Kenny Endo featured in Spirit of Taiko

Three generations of taiko drummers featured in gayle yamada's the "Spirit of Taiko" airing on PBS in May.

Taiko drumming began 2,000 years ago in Japan where it became part of religious ceremonies, festivals, and everyday village life. In America, contemporary taiko took root in the late 1960s when Japanese immigrant Seiichi Tanaka founded San Francisco Taiko Dojo and Reverend Masao Kodani founded Kinnara Taiko in Los Angeles.

Spirit of Taiko by director gayle yamada, Steve Dung, Dianne Fukami, and Daniel Morii Schwinn, premieres this May on PBS as part of the Center for Asian American Media's lineup of films for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. (Check local listings.) The one-hour documentary reveals the fascinating origins of this ancient art form in the United States and shows how the succeeding generations in America have put their own imprint on contemporary taiko.

Known as the grandfather of American taiko. Seiichi Tanaka emphasizes discipline, spirituality, hard work, and respect in his approach. Today, his renowned San Francisco Taiko Dojo performs throughout the world. Kinnara Taiko began when a group of Japanese American Buddhists in Los Angeles decided to play taiko for fun after temple ceremonies were over. They began without teachers and without any particular style, but their drumming emphasized religious spirituality and inclusion. Students of both schools eventually founded their own taiko dojos in other parts of the country, many of whom are interviewed in the documentary.

In Spirit of Taiko , we also meet a former student of Tanakas, Kenny Endo, who also spent ten years in Japan studying taiko and Japanese classical music and founded the Taiko Center of the Pacific in Hawaii. Endo represents the second generation of American taiko artists. He also learned from Kinnara Taiko in Los Angeles. We meet Masato Baba, part of Americas third generation of taiko drummers and a student of Kenny Endo. Babas parents were also Tanakas students before they founded their own group Shasta Taiko. And we meet a Japanese American taiko drum maker who uses Japanese techniques as well as his own innovations in his work. He sees the drum as an instrument that can create harmony and understanding. Spirit of Taiko shows that Americans have taken taiko into a dynamic direction, emphasizing performance and the enjoyment of playing. As director gayle yamada says, Taiko is evolving into a different folk art in the United States today as Westerners, particulalry Americans, are re-creating it. It is a holistic art where mind-body-spirit comes together. And the passion, dedication, skill, and hard work that artists such as Seiichi Tanaka have put into taiko bring it to the level that it's at today. The growing number of taiko dojos in the United States is evidence of its increasing popularity and its evolution into an art that is becoming an indelible part of American culture.

www.asianamericanmedia.org
Check local listings for this national broadcast premiere.

The Center for Asian American Media (formerly known as the National Asian American Telecommunications Association has a new director. A fond farewell to Eddie Wong and a hearty welcome to Stephen Gong. Gong, 53, joins the Center after working for 18 years at the University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, most recently as the Deputy Director. He has a degree in English from UC Berkeley and attended graduate school in cinema studies at the University of Southern California.