Kodo
9 out of 10 - Simply Amazing. Can't wait to see 'em again.
Monday, February 10, 2003
UCLA Royce Hall, Los Angeles, CA
|
|
What can be said about a bunch of Japanese guys banging on drums? A lot, actually. Especially when witnessed first hand. Kodo began as an organization with the goal of setting up a university for the study of traditional Japanese arts on Sado Island, Japan, and started performing taiko drum concerts to help raise the money. They appeared for the first time in 1981 in Berlin and since have evolved into Japan’s most widely traveled and acclaimed performing arts group.
Kodo’s website describes the group as a vibrant living art-form, which is much more descriptive and accurate than referring to them as just a drum troupe. The performance flirted with dance, singing, drama and improvisational performance art, as well. The stage was absolutely bare and unadorned save some minimal lighting. This was very fitting because the performance that was about to unfold was so primal it required none of the trappings of theatre we are accustomed to—elaborate sets and sound systems, crews of stage technicians… the members of Kodo even brought the instruments on stage themselves under darkness seamlessly between pieces.
Twelve men and four women performed total, in combinations ranging from duos to small groups to the entire troupe. A lot is expressed with the players’ body language as the first piece showed-- a low, strenuous stance required for drumming was elaborated on with exaggerated yet rigorously controlled movements, almost like a kata in martial arts. A later piece consisted solely of two flutists, who walked so smoothly and silently as they played it was almost as if they were gliding across the floor. Their melodies were other-worldly to my unaccustomed western ear. They would diverge to a counterpoint that should have been chaos, but somehow wasn’t.
Then after dancing round one another they would meet again, and the players were so in sync that despite being close up, I couldn’t tell who was playing what.
Vocalization also added to many pieces, as the players wailed, called out, and responded to one another. Still I wonder what was said—was it a sort of chanting of non-words? Or were the players egging each other on in Japanese? Dynamics were used extensively in the pieces by employing very quiet percussion instruments, the unadorned (and un-amplified) voice of a woman singing, or playing the drums so quietly that the listener takes in every noise however small-- and even the silences-- as part of the performance. The silences between songs were perhaps the most deafening I’ve ever experienced. But most of all it was the facial expressions of the players that dictated the mood of the evening, and how it changed with each piece. Stern discipline. Carefree joy. Unbridled power.
The finale was the unveiling of the huge Miya-daiko, which was rolled out a top a beautifully adorned float-like platform by several in the group. Measuring about four feet across and weighing over 800 lbs, it is suspended by a stand that itself is almost as tall as the two men who play it, who incidentally are wearing nothing but simple loin cloths. The drum was turned so that the player keeping the basic rhythm was in back, and the main player was improvising in the front, absolutely pounding to bits the drumhead facing the audience. The two drummers became united at the end of the piece and the whole effect was extraordinarily hypnotic. One would think that listening to what was up until then 100-plus minutes of drumming would be grating to the audience, or create some feelings of agitation, but it was really the opposite. Several times during the performance I felt a sense of great peace or introspection, and just got lost in the overtones of these amazing drums.
By the end of the night I appreciated many new things. One was simply that in an age of too much e-mail, overpriced $3 coffees, and overall just a hectic world that is less and less organic by the second, that people can be part of something so core to the human experience that it transcends culture, age, social boundaries, etc., both as participants and spectators. Also that the human body is an absolute a miracle. The physicality required for this art-form is on parallel to that of Olympic athletes, and I’ve never seen one up close. I didn’t know there were so many muscles in your back.
Finally I appreciated the irony and though long on the impermanence of all things considering that here I was part of a sold out crowd honoring the ancient culture of a society that my country had bombed the living shit out of just 50 years ago. How Zen. It brought to mind the current world crisis and reminded me of the saying, “This too, shall pass.” I hope so.
|