#OURbeat

Greetings from Minneapolis, Minnesota! I had the amazing opportunity this weekend to see an all-women taiko performance at the Ordway Center for Performing Arts. An event like this has never happened before today and I have been looking forward to it for months! See, my goal is to do my master’s thesis on this group of inspiring people and their journey to bring gender equality to taiko leadership. I’ll come back to their story in a bit. First, I am going to give you a little background on taiko!

Taiko literally means “big drum” in Japanese and has had various uses throughout Japan’s history: war signals, religious performances, parties, ceremonies, etc. If you want to learn more about its history and uses read here! Because of traditional Japanese gender norms, men have usually had many more opportunities to lead in general, including playing in Taiko ensembles. In the past, taiko had ONLY been for men. However, history and women’s rights have moved forward, allowing women to fully participate in Taiko ensembles. Except, allowing them to fully participate and actually being afforded the opportunity to take on all the responsibilities that have historically only gone to men is easier said than done. Women have been able to take on all the roles of a Taiko ensemble for years and yet very few of them have become leaders. Why is this?

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Well, men, because they were historically predisposed to leadership roles, have more connections, prestige/assumed prestige, and chances to gain experience, are most often the leaders of taiko ensembles. It is not that women have not been interested or have actively been barred from taking on major taiko roles. In fact, more the 2/3rds of taiko players in the U.S.A. are women! It is more so that men’s history has given them more opportunities and gave them a theoretical advantage to lead these groups. Noticing this, a group of taiko-playing women got together and started the project called, “HERbeat”: an all-women taiko group aimed at bringing the best women in the taiko community together and performing around the globe to inspire other women to lead in their own taiko groups! You can read about their amazing project here and this is the intro video for the concert that shows you their line-up!

And let me tell you, that line-up did AMAZING things tonight. They showcased their musical, dance, and compositional skills through 11 different songs. These women showed what it means to be a female taiko player, emphasize their identities across race, nationality, gender, sex, and so much more. At the end of the show, they emphasized their message to the audience: HERbeat, HISbeat, OURbeat. These wonderful ladies believe that taiko brings people together and that this concert and the coming film will help inspire the entire taiko community and even more so taiko women to persevere and bring peace to the world.

Tomorrow, I attend four workshops that are meant to spark conversations about gender inequality in taiko ensembles and also empower women to lead by giving them experience and knowledge. These workshops are given more context at the bottom of this page. If you would like to read more about the film click this link and if you want to learn more about my interests and knowledge on this, click me! Just kidding, just come talk to me! Over and out!