has to know when to step up and make something happen and when to lay back,” he says. “One of my jobs as artistic director is to provide guidance as to when those times may be.”
After a two-year break, Watanabe returned last year with “Resonance II: Echology,” which brought on avant-garde percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani and powerful taiko player Yuu Ishizuka. Like the first Resonance, it was a shifting kaleidoscope of percussion of different strains, music and art, all of which “resonated” back and forth across several stages set up in the open box of Nishi-Azabu performance space SuperDeluxe.
The upcoming Resonance, subtitled “Reflections,” gets its premiere at Earth Celebration on Sado Island before moving to Tokyo and Kyoto. The core cast of Watanabe, Tamango, Matsuda and Rosen will be joined by Kiyohiko Semba of the Semba School of traditional Japanese music, fellow Kodo alumni and taiko virtuoso Ryutaro Kaneko, acoustic bassist Jyoji Sawada and calligrapher Kakinuma.
“I think the fact that we are coming into our third gathering is really significant,” explains Watanabe. “But Reflections isn’t meant to mark the end of the journey; instead, [it’s] an opportunity to think about how far we’ve come and where we are going. It takes so much energy and serendipity to bring all of these artists from across the world to gather in one place, and I think everyone knows how special that is. So the idea of
Reflections is to remind us to take pause and celebrate the process.”
For Watanabe—the son of musicians in the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra—Resonance also represents the natural next step in his evolution from American flute prodigy to an apprenticeship with Kodo and on to his current role as taiko apostle in New York.
Watanabe says that in America, where he’ll be teaching a course on taiko this year at Princeton University, the Japanese drumming scene is a mixed bag. “There is a lot of great taiko going on—with groups and individuals that are community- and fun-oriented—and that don’t take themselves too seriously and strive to improve. There is plenty of bad taiko as well, always done by those who take themselves way too seriously. I try not to pay them much mind—nor be one of them!”
“Resonance”
Annual music, dance and art project directed by Kodo alumnus Kaoru Watanabe. Aug 28, 8pm, ¥4,000 (adv)/¥4,500 (door). SuperDeluxe, Nishi-Azabu. Tel: 03-5412-0515.
“Earth Celebration”
Taiko supergroup Kodo invite Corsican vocal ensemble A Filetta for their annual festival. Aug 20-22, various times & prices. Sado Island, Niigata Prefecture. Tel: 0259-81-4100. www.kodo.or.jp/ec
