Portland Taiko

Portland Taiko will be the closing performer at this very popular community event. Please visit their website (jadedistrict.org) for a list of food and retail vendors and performances.

We are honored to be part of the Portland Obon again this year! Our students will perform at 3:30, our guest, Jodaiko will take the stage at 4:30, and Portland Taiko will appear at 5:30. The bon dance starts at 7pm!

4 more days until OBONFEST! The picture featured by today is the old Kodomo Corner, or "kids corner," which is now located at the back of the temple. There's so much to see and do all day at Obon! The taiko performances will be in the parking lot as usual (see map), and this year there's THREE opportunities to check it out!

3:30pm Portland Taiko students
4:30pm guest Taiko group Jodaiko (Tiffany Tamaribuchi's all-women and non-binary group will be visiting for Obon!)
5:30pm Portland Taiko

Hope to see you there!

AAPI night at the Hillsboro Tuesday Night Market! Portland Taiko will be performing at 7:30pm on the Civic Center Plaza. The weather should be perfect!

! This is always one of our favorite summer performances! This year we'll be on the stage at 10:25 am on Sunday, July 28. Come on out to Esther Short Park for various multicultural performances, vendors, and of course some ono grinds!

Join us Thursday morning at Oregon City Public Library!

Family Concert | Portland Taiko
Join us tomorrow in Library Park for a traditional Japanese drumming performance with Portland Taiko! All ages welcome. Thursday, July 25 @ 10:30am

Portland Taiko's Farm Festival returns to Triskelee Farm on September 7! This is our third annual festival, and this year we're celebrating our 30th anniversary! This family-friendly event includes a concert, food trucks, PT swag to purchase, and an opportunity to explore and visit all the farm animals.

We've pushed it an hour later this year to help with the heat, so bring a blanket and canopy if you like, and enjoy a picnic amongst friends in the most beautiful setting in West Linn. Visit portlandtaiko.org for more information and tickets!

For your last reminder to come out to People of the Drum, we'd like to highlight our generous partners who made this all possible. Thank you so much Portland Parks & Recreation for continuing to co-sponsor our event year after year. We were also honored to receive one of Portland Park Foundation's grants this year, to support all of our performing groups: MexicaTiahui Aztec Dance Group, Alex Addy, Oregon Korean Performing Arts, and of course Portland Taiko!

Come to Gateway Discovery Park TOMORROW, Saturday July 20 from 11am to 1pm, to see all these fantastic groups on stage. In between each performance, they'll also be teaching hands-on workshops. Everyone is welcome!

Help us welcome People of the Drum newcomers Oregon Korean Performing Arts! We are thrilled to have this exciting new group join our lineup for this year.

Formed in 2013, Oregon Korean Performing Arts is a nonprofit organization comprised of several generations of Korean who now call America home. While they work hard achieving their American dreams, they also root themselves firmly within their heritage.

Under the guidance of their director Seung-Hee Ji, their team brings awareness and understanding of Korean culture through dance and drumming.

Join us!
People of the Drum
Saturday, July 20, 11am to 1pm
Gateway Discovery Park

Alex Addy is a native of Ghana, and currently resides in Portland as an instructor, musician & dancer, specializing in West African rhythm and movement.

Alex's father, Obo Addy, was one of the pioneers of bringing West African culture and music to America. Portland Taiko was lucky enough to collaborate with Obo Addy on several occasions, including our very first People of the Drum.

We are honored to continue to witness the Addy legacy here in Portland! Alex and fellow West African drummers will join us at our annual People of the Drum this Saturday at Gateway Discovery Park.

MexicaTiahui Aztec Dance Group was formed in 1995 by Mexican and Chicano students at Oregon State University. They were the first Aztec dance group in the Northwest.

This Saturday, they join us again at Gateway Discovery Park for our annual People of The Drum. Mexica Tiahui has performed with us at every single POTD, since our very first in 2012! As usual, they will kick off our program at 11am -- so don't be late!

Waiting to go on a stage at Carnegie Hall with Kalabrahathi dance group! More story to come in upcoming days.

