While on tour I’m conducting a group session of 30 Days to Better Shime. There are just over 50 other taiko players joining me to practice every day in January!
Anyone is welcome to join us… read more here.
For those participating, here is a short video about basic grip and shime strike. Happy practicing!
Batchi grip and strike basics from Kristofer Bergstrom on Vimeo.
Dec 29 – My parents gave me some sprout trays for Christmas and we’re putting them to use on tour. If everything goes well, we should be able to have hiyayako (cold tofu) with ginger and sprouts by about Olathe KS. A night of soaking and they’re growing. Go sprouts go!
Dec 30 – 80% sproutage! They seem to be surviving the cold weather. How can you tell if a sprout is chilly?
Dec 31 – Just a few more days to go!
Once the sprouts have grown a bit, you’re supposed to put them in sunlight so they make chlorophyll. Today was a sunny day, so the dash was a perfect spot. Tomorrow’s lunch is going to be awesome!
Delicious! The radish sprouts were really strong and spicy and the alfalfa were sweet and flavorful. It was a *lot* of sprouts for two people to eat in one meal so we’ll offset the two trays when we start the next batch. Amazing these little seeds have all that energy in them!
Los Angeles CA
Las Vegas NV
Moab UT
Denver CO
Lincoln NE
Olathe KS
Bloomington IN
Fort Wayne IN
Cleveland OH
Pittsburgh PA
NYC
Woburn MA
Montreal QC
Toronto ON
Bowling Green OH
Chicago IL
Minneapolis MN
Spearfish SD
Butte MT
Ketchum ID
Ogden UT
Las Vegas NV
Los Angeles CA — CURRENT LOCATION
Current weather: 74F, balmy!
Miles driven: 7465
Workshops completed (18 scheduled): 18
Performances completed (9 scheduled): 9
Pushups and squats completed (regimen at every gas stop): 6471
Num curry meals eaten: 31
The adventure begins!
Maz and I spent last night with Korabo Taiko in Las Vegas and taught a new workshop we’ve been working on called Bon Taiko Bonanza. The Korabo members were great! We had the honor of playing some of the group’s brand new drums and ate homemade, vegan curry tikka masala and couscous after the workshop. What a great way to start the trip! Thanks for everything, Korabo!
Sunday, Jan 9, 2011
9:30am – 11:30am
$30
Renate Albertsen-Marton Gallery – The Village@Gureje
886 Pacific Street
Brooklyn, NY 11238
(Between Pacific and Washington Aves in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn)
RSVP: kaoru -at- watanabekaoru -dot- com
On Ensemble will be teaching Omiyage at Kaoru’s space in Brooklyn, with Maz assisting. A rare opportunity to learn the piece from Shoji, Omiyage’s original composer, as well as Maz, one of Omiyage’s great practitioners!
Join me and dozens of other taiko players around the country for the free, January group session of the at-home, taiko practice course, 30 Days to Better Shime. Make taiko practice one of your New Year’s resolutions for 2011!
During our cross-country workshop and performance tour, On Ensemble will be visiting St Louis, Minneapolis, and Salt Lake City. If you are a taiko player in these regions and would like to get together for a workshop, private lessons, or just a fun dinner, contact Kris by Wed, Dec 23! kris -at OnEnsemble -dot org, 310-350-8825
On Ensemble open tour dates!
Monday Jan 3 – St Louis MO
Saturday Jan 15 – Minneapolis MN
Sunday Jan 16, Minneapolis MN
Tuesday Jan18, Salt Lake City UT
Ah, the Los Angeles Public Library! What a grand system! With a mission “to provide free and easy access to information, ideas, books and technology that enrich, educate and empower every individual in our city’s diverse communities“, LAPL is one of the great institutions of Los Angeles. The beautiful and vibrant Central Library is buttressed by 72 neighborhood libraries, and you can reserve any book in the system and LAPL will send it to your nearest branch at no charge. More generally, public lending libraries are one of the United States’ most noble and democratic concepts, reducing financial barriers to learning, and more recently, helping to narrow the digital divide.
A successful experiment…
In 2009, I stopped buying books and started borrowing regularly from LAPL. (more…)