YAMATO, The Drummers Of Japan, Bring TENMEI To North America In 2022

From January 19 - March 15, 2022, YAMATO: The Drummers of Japan tour North America with their new show, Tenmei | Destiny. Now in their 27th season, the Taiko troupe has reached nearly 8 million people globally in over 4,000 performances, making them the group with the most international performances to date among all Japanese performing arts ensembles.

The troupe is ecstatic to be back on the road after their 40-city tour of JHONETSU - PASSION! in 2020 was cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic. After a year filled with online performances, the Tenmei | Destiny tour will take YAMATO to venues in Idaho, California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Arkansas, Alabama, Wisconsin, Ohio, Massachusetts, Seattle, Calgary and Toronto.

The physically powerful troupe of musician-athletes work and live together as a community in the Asuka Village, said to be the birthplace of Japanese culture. There they create their own musical compositions, theater productions, sets, lighting design, choreography, performance techniques, costumes, makeup, stage settings and props. They even make their own bachi sticks used to play the traditional Japanese instruments, beginning each show by hitting a Wadaiko drum weighing half a ton, made from a single piece of wood from a 400-year-old tree. "YAMATO believes that the drumbeat, like the heartbeat, is the very pulse of life and the epitome of the Japanese spirit," says Founder and Artistic Director Masa Ogawa. "YAMATO uses creativity to convert Wadaiko into a performing art that can reverberate in Japan, Asia, and the rest of the world."

YAMATO based their new production on the concept of 天命 or "Tenmei," a word first described by Confucius in The Analects (551-479 BCE) in an expression that translates as, "at fifty I knew the will of heaven." Since then, the word has taken on the meaning of "destiny," or the fate of life given by heaven. With the world shuttered due to COVID-19, the YAMATO drummers were forced to think about their destiny. The troupe returned to the Asuka Village, where they never ceased training and creating together.

"In 2023, we will have our 30th Anniversary year," says Ogawa. "It was with this in mind that I started to create the program, Tenmei in 2019. In hindsight, I was thinking of 'destiny' as something I could decide for myself. That was before the pandemic. Now, I understand that there are things beyond our power and my control. In Japanese, there is a saying, 'Jinji-wo-tsukushite-Tenmei-wo-matsu,' which translates as 'Do the likeliest, and God will do the best.' The word of God has various meanings to people, but to me, it means the power from outside of people. I believe that we should do our best to create our 'destiny' and then wait for our 'destiny.'

Founded in 1993 in Japan's Nara Prefecture and presently based in Asuka Village, said to be the birthplace of Japanese culture, YAMATO travels all over the word with Japan's traditional Taiko drums, putting its very souls into the unusual instruments. Over the past 27 years, the troupe has performed in 54 countries and regions, giving 4,000 performances for nearly eight million people.

They travel with about 40 Taiko drums, ranging in size from 10kg to 500kg. The troupe lives within the Village and engages in daily strength training, instrument practice, and program rehearsal. Always evolving and innovating while respecting the tradition, YAMATO is a modern and relevant ambassador for Taiko drumming and for the Japanese culture from which it derives.

Since their formation, YAMATO has been committed to preserving and respecting the Taiko tradition, while infusing originality and innovation into the ancient practice. Notably, YAMATO broke from Taiko's long-standing patriarchy and has always included women in the troupe. And while the members train rigorously, YAMATO imbues each performance with joy and a sense of fun, breaking from the stereotypical stoicism associated with this ancient art form.

To post a comment, you must register and login.