Two weeks until our annual People of the Drum! We're returning to Gateway Discovery Park on Saturday, July 20. We're thrilled to announce an earlier start time (11am!) to help with the heat, and new POTD performers Oregon Korean Performing Arts! Each group, including returners Mexica Tiahui, Alex Addy Drummers, and of course Portland Taiko, will perform and teach a short hands-on workshop for attendees.
See more info at the event page: https://www.facebook.com/share/zEu8a5W1iGsNzc9T/

And don't forget to save the date for some of our other summer events!

Taiko Funtensive weekend with Tiffany! Last weekend, we spent more than 12 hours learning, from how to walk from our hips to how to cheat (relax) while playing taiko to how to truly have fun with taiko!

We also had a great time performing at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. Rawr!

Taiko and Bharatanatyam! Members of Portland Taiko are busy preparing for a performance with one of our longtime favorite groups to share the stage with - Shivy Vanka and the Kalabharathi School of Dance.

This time it will be at Carnegie Hall (!!!) as part of the All Indian Dance Festival on Sunday July 7. We are honored to join Kalabharathi’s talented performers on a world-renowned stage.

Our sincere thanks to the Beaverton Arts Commission. Their financial support and generous individual donations made this dream trip a reality.

More info and tickets: https://www.allindiandancefestival.com/

We had a great time performing at Honk PDX! Thank you, Isaias Sanchez, for capturing our energy and joy of playing taiko!

Have you ever been to one of OMSI's After Dark events? If you haven't, you're missing out! If you squeeze it in this week, you'll be able to catch Portland Taiko performing 3 different times throughout the evening!

From OMSI's website:

June 26, 6-10PM | $25 per person | 15% OMSI member discount

Explore the eruptive world of fiery chemistry as we blow the lid off expansive science.

OMSI After Dark is for the 21-and-over only crowd, where you can drink beer or wine and roam the museum with no kids around. We have science demos, performances, DJ’s, artisan food and beverage vendors and more.

Tickets are $25 and include access to all of OMSI’s exhibit halls, activities, performances, Planetarium shows, lectures, and vendors taking place at the event.

https://omsi.edu/events/omsi-after-dark-poppin-science/

EDIT: Time change to 7:15pm!

Join us downtown at Salmon St. Springs this Thursday for World Refugee Day. Portland Taiko will perform at approximately 7:15 pm. The World Refugee Day walk begins at 5:30 pm.

Portland Taiko is proud to be part of this event sponsored by IRCO Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner! At our benefit banquet earlier this year, we sold tickets to a chicken dinner! On Saturday, our lucky guests were treated to a tasty meal cooked by our extremely talented Board of Directors, complete with a taiko performance to close out the night. We even had some guest soloists! Special thanks to our former performers, former board members, former students, and longtime supporters for joining us on the drums!

It's time for summer festivals! Come check us out at this year's HONK! PDX!

From www.honkpdx.org:
"What is HONK?!
An irresistible spectacle of creative expression—unifying people and reclaiming public space through the joy of music.

Played among the people, for the people, Honk! invites us to all join together in making the world a better place."

Sounds great, right? We are thrilled to be joining this event for the first time this year! We'll be performing in Montavilla at the Milwaukie Lumber Parking Lot on Sunday, June 9, at 5:30pm.

Portland Taiko kicked off last weekend with a baby shower to celebrate Meredith & Kevin, complete with a handmade mini taiko!

Saturday we performed at both the Vanport Mosaic Festival and the Starlight Parade. The most labor-intensive part of the day has to be disassembling and putting away the yatai... but all smiles still! =)

PT fun fact! Did you know that one of our performers, Meredith Chan, actually started with Portland Taiko, and then went on to create Ahiru Daiko, a collegiate taiko group at University of Oregon? So cool! Last weekend, Meredith (along with other performers and our AD Tiffany) road tripped to UO to teach workshops for the Intercollegiate Invitational - a gathering for collegiate taiko groups all along the west coast.

