{"id":7456,"date":"2018-04-13T11:10:47","date_gmt":"2018-04-13T15:10:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/?p=7456"},"modified":"2024-04-22T14:37:10","modified_gmt":"2024-04-22T18:37:10","slug":"tamagawa-taiko-returns-to-swarthmore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/2018\/04\/13\/tamagawa-taiko-returns-to-swarthmore\/","title":{"rendered":"Tamagawa Taiko Returns to Swarthmore"},"content":{"rendered":"<p dir=\"ltr\">Tamagawa Taiko Drum and\u00a0<span class=\"il\">Dance<\/span>\u00a0Group has a long history with Swarthmore\u2019s\u00a0<span class=\"il\">Dance<\/span>\u00a0and\u00a0<span class=\"il\">Music<\/span>\u00a0programs, spanning eighteen years of performances and workshops. Professor Kim Arrow, Swarthmore Taiko professor, first met Tamagawa Taiko director Isaburoh Hanayagi in 1999 at a\u00a0<span class=\"il\">dance<\/span>\u00a0festival in Philadelphia. The two of them&#8211;one an expert in Japanese performing arts and one a\u00a0<span class=\"il\">dance<\/span>\u00a0professor with a budding interest in taiko&#8211;arranged Swarthmore\u2019s first Tamagawa Taiko performance the following year. Although lightly publicized, the concert was sold out, setting the standard for annual performances since.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">In addition to regular taiko performances, Isaburoh has held multiple workshops in\u00a0<span class=\"il\">dance<\/span>, taiko, and kabuki theater, extending the relationship between Swarthmore and Tamagawa beyond just the taiko programs. In 2002, a delegation from Tamagawa traveled to Swarthmore to consult with various faculty and administrators in establishing the first Department of Liberal Arts in Japan at Tamagawa University. Later, Swarthmore President Al Bloom and Tamagawa President Yoshiaki Obara would establish an official Sister Relationship between the two institutions, symbolized by the hanging of printed cherry blossom fabric over the LPAC stairwell. In 2004, a member of Tamagawa\u2019s Art Program held a workshop in Japanese textile design for Swarthmore art students. In 2008, Isaburoh served as a Cornell Visiting Professor of Japanese at Swarthmore, during which his taiko classes performed with the Tamagawa group to an audience of over 20,000 people at Philadelphia\u2019s Sakura Sunday Festival. Swarthmore has benefitted from the Tamagawa Taiko program in innumerable ways, including the gift of fourteen professional-class taiko drums arranged by Isaburoh.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Since that first, modest concert at Swarthmore in 2000, Tamagawa Taiko has gained acclaim performing in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, DC, and across the Northeast. Notably, the group now performs annually for Philadelphia\u2019s famous Cherry Blossom Festival. Amidst their growing reputation, Tamagawa Taiko returns to Swarthmore yearly for their ever-popular performances and continues to grace the campus with their\u00a0<span class=\"il\">music<\/span>,\u00a0<span class=\"il\">dance<\/span>, and Japanese cultural education. Says Professor Arrow, \u201cI am aware that audiences await each Cherry Blossom season with much anticipation for this world-class event with its exceptionally trained drummers and\u00a0<span class=\"il\">dancers<\/span>. I am very grateful that they regard Swarthmore as their second home.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Taiko students Christine Lee \u201818 and Josie Hung \u201818 also voice their gratitude having witnessed several Tamagawa Taiko performances. \u201cThis upcoming show will be my 3rd time seeing Tamagawa Taiko perform,\u201d says Lee. \u201cEach time I watch their show, I am blown away by their artistry, skills, and overall performance. The drums are exhilarating, the\u00a0<span class=\"il\">dances<\/span>\u00a0are mesmerizing, and the fact that they&#8217;re students our age is all the more impressive.\u201d Hung remembers the performances with similar awe. \u201cThe experience was truly amazing. I loved the energy, movement, and preciseness that each player brought and was completely enveloped in their performance from the moment they hit their first beat.\u201d Hung encourages everyone, especially students outside the\u00a0<span class=\"il\">Music<\/span>\u00a0and\u00a0<span class=\"il\">Dance<\/span>\u00a0Department, to attend a Tamagawa Taiko performance. \u201cI think it is valuable to see professional performances from people who train everyday in this art form,\u201d she says. \u201cI also think engaging and learning from art in different cultures is a very important and valuable lesson that every individual can take from this.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\nMaya Kikuchi &#8217;20<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tamagawa Taiko Drum and\u00a0Dance\u00a0Group has a long history with Swarthmore\u2019s\u00a0Dance\u00a0and\u00a0Music\u00a0programs, spanning eighteen years of performances and workshops. Professor Kim Arrow, Swarthmore Taiko professor, first met Tamagawa Taiko director Isaburoh Hanayagi in 1999 at a\u00a0dance\u00a0festival in Philadelphia. The two of them&#8211;one an expert in Japanese performing arts and one a\u00a0dance\u00a0professor with a budding interest in taiko&#8211;arranged [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":7457,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,63],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7456"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7456"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7458,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7456\/revisions\/7458"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}