Californian sunshine, chai tea, mountains, musicians, dances with sticks, dancing with everyone, and the best taiko show I have ever seen…welcome to Shastayama!
Journeying, re-connecting, grounding…
After two days of sitting in San Jose Taiko’s studio, typing up the last few days of Japan, putting thoughts onto paper, and trying to get mind and body into one place, in one time zone, I now feel ready for the next chapter in this adventure and I can’t think of anything more ideal than finding myself in a room in Mount Shasta, California. It’s beautiful, calm, quiet, and the people who are here are gentle, they greet you with a smile.
I’m here with Pear Urushima, and we spent the afternoon strolling around, wandering into shops and spending time in cafes, getting to know the place slowly. It was time off, and of course, when we’re both relaxing, taking things in, mulling things over, a cup of tea turns into a lengthy talk about taiko artistry and other complex issues. The chai tea turned to dinner in a Thai restaurant, and more conversation that helped to turn these issues over, like digging over a flower bed, it enlivens the mind and stirs the thoughts up…and all at the foot of a beautiful mountain that we hope to explore tomorrow. I’m feeling very lucky to be here, surrounded by lovely people, feeling part of something bigger…
We left San Jose in convoy this morning, with ten performing members of San Jose Taiko, arriving here in time for them to get to their tech rehearsal on stage in the park…what a location for a show, and having sat in on their rehearsal last night in the studio, I’m very excited about tomorrow evening. The pace of things here is a welcome change from that of Japan…things will happen, but in a different manner, on a different level. I look forward to seeing it unfold, and can’t wait to greet the mountain in the morning and see the sun set around it at dusk, to the sound of taiko…
Greeting Mount Shasta!
Al
though the chai tea soy latte from Yak’s is really good, I’m pretty sure that the taiko concert in the park at the foot of the mountain at sunset with near enough the whole town turned out for the event is what has made me feel so strongly about this Mount Shasta. Having walked around the small town for a couple of days, I overhead more and more people getting excited about the show, saying how much they looked forward to the event, and even how to one person, Shasta Yama is up there (with 4th July) in the top two dates of her year. The community had clearly grown to love the show, become accustomed to its annual appearance in the calendar and take pride and community ownership of this event – there were food and drink stalls, volunteers running the merchandise desks, and on the gate welcoming people and distributing programmes, and everyone was so friendly.
And whilst I sat there in the green park surrounded by families sprawled out on rugs with picnics, waiting for it all to start, I came to the realisation that this was so much more than another taiko show. It was pretty clear that all the performers had strong links back to Russell Baba and Jeannie Mercer, the organisers and long-time residents of this mountain town. I’m not out to be a taiko critic, but the overriding factor for me was the beautiful unity about the whole evening.
Chris Bergstrom and Masato Baba, Shasta Taiko, Jeannie Mercer & Russell Baba, Michelle Fuji and Toru Watanabe came together in different combinations, costumes & guises to present magical combinations of Jazz, dance, story-telling and kumidaiko. The audience got to their feet for Bon Odori dance, the traditional gestures of welcoming everyone, fishing and greeting the sun were updated to include the genius moves of using smart phones, texting and ‘paying the man’.
San Jose Taiko’s two sets tangibly ramped up the audience’s excitement, PJ & Roy Hirabyashi joined to bring some 
stunning moments, the was spoken beautifully to call everyone’s attention to making a more peaceful world, and as if they could leave there without asking everyone to join in with ‘Ei Ja Nai Ka?’. The finale was a logistical feat, as all the performers joined together on stage, solos being passed around as it ceased to be different taiko groups and morphed to become a mass of musicians and dancers, sharing their incredible energy with the crowd at their feet, at the foot of this vast mountain. It was, for me, a perfect mixture of artistic inspiration, accessibility, inclusiveness with a distinct lack of pretension.
And to top it all off, I finally met the man who made Kagemusha Taiko’s distinctive performance drums – how could he forget us? I think Mark Miyoshi still finds it funny that Jonathan had asked for green taiko, it was so nice to put a smiling face to the name.
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