Japanese taiko troupe Kodo gets a brand-new cast
By Alexander Varty, January 24, 2011

Most of its instruments—the barrel-shaped nagado-daiko, the snare drum–like shime-daiko, and the monstrous o-daiko, which stands two metres high and weighs 400 kilograms—are rooted in Japanese tradition. Its music, too, is based at least in part on age-old harvest-festival celebrations. But when the Japanese taiko troupe Kodo next appears in Vancouver, it will be sporting a brand-new cast, thanks to a generational shift in the composition of the 30-year-old ensemble’s touring company.

“I think the main difference will be age,” says Kodo spokesperson Jun Akimoto, on the line from remote Sado Island, off Japan’s west coast. “That’s the easiest thing to notice at first sight. This generation is younger than ever; I think the oldest performer will be 36, and the youngest one will be 21. And it’s not just youthful performers. Some of the compositions in the program are brand-new, and the artistic director is also a young one.”

Kodo’s elders, he continues, are busy at home training younger musicians, performing in smaller groups, or, like the 40-year-old Akimoto himself, serving in an administrative capacity. They give the Kodo commune, a village unto itself on Sado, a sense of continuity even as they slowly relinquish the spotlight—a process highlighted by the ensemble’s new CD, Akatsuki.

The disc’s title translates as “a new dawn”, Akimoto explains, and this rebirth includes both an expansion and a refinement of Kodo’s avant-taiko sound. Most notable is the inclusion of several stringed instruments—the zitherlike koto, the banjo-esque shamisen, and the violin-style kokyu—that had previously been absent from the troupe’s drum-heavy repertoire.

“One of the reasons is that since 2001, we’ve had the opportunity to collaborate with one of the most renowned kabuki actors, Bando Tamasaburo,” Akimoto explains. “During the process of creating music and performances with him, he advised us to learn other traditional Japanese music styles, so these stringed instruments were part of that program. Some Kodo members enjoyed this very much, and so they’re trying to use these traditional instruments in newer ways.

“Everybody thinks ‘Shamisen, kokyu, koto—oh, I know that,’?” he adds. “And you can imagine how a Japanese lady with a kimono will dance over shamisen music or koto music—this is a very typical style, so everybody can imagine that. But we’re trying to go beyond that. Some people will hate it, but we don’t care!”