As I settle into my seat in row W, the highest spot in the theatre and one of the best places from which to view the performance, the first thing that catches my eye is the stage setup. The centerpiece is one very large drum set up on a wagon surrounded by lanterns. Taiko drums of various sizes are scattered across the stage, numbering 5 medium and 9 smaller Taiko. However, the size description is relative to the center-piece as the “medium” drums required two people to move them, which they would do throughout the show. As my attention shifts from the stage to the packed house, I notice that I am looking over a lot of grey and balding heads and the audience seems mostly middle age and upper middle class.

Kodo is calling this their One Earth Tour and it is the group’s 30th anniversary. As such, I was expecting the performers to be older and so am surprised when younger musicians take the stage. Had I read the program I would have seen that the tour “highlights a new generation of young performers who will carry the groups traditions into the future” but looking on the stage it is clear that they are all in their early twenties.

The show opens with “Sakaki,” one of three pieces making its North American debut. As four musicians quietly line up, a dancer dressed in religious robes moves fluidly within a squarely lit box, the flutters of his robes echoing or leading the single drum accompaniment. It is solemn, meditative, and beautiful, and like many things in the show, equal parts ceremony and theatre. The program says that it acts as a kind of purification ceremony for the theatre. Suddenly, all four musicians spring to life as a flute and the clicking clangs of cymbals are added to the percussive rhythms creating a complex and extremely danceable interweave of rhythms. It’s followed by “Stride,” another new piece “designed to make use of all of the drums in the groups arsenal.” Eleven drummers have some form of drum slung over their shoulder while three keep the bass with stationary floor models. It’s a very full sound and even at the back of the theatre I feel the vibrations ripple through my body. The drummers showcase the variety of drums and the interesting crossover drumming style of one hints at more drumstick acrobatics later in the show.

The drums are rearranged again and a set of five stationary drums, each with a smaller wooden box in between is placed up front. In “Chonlima,” composed in 1983, the drummers show that small, even tiny movements still make big noises. As the drummers created a wave of rhythm, one to another along the line of drums, they kept pace on the smaller box drums. Played very quickly, their hands were as hummingbird wings and the sound went from being very small to very large, shrinking and expanding several times during the piece, the wave of rhythm turning into a conversation of tones between the drummers. In contrast, “Miyake” was all about big as 3 “medium” sized drums were arranged in a triangle while two drummers played in synchronous movement on either side of each drum. They moved from playing with their arms to full body movements.

They move back to smaller sounds and smaller movements in “Monochrome” as seven drummers set up smaller drums on the floor. Like earlier, tiny movements and fast sounds, build and fade sounding like rain on a bamboo roof or popcorn popping. All of a sudden, GONG! The hanging metal disc and drummers engage in a conversation as a smaller, tonal conversation occurs simultaneously between the drums. It is both meditation and music.

After the intermission, it’s the cymbals turn as two players feed off each others clicking rhythms in the opening of “Jang-Gwara” coming out a few at a time in theatrical fashion until there are nine sets of cymbals, clicking, clanging, and interweaving. Eventually they worked their voices into the rhythms making them more complex and entertaining. Moving into the third new piece, “Sora,” two flutes take the melodic lead with the Taiko still driving the rhythms. To add another element, five or six drummers rotate through playing one drum, sometimes every other beat, in a rolling rhythm that matches the music. They do this without missing a beat. The piece ends reduced to one flute and two small drums as they march off stage.

Finally it’s time to hear the big drum that had formed the centerpiece of the stage set as they played “Kumo no Namji.” As four people rolled it into position, two drummers come out dressed only in a sumo-style loincloth. The drummer on the backside of the drum keeps the beat, while the one in front, cut and rippling with muscle, plays the moving rhythms. Watching the nearly naked muscular man beat this drum until he drips with sweat is almost as primal an experience as the actual playing of the instrument.

For “O-daiko, “ the barely clothed drummers are joined by a third as they sit in front of the “medium” sized drums and provide the bass rhythms to smaller drums and flute, showcasing the span of sound that are Taiko. When they finish, the crowd erupts in applause as everyone rises to their feet.

The encore, like everything else in the show, starts small and builds. At first, one drummer comes out and gets the audience clapping in response to his rhythms without the use of words. Finally, the whole troupe comes out as dual flutes play the earlier melody while nine drummers keep the rhythm and another comes out to play the big drum again, And again, the audience stands in amazement and appreciation as the house lights come on.

Though I was expecting to see Kodo musicians with 30 years experience, Kodo 2.0 did not disappoint. As much theatre and choreography as meditation and ritual, Kodo is more experience than concert. The younger drummers, which include a few women, have studied well and are every bit the equal of their teachers, the older Kodo musicians. Like many things in Japanese culture, tradition is honored and respected and the inclusion of younger drummers is a way of both looking toward the future and bridging the past. In Kodo, art, theatre, music, tradition, and ritual combine to create something that is much more than the sum of its parts as each drummer is only a part of the whole, wrapped up in rhythms both new and traditional that are capable of bringing a crowded theatre both to its feet and to its knees.