Here in Vancouver, taiko or "big drum" Japanese drumming is almost as ubiquitous as construction noise. Like pile driving, the steady beat of the deep odaiko drum is often heard at festivals and cultural events.

Vancouver is home to several taiko groups, Katari Taiko being the first ensemble of its kind to form in Canada, in 1979. But the group that inspired it all, the group from a little-known Japanese island that first unleashed taiko drumming on the unsuspecting crowds at Vancouver's 1978 Powell Street Festival, was Ondekoza. This same drumming collective, now known simply as Kodo, meaning "heartbeat" or "children of the drum," has been back to Vancouver a number of times over the years. Tonight they are returning to play at the Orpheum Theatre, something Jun Akimoto, who has been with Kodo for nearly a decade, has been looking forward to.

"Vancouver people are so enthusiastic about joining music and arts. We are looking forward so much to seeing them again," Akimoto said in an e-mail interview. Since their debut, Kodo have given more than 3,100 performances around the world, dividing their time between overseas tours, touring in Japan, and resting and preparing new material. Taiko drumming is physically demanding, and the members of Kodo are finely tuned athletes. Said Akimoto, "Performers run 10 kilometres a day, and practise many kinds of drumming styles throughout the day. Their strength develops from drumming, and their muscles are more like those of marathon runners than of Sumo wrestlers." He means this literally. On their inaugural tour of North America in the 1970s, this exceptionally fit and energetic drum group exploded on the American scene by first running the Boston Marathon and then hopping onto a cart immediately afterwards to start a full-length and exhausting taiko performance.

Kodo is famous for showcasing traditional music from Shinto shrines and harvest festivals, while at the same time carving out new approaches to composition. For instance, on their newest album, Heartbeat, the song Tobira is a piece inspired by flamenco and West African rhythms, created by Kodo drummer Tsubasa Hori, who used to be a rock drummer on the Kyoto alternative scene.

The drummers of Kodo are based on the remote Sado Island, off Japan's northwest coast, where fishing and agriculture still thrive. The island has been home to several centuries of artists and intellectuals in exile, men banished by Japan's rulers for political reasons. "This island has a dense concentration of different cultures from the mainland of Japan. Each local village has its own unique style in performing arts," Akimoto explained.

Sado's stimulating cultural environment, combined with the island's remoteness, helped many traditional Japanese folks arts survive there, despite the modernization of the mid-20th century. In the 1960s and '70s, Sado proved the perfect place for a loose collective of artistically minded students who weren't cut out for the Toyota plant to gather and try to reconnect with nature, and with drumming. Later, this collective evolved into an organized colony known as Kodo Village. It is now an intentional community that harvests rice, runs a two-year apprentice program and even crafts eco-friendly Earth Furniture. Above all, it is the place where the Kodo drummers still live, work and create music that is both ancient and modern. For Akimoto, Sado's unique island culture and holistic lifestyle are inseparable from Kodo's unique sound. He mused, "The more you learn about how taiko has been used in Japan, the more you realize how deeply these instruments are situated as tools of communication among people, nature and gods."
- Jennifer Moss