Woohoo! Today is a great day for our country! At noon, Barack Obama becomes our 44th President. I can hardly believe it. Whether you are on the right or left politically it is times like this that we can reaffirm our faith in our Democractic process. Sometimes it takes a while, sometimes it is slow but change is possible. I can’t stop smiling, what a proud happy day for America!
With Kyo Daiko and Fruity
Howdy all! We all left NY on Saturday morning. Thanks to the Buddhist Church of NY and Wynn for putting us up! Kelvin and Shoji flew home and Kris and I continued the driving experience to Philadelphia for an Omiyage workshop with Kyo Daiko. I’m returning in early March with TAIKOPROJECT to continue workshopping with them and for a concert. After the workshop, Kris and I raced off to get a much needed oil change, then we met up with a few of the members at Yakitori Boy for dinner and karaoke. Ana is awesome at karaoke! She sounds like Shakira and Dolores O’Riordan from the Cranberries. Thanks to Matt and June for organizing the workshop!
With Icho Mame Daiko and Fruity
The next morning we hit the road at 3:30am and drove to Cleveland for a 2pm workshop. It was snowing and a bit messy, but we made it on time. We ate at this old-school diner called “Marko’s Family Diner” around the corner from their dojo and it was an interesting experience. The food was, well… diner food, but the people were awesome. It was a place where everyone in the neighborhood would go to and everyone knew each other. They would joke around and were really polite to us. After eating we met up with Icho Mame Daiko at their dojo and taught them basic stance at strike. Thanks to Steve for setting up the workshop and thanks to Nozomi and James for housing us.
We drove a good 14-15 hours today to Topeka, Kansas! Next stop – back to Denver!
The tour to the east coast was awesome. I especially had a lot of fun playing “Miyake” with Kaoru at the Drom show and at Kinokuniya. It had been a long time since we both had played the piece and man am I sore. It was also great to share our experiences with Kodo and Ondekoza. Now I’m back in Ashland, Oregon and today I’ll begin rehearsals for the Wole Soyinka play “Death and the King’s Horseman“. It’s a Nigerian play that features Yoruban drumming and I’m one of the percussionists. I’ll be performing with the Nigerian master drummer Bisi Adeleke. This will be a lot of fun and an awesome learning experience. The play opens on February 21st and closes on July 5th. If you can, come check it out.
The last performance of our East Coast tour is finished! Kelvin and I fly back to Los Angeles today and Kris and Maz start the long drive back to Los Angeles with workshop stops in Philadelphia, Denver and Moab. More from the road later!
We had a great performance at Drom last night. We barely fit on stage but somehow managed it. A thank you goes out to Mehmet, Serdar and Nachiketa for bringing us to their very cool venue. Thank you to everybody who braved the cold to come out and see us! Hopefully we’ll be back in NY soon.
Our two workshops with Odaiko New England were great fun and we’d like to especially thank our homestays: Mark and Kristin, David and Juni. Kris led both workshops one on his “30 days to better shime” program and the other on timing.
Today Maz, Kelvin and I joined Kaoru for a performance at Kinokuniya to celebrate the closing of George Hirose’s photography exhibition. George was nice enough to give us each a copy of his new book “Blue Nights“. When I opened the book and the very first photo completely took my breath away… Really fantastic images, beautifully composed, filled with life and urgency.
Tomorrow we have our last performance of this tour at Drom with Kaoru. Should be a fun performance, then Kelvin and I fly back to the West Coast and Maz and Kris start driving back to LA with workshop stops along the way.
As we were conducting workshops on this tour I was reminded of a passage from “The Prophet” by Kahlil Gibran and I want to share it with you.
“No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge. The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness. If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind. The astronomer may speak to you of his understanding of space, but he cannot give you his understanding. The musician may sing to you of the rhythm which is in all space, but he cannot give you the ear which arrests the rhythm nor the voice that echoes it. And he who is versed in the science of numbers can tell of the regions of weight and measure, but he cannot conduct you thither. For the vision of one man lends not its wings to another man.”
-Kelvin
We’re about half-way through tour and things are going great! We’re on the last day of our visit with Odaiko New England, a great group of folks!
We have a travel wonderful travel companion on this tour… Meet Fruity!
KimiAnn and Fruity