TAO: DRUM HEART to Make New York Premiere at NYU Skirball This February

From the creative team behind the four-time Tony Award-nominated revival of Pacific Overtures comes the New York debut of TAO: DRUM HEART. The new production will play a strictly limited engagement at NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts from Thursday, February 11, 2016 through Sunday, February 14, 2016 before TAO continues its fourth North American tour.

Direct from TAO's successful, sold-out world premiere run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, this brand new production will be revealed in New York, and TAO will tour North America in the winter of 2016. The new show will bring you athletic bodies and contemporary costumes combined with explosive Taiko drumming and innovative choreography. TAO has critics raving about their extraordinary precision, energy, and stamina. With hundreds of sold-out shows and more than 6.5 million spectators, TAO has proven that modern entertainment based on the timeless art of Japanese drumming, thrills international audiences again and again.

TAO: DRUM HEART will be directed by Amon Miyamoto (Pacific Overtures) and feature costumes by Junko Koshino (Tony nom for Pacific Overtures) and stage design by Rumi Matsui (Tony nom for Pacific Overtures).

TAO established a partnership with Ippudo restaurants in 2010, and they have since opened collaborative Ippudo TAO restaurants in Japan and Singapore. In combining Japanese food and theatre, the two companies aim "to deliver smiles, vigor, courage, and vitality" to the world. While TAO: DRUM HEART is in New York, a limited TAO ramen and cocktail menu will be available at Ippudo's East Village and West Side locations.

The performance schedule for TAO: Drum Heart is as follows: Thursday, February 11 at 8pm; Friday, February 12 at 8pm; Saturday, February 13 at 3pm and 8pm; Sunday, February 14 at 3pm and 8pm.

TAO NORTH AMERICAN TOUR DATES:

1/20 Montreal, QC, Canada Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier

1/21 Quebec, QC, Canada Salle Louis-Frechette

1/23-24 Rama, ON, Canada Casino Rama

1/26 Rutland, VT Paramount Center

1/29 Greenvale, NY Tilles Center Concert Hall

1/30 Union, NJ Wilkins Theater

1/31 Bethlehem, PA Baker Hall, Zoellner Arts Center

2/2 Portland, ME Merrill Auditorium

2/3 Amherst, MA Fine Arts Center Concert Hall

2/5 Portsmouth, NH The Music Hall

2/6 Morristown, NJ Mayo Performing Arts Center

2/9 Indiana, PA Fisher Auditorium

2/11-14 New York, NY The Skirball Center for the Performing Arts

2/16 Lewisburg, PA Sigmund and Claire Weis Center for the Performing Arts

2/18 Durham, NC Carolina Theatre - Fletcher Hall Auditorium

2/19 Newport News, VA Ferguson Center for the Arts Concert Hall

2/20 Wilmington, DE DuPont Theatre

2/21 Fairfax, VA Center for the Arts Concert Hall

2/25 Boerne, TX Boerne - Samuel V. Champion High School Auditorium

2/26 Galveston, TX The Grand 1894 Opera House

2/27 Longview, TX S. E. Belcher Jr. Chapel and Performance Center

2/28 Midland, TX Wagner Noël Performing Arts Center Performance Hall

3/1 El Paso, TX Magoffin Auditorium

3/2 Santa Fe, NM The Lensic Performing Arts Center

3/4 Albuquerque, NM Popejoy Hall

3/6 Tuscon, AZ Fox Tuscon Theatre

3/8 Malibu, CA Smothers Theater

3/9 Palm Desert, CA McCallum Theatre for Performing Arts

3/10-11 Scottsdale, AZ Virginia G. Piper Theater

3/12 San Diego, CA Copley Symphony Hall

3/13 Santa Clarita, CA Santa Clarita Performing Arts Center Proscenium Theater

3/15 Redding, CA The Cascade Theatre

3/16 Medford, OR Craterian Theater

3/18 Modesto, CA Mary Stuart Rodgers Theater

3/19 Folsom, CA Stage 1 - Harris Center for the Arts

3/21 San Luis Obispo, CA Harman Hall, Christopher Cohan Center

For more information, visit www.drum-tao.com/main/english.

