Features
San Jose Taiko - Guest Artist
ShastaYama 2005 Guest Artist
For over three decades, San Jose Taiko (SJT) has mesmerized audiences and critics with the powerful, spellbinding and propulsive sounds of the taiko drums.
Inspired by traditional Japanese drumming, company performers express the beauty and harmony of the human spirit through the voice of the taiko as they strive to create new dimensions in movement and music.
| ShastaYama 2005 | Photo: Jim Gilmore |
San Jose Taiko was founded in 1973 by young Asian Americans searching for an artistic and musical outlet to convey their unique experiences as third generation Japanese Americans, or Sansei. Looking to Japan for inspiration, they selected the symobolic taiko or drum as their instrument of expression.
The company has collaborated in concert with the foremost internationally renowned Japanese taiko musicians and performers including KODO, Ondekoza, Warabi-za, Eitetsu Hayashi, Hanayui, Michiko Lkao, Oedo Sukerroku, Osuwa Taiko, and Miyarabi Taiko.
San Jose Taiko also collaborates with noted artists and companies from other music, dance and theater disciplines like the American Conservatory Theater, George Coates Performance Works, San Jose Repertory Theater, the San Jose Symphony, the San Jose Museum of Art. Abhinaya Dance Company, Keith Terry and Crosspulse, Branda Wong Aoki, Kenny Endo, Eth-Noh-Tec, and Anthony Brown's Asian American Orchestra.
| ShastaYama 2005 | Photo: Jim Gilmore |
San Jose Taiko has appeared in Siskiyou County several times as guest artists for Shasta Taiko Recitals and Shasta Taiko in Concert. San Jose Taiko were the inspirational guests for the first ShastaYama in 2005.