"It was so fun and meaningful to be back at UO and meet all the current Ahiru Daiko members. They did an amazing job hosting ITI! Glad I was able to make it through the busy weekend all while being 29 weeks pregnant!"
-Meredith

Going down memory lane as we get ready for the 2024 Starlight Parade! If you're headed to downtown tonight, keep an eye out for our festival yatai, pushed along by the energy and muscles of Portland Taiko supporters, students, and friends. This year we'll be joined by folks from the Japanese American Museum of Oregon, Japanese American Citizens League, and Oregon Buddhist Temple. It's sure to be a blast!!!

Closing out Asian American/Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander month with a special announcement! Portland Taiko will be leading a healing space Taiko 101 workshop on July 10 for those that identify as AANHPI. Learn more and register here:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/907210720687?aff=oddtdtcreator

Dan's reflections on Japan 2024 Taiko Intensive

This journey is something that I have been craving ever since I started playing taiko over 20 years ago. When Tiffany offered this opportunity to study in Japan to the group last summer, it seemed like an extremely remote possibility for me, but since I'd missed previous trips to Japan with PT, I thought maybe now is my time. It didn't really even register with me that it was real until a couple weeks before leaving. But suddenly I was packed and on a flight to Tokyo. And I was honestly a bit anxious because I wasn't clear at all on what we were going to be doing, except that we would somehow be involved with a festival. But I decided to be open to whatever happens, which I think helped me be present and connect with people instead of worry about small details. With Toa and I representing PT, Tiffany was the taiko celebrity/rockstar/guide/shepherd, and it was very surreal and revealing to see her in this environment, feeling like a groupie with a backstage pass. Being immersed in taiko culture is an experience I will always treasure, and I'm still processing the whole thing. I am so grateful to Tiffany for making it happen, and to Toa, who was thrust into the daunting role of interpreter. Meeting and learning from so many wonderful and authentic people was inspiring and humbling. Deep down I knew that there were so many things I needed to experience to not only evolve as a taiko player, but also as a person, and I truly feel that something has shifted within. It's hard to describe but somehow easy to access because I have all of these colorful memories now.

Toa's reflections from the 2024 Japan Residency:

This Japan trip 🇯🇵 🌸 was deeply personal for me as an individual. It was enlightening 🌟 liberating 🌹, and spiritually fulfilling as a nikkei nisei 🎍 Japanese American AND of course as a taiko player 🥁. The exchange of knowledge and love for taiko was beyond my wildest imagination; to experience it firsthand was pure magic. ✨🌱🌈

Every person on this journey felt an overwhelming amount of joy and appreciation for taiko, each experiencing it in a unique way. 🥁✨💝

I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to Tiffany Tamaribuchi, our leader, for sharing her personal and precious extended taiko family connections with us
🥁 ✨🎌. Without her, none of this would have been possible. She provided us with the opportunity to experience something truly special 🪷✨, and for that, I am forever grateful. Thank you, Tiffany, for giving me the space and time to immerse myself in the love of taiko🙏❤️

JAPAN!!! Last month, in the wee hours of the morning after our benefit banquet, Portland Taiko's Artistic Director Tiffany Tamaribuchi led a crew to Japan on a study tour. Two of our performers had the opportunity to go along! Of course they knew they were in for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but they also had no idea how impactful it would be. Highlights included: training with Shidara (stroke technique, shime tuning, katsugi okedo, shinobue, chappa, bachi making), travelling to Sado Island (observing rehearsals, touring facilities, Hana Hachijo workshop with Chieko Kojima), Oni dance/festival, and a private workshop with Kaoly Asano!

Stay tuned over the next few days to read personal reflections from performers Toa & Dan...

Busy Saturday for Portland Taiko performers, board & staff! We started the morning with a Strategic Planning workshop: sharing personal stories of meaningful PT moments, and brainstorming ideas for where we want to go from here. What do YOU want to see from Portland Taiko in the next few years?

After that, we sent a crew to get our yatai ready for the Starlight Parade on June 1. Be sure to check out the parade to see this thing in action!

Special shoutout to our workshop facilitator Kathleen Holt, founding members and current board members Ann & Zack who drove down from Seattle for our gathering, and yatai volunteer Lorin Moentenich for always coming through for the parade support!