BIOS:

Amon Miyamoto (Director) - Born in Ginza, Tokyo, Japan, Miyamoto has been involved in Japanese traditional dance, tea ceremony and Japanese fine arts since his early childhood. He became interested in musicals when he visited New York at the age of 21, and he later made his debut as a director with an original musical "I Got Merman," which portrayed Broadway star Ethel Merman's life. He received the National Arts Festival Prize (the most prestigious directing award in Japan) with this musical. In 2001, he directed "I Got Merman" for the Stanford Center in Connecticut. His production of "Pacific Overtures" premiered in the U.S. at Lincoln Center Festival in 2002.

In 2004, he became the first Asian director of a Broadway musical when he directed "Pacific Overtures" at Studio 54, which received four TONY award nominations. In 2009, he served as a director of the 150th anniversary of Opening of Yokohama Port and invited the Emperor and Empress of Japan. In 2010, he directed "The Fantasticks," which opened at the Duchess Theater on West End, London. Miyamoto directed an original musical version of "The Nutcracker," composed by Michael John LaChiusa in Tokyo in 2001, and he conceived and directed a new musical "Up in the Air," composed by Henry Krieger, which premiered at Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. in 2008.

In 2010, Miyamoto was inaugurated as the first Artistic Director of the Kanagawa Arts Theatre (KAAT) in Yokohama, Japan, and served until 2014. As an opening project of the new theatre, he turned a famous novel by Yukio Mishima into a play: "The Temple of the Golden Pavilion," which was officially invited to the Lincoln Center Festival in July 2011. It was recently remounted in Tokyo in April 2014.

Junko Koshino (Costume Designer) - Junko Koshino is one of Japan's most highly acclaimed fashion designers, best known for her wide array of different designs, including her Junko Koshino line, corporate and sports team uniform designs and musical performance costumes.Born in Osaka, Junko Koshino won the prestigious Soen Award while studying in Bunka Fashion College's Design program. Her Paris collection was held from 1978 to 2000 and she has produced fashion shows around the world including the 2008 opening reception and fashion show at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. She has also been involved in cultural exchange through her fashion design activities in such countries as China, Vietnam, Cuba, Italy, France, and the U.S. and was appointed by Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport as the 2008 Yokoso! Japan Ambassador. She is renowned for costume design in such productions as the operas "Madame Butterfly" and "The Magic Flute," the Broadway musical "Pacific Overtures" (for which she received a Tony Award nomination), Muscle Musical, and The Art of Japan Drum,"DRUM.TAO."

Rumi Matsui (Stage Designer) - Rumi Matsui is one of the leading set designers in Japan. In 1985 Matsui completed her BA in graphic design at Tama Art University and joined Shiki Theatre Company. This led her into further education in theatre design at Central School of Art and Design (now Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design) in London. After her return to Japan in 1990, Matsui began her career as a set designer and scenographer, and in 1991, she established Centreline Associates Inc. She has designed over four hundred theatrical productions and won numerous awards including Yomiuri Drama Grand Prix for the best set designer and the Kinokuniya Drama Award. In 2004, her Broadway debut Pacific Overtures at Studio54 was nominated for the Tony Award's Best Scenic Design of a Musical. The Fantastick was taken to theatres in London's West End in 2010. She has also designed a number of opera sets such as Junior Butterfly for the 52nd Puccini Festival at Torre del Lago Puccini in Italy and Tea: A Mirror of Soul at Santa Fe Opera in New Mexico. In recent years, she is expanding her practice to concert set design as seen in AKB48 concert at the National Athletic Stadium, Tokyo in 2014. Matsui was one of the juries for Prague Quadrennial 07 and she was listed as one of the Honorable Scenographers by OISTAT (International Organization of Scenographers, Theatre Architects and Technicians) in 2007. Matsui is currently a guest instructor at Tokyo University of the Arts. She is a president of Centreline Associates Inc., one of the major theatre set design companies in Japan.

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