| Exhibition Review | The Journal of American History, 93.1

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| Exhibition Review | The Journal of American History, 93.1 | The History Cooperative

Exhibition Reviews

"Big Drum: Taiko in the United States." Japanese American National Museum, 369 E. First St., Los Angeles, CA 90012. Temporary exhibition, July 14, 2005–Jan. 8, 2006. 3,000 sq. ft. Sojin Kim, curator; Ronald Stroud, exhibition designer; Akira Boch, Masaki Miyagawa, and Ann Kaneko, director/videographer/editor of media arts pieces; John Esaki, producer/editor/video grapher of media arts pieces; Art Hansen, senior historian/oral history interviewer; Lisa Sasaki, education; Sabrina Motley, director of public programs; Vicky Murakami-Tsuda, Web editor. Big Drum: Taiko in the United States. (DVD). (Los Angeles: Frank H. Watase Media Arts Center of the Japanese American National Museum, 2005. $19.95.) Internet: description of exhibition, history of taiko in North America, video clips, interviews, photo gallery, and related links <http://www.janm.org/exhibits/bigdrum> (March 6, 2006).
Three and a half decades after the first Japanese drumming groups formed in the United States, the significance of taiko (Japanese drumming; or big drum) in Japanese American history has received public recognition from the Japanese American community. Over 800 people crowded into the Japanese American National Museum (JANM) on the evening of July 13, 2005, to celebrate the opening of the exhibition "Big Drum: Taiko in the United States." On that same day, the 2005 North American Taiko Conference opened at the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center (JACCC), attracting over 600 drummers from the United States, Canada, Britain, and Japan. Both the JANM and JACCC are located in Los Angeles's Little Tokyo district.	1
The "Big Drum" exhibit occupied the foyer area and the entire first-floor exhibition hall of the JANM. Visitors were greeted in the foyer area by joyful O-bon (Buddhist summer festival) music, featuring taiko, bamboo flutes, and singing. There stood a towering yagura (a central stage on which musicians perform), ornamented by red and white cloth, donated by the Senshin Buddhist Temple, where one of the first taiko groups, Kinnara Taiko, was formed. A video screen showed Japanese Americans dancing at O-bon in Los Angeles, Denver, and Hawaii. The first section of the exhibition was titled "Making Community," and it explained the importance of festivals in the lives of Japanese immigrants. A photograph of bon-odori (a circle dance performed at O-bon) at the Amache concentration camp and Estelle Ishigo's pencil sketch of bon-odori at the Heart Mountain concentration camp reminded viewers that even during hardships Japanese Americans have found mental and spiritual comfort through music and entertainment. Photographs, a medium-sized taiko on a drum stand, and several posters from local festivals illustrated how these festivals helped keep communities together in the post–World War II period, when Japanese Americans, many of whom had spent the war years in internment camps, were under tremendous pressure to assimilate into mainstream American culture.	2
The exhibition inside the hall was divided into six sections: "Making Music," "Making Taiko History," "Making American Taiko," "Making Noise," "Making It New," and "Timeline." In the exhibition hall visitors could view an impressive huge, red okedo (a barrel-body drum with rope-tensioned cowhide heads). Around the drum were several other smaller drums and other percussion instruments: a tetsu-zutsu (a horizontal metal bar) used to keep time and signal rhythm changes, a bolt-tensioned shime-daiko (small drum), a nagado-daiko (a "long body" drum) with a tacked head, and a medium-sized okedo. That display showed the variety of drums used in kumi-taiko (taiko ensemble) performances. On the wall, visitors saw different kinds of bachi (drum sticks), several fue and shakuhachi (bamboo flutes), and smaller percussion instruments such as bin-sasara, uchiwa-daiko, atarigane, hyoshigi, and shakers. Viewers were encouraged to make sounds with these small percussion instruments, although they were not allowed to touch the bigger drums.	. . .

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