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The beat of primal rhythms

Yamato brings lost traditions to life for modern audiences

By Tony Ozuna
For The Prague Post
February 7th, 2007 issue

COURTESY PHOTO
Women get in the act with Yamato, a coed troupe that re-creates ancient sounds with a variety of instruments.
The first time Yamato played Prague, last winter at the Congress Center, the mostly Czech audience seemed mesmerized by the huge drum in the middle of the stage. The odaiko is a tremendous drum made from a tree over 400 years old, and the noise it makes is incomparable. Simply put, it echoes its great age in sound.
The exhilarating 10-member Japanese taiko drum troupe Yamato returns to Prague, this time for two nights at the Congress Center, with the centerpiece odaiko, along with its trademark assortment of taiko drums in all sizes, bronze gongs, and rarely heard traditional Japanese flutes, zithers and other instruments.
Taiko is the term used for traditional Japanese drumming groups, which play hanging drums struck by thick, heavy drumsticks, combined with side drums and  bronze gongs. However, Yamato is also more than a traditional taiko drum group. It is a modern theatrical dance troupe, with five men and five women using traditional taiko drumming, as well as instruments from centuries-old Noh and Kabuki theater, to give audiences a unique experience in Japanese musical history and culture.
Yamato’s new show is titled Shin-on or “Heartbeat,” which is considered by some drumming devotees to be the primal source of all rhythm. A mother’s heartbeat as heard by a baby in the womb is normally a soothing backdrop. But, depending on the situation, it can also be a fearsome thunder. Thus, songs in Yamato’s performances can vacillate (like a heartbeat) between these two extremes.
There is another dichotomy in Yamato’s show, also tied to body rhythms, as taiko is based on the modulation between the “female” (left hand) and the “male” (right hand) strokes of the drumsticks. The female is the softer stroke, while the male is the stronger one, and the modulation between the two is the primary element of taiko.
For centuries, taiko drumming was an integral part of Japanese culture, performed in Shinto and Buddhist temples and shrines for religious festivals and ceremonies. However, postwar Japan underwent a radical break with traditions and only in recent times have younger generations in Japan returned to these ancient practices, particularly in music.  
In contrast to the most famous modern Japanese taiko group, Kodo, Yamato is relatively new and young — the average age of its members is 25. But the members’ experience belies their age; they’ve played around the world, including all of Europe, the Americas and throughout Asia, since they formed in 1993. Moreover, musically, they are more than a drumming group, since they don’t only play taiko.
Besides the drums, Yamato performs with instruments like the shamisen (similar to a banjo, with three strings and heard in Kabuki theater), shakuhachi (a five-holed bamboo flute) and the simple and elegant-sounding koto (a zither with 13 strings). So the sounds of ancient Japanese flutes, strings, gongs and cymbals blend with the soft and loud rhythms of the percussion. Since contemporary Japanese rarely hear these older instruments, Yamato is creatively keeping alive this unique culture for younger generations in Japan as well as audiences abroad.
Yamato

When: Friday and Saturday, Feb. 9 and 10 at 7
Where: Congress Center
Tickets: 790–1,590 Kč through Ticketart, Ticketstream and Ticket Portal

Yamato was formed by Masaki Ogawa in Nara, the ancient capital of Japan and the “land of Yamato.” In the eighth century, Japan was known as “Yamato,” and Nara is the city where ancient Japanese culture is believed to have its roots. The massive odaiko — 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds) and 1.7 meters (5.6 feet) in radius — serves as the essential living symbol bridging Yamato with these roots.
Through the sheer energy and sound produced and enjoyed by the musicians of Yamato, the group is reawakening audiences around the world to Japanese traditions as an exhilarating and positive response to the profound effects of the economic, social and political changes still sweeping Japan.

Tony Ozuna can be reached at features@praguepost.com


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