Western Carolina brought a little taste of Japanese culture to the Bardo Arts Center on Wednesday night, April 18, with a performance from Taikoza.
Photo courtesy of Western Carolina University
Taikoza is the only performance group in the United States that incorporates the use of Japanese dance and instruments such as Taiko drums, which are large drums made of tree trunks that weigh up to 150 pounds, shakuhachi and the fue, which are both flute-like instruments and the Koto, which is a Japanese string instrument.
Taikoza is led by Marco Lienhard, who spent 18 years in Japan playing with Taiko bands learning the numerous instruments that were played during the performance. After each song, Lienhard would tell the audience about the song that they played, explaining to the crowd what festivals the pieces they played were from.
Even though this was a very intriguing experience, this event did not draw the biggest crowd.
The event was organized by WCU’s Arts and Cultural Events (ACE) series and was their last show for this semester.
Erica Carland, an attendee at the event, enjoyed the show because she got to experience music from a different culture.
https://soundcloud.com/jesse-pigeon/erica-carland
Dillion Denton, a student here at WCU, who has actually been to Japan, said that it was great to see these drums being performed at Western.
https://soundcloud.com/jesse-pigeon/dillon-denton-interview
Jonathan Ramos, a student at Western, said that the American twist that was put into the performance was why he enjoyed the show.
