In the mid-1950s, Japan’s Daihachi Oguchi revived the taiko piece Suwa Ikaduchi, which had traditionally been played at the Nagano Prefecture Suwa Shrine. Until then, the song was played by a single male drummer for ritual at the shrine, a common use of Japanese drums throughout history. Oguchi made changes to the music, creating an ensemble of drums that emulated the Western drum kit, resulting in a new musical genre, which we now refer to as “taiko” in English. Nearly 60 years later, this musical form has spread across the globe with great popularity. The main points of this thesis are to clarify the distinct reference to an historic past required to discuss taiko within Hobsbawm’s theory of invented tradition, to present individuals and communities involved in the formalization of taiko, and to consider what can be learned from the ordinary musician. All of these lead to a better understanding of the process of the formalization, or metamorphosis of taiko, which has not previously been examined. Following the Introduction, Chapters One and Two provide background on both the instruments and the music of taiko. A survey of the inception of pioneer taiko groups in Japan and the United States, where taiko developed simultaneously, can be found in Chapter Four. The preceding Chapter Three presents new research regarding the community where the Suwa Ikaduchi score was discovered, and begins to consider the relationship between the taiko ensemble and the community in which it is formed. This connection between the taiko ensemble and community is reinforced by the story of Eitetsu Hayashi in the fifth chapter, a former member of one of Japan’s first professional taiko groups. Taiko is still developing as a music and a performance art, but we are able to draw conclusions about what is special about taiko in considering the relationship between taiko and community throughout these early years of development. The final chapter tells the stories of two non-professional taiko musicians, one in the United States and one in Japan, concluding that the “traditional” roots of taiko helped to develop a musical genre today with a purpose greater than the music itself. Appendix I includes a copy of the Suwa Ikaduchi drum score, instructions on how to read it using taiko’s system of oral transmission, and a chart explaining the basic rhythmic value of the system. A chronology of events in Japanese American history can be found in Appendix II. Appendix III includes figures of the different kinds of taiko, photos of the Osaka region’s danjiri, and newspaper articles printed during taiko’s formative years. / published_or_final_version / Music / Master / Master of Philosophy

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Taiko is a highly physical and theatrical form of ensemble drumming that was popularized in 1950s Japan and has been widely practiced in Japanese American and other Asian American communities since the late 1960s. Taiko’s visual and sonic largesse—outstretched limbs and thundering drums—contrasted with pervasive stereotypes of Asians as silent and passive. This dissertation uses ethnographic participant-observation, archival research, and performance analysis to examine how North American taiko performance produces and is produced by the shifting contours of racial, gender, and sexual identity and community. Taiko groups create, re-shape, and challenge familiar notions of Asia, America, and Asian America through their public performances and in their rehearsal processes. While sometimes implicated in Orientalist performance contexts, taiko players use performance strategically to commemorate Asian American history, to convey feelings of empowerment, and to invite feminist, anti-racist, and queer forms of spectatorship. This dissertation explores taiko’s roots in the Asian American Movement of the 1960s and 1970s, its implications for 1990s multiculturalism, as well as its intersections with contemporary queer communities. My analysis focuses on three case study groups whose origins, philosophies, and geographic locations offer a diverse view of North American taiko and the Asian American/Canadian communities with which they are associated. Chapter One considers how San Jose Taiko’s early articulation of their identity as an Asian American taiko group continues to influence its practices and performances, particularly their taiko-dance piece, “Ei Ja Nai Ka?” and their national tours. Chapter Two examines how Minneapolis-based Mu Daiko negotiates its members’ diverse racial, ethnic, and gender identities within a Midwestern context that values multiculturalism. Chapter Three considers how the all-women’s group Jodaiko conveys Asian American lesbian identity and invites queer spectatorship through theatrical performance choices and its members’ everyday gender performances. My analysis extends from my ethnographic participant-observation, which includes personal interviews, attendance at workshops and performances, and spending time with performers; archival research in formal collections, groups’ internal documents, and my personal archive of taiko programs, posters, photographs, DVDs, and other ephemera; and performance analysis that is informed by my twelve years of experience as a taiko performer. / text

xii, 251 p. / Sedimentations of transformations and experiences empowered the 20th century writers Sata Ineko and Hirabayashi Taiko as writers. Because of their mutual belief in the early principles of the proletarian literary movement--writing the reality of the working class from their perspectives--both produced works centered on daily life. In not only delineating but also examining the daily occurrences, their stories and critiques acutely exposed the issues, the conditions, and the exploitation of the working class under capitalism, particularly the unfair and unreasonable treatment of women and women workers under the patriarchal slogan "Good Wives and Wise Mothers" and the discrimination of women workers and writers even within the proletarian movement. The café proved the best site for both to offer keen analyses. Materializing the actual working experiences of jokyû (café waitresses), they exposed the superficiality of Japanese modernity in the 1920s and 30s, the suppression and oppression of women under patriarchy, commodification and exploitation of working women under capitalism, and the ultimate consequences--social myopia and deterioration of human life. While the café was for jokyû a site of exploration and challenge by overturning the dominant power hierarchy practiced in society, for Sata and Hirabayashi, writing about the café challenged the prejudice and confinement of existing categorizations such as "women," "women workers," " jokyû ," "women writers," and "proletarian writers." Both Sata and Hirabayashi treated the café and jokyû as realistic and multifaceted. To strengthen this realism, both writers relied on their own corporeal experiences and sensations, supporting honest illustrations of power dynamics and the dual-system oppression of women at play within and beyond the café environment. Both acknowledged the body as a site of complication and possibility. Through their acknowledgments beyond the surface inscriptions that restrict and limit who and what lies within, both Sata and Hirabayashi contended that the body was an interactive and potentially productive catalyst for change. For them, the corporeal experience proved more effective for gaining consciousness, obtaining class-consciousness, and eventually achieving ideological resolution than through doctrinal readings and teachings. / Committee in charge: Stephen Kohl, Chairperson; Alisa Freedman, Member; Tze-Lan Sang, Member; Jeffrey Hanes, Outside Member