Entrevistas

1. Celebrating traditional Japanese New Years with family

2. Learning Japanese at school and at home with family

3. Developing an original kata

4. Introducing Taiko in Vancouver

5. The philosophy of playing Taiko

6. Defining a Taiko player

Hirabayashi,Roy

(n. 1951) Co-fundador y director administrativo de Taiko de San José.

Introducing Taiko in Vancouver

I think it was 1979. We were invited to the Powell Street Festival. I’m not sure if that was the first festival they had or not. It might’ve been. But anyways, we were brought up there. Rick Shiyomi was up there at that time. Naturally, a lot of the Vancouver folks are there now. But they invited us up, and we went up there. It was like a community festival, but they had never really seen Taiko, at least the community itself. So it was great experience for us. We got to meet everyone. For them, they were really kind of excited about what we were doing as San Jose Taiko.

So after that, they decided they wanted to start Katari Taiko. They really became involved in doing that. That was really kind of great to see that kind of happen after just a short weekend experience of meeting people and sharing what we’re doing as a group and seeing other musicians in another community, especially in Vancouver, and kind of take off with it and start their own thing also.

Columbia Británica California Canadá tambor festivales Katari Taiko música Festival de Powell Street San José San Jose Taiko taiko Estados Unidos Vancouver (C. B.)

Fecha: January 26, 2005

Zona: California, US

Entrevista: Art Hansen, Sojin Kim

País: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum

Entrevista

Roy Hirabayashi, director ejecutivo y cofundador del grupo San José Taiko, nació en Berkeley, California, en 1951, de padres kibei. El tercero de cinco niños, fue criado en Oakland, California. Después de graduarse de la secundaria en 1969, asistió a la Universidad Estatal de San José, donde recibió sus licenciaturas en psicología y filosofía.

Ha trabajado para el programa de estudios asiático-estadounidense en la Universidad Estatal de San José, Liga ciudadana de japoneses-estadounidenses, Coalición pacífica-asiática y las iglesias budistas de Estados Unidos. Fue mediante su trabajo con Young Buddhists of America (Jóvenes Budistas de Estados Unidos) que comenzó a tener relación con el taiko. Después de ver al grupo Kinnara Taiko, el reverendo Hiroshi Abiko de la iglesia budista de San José les pidió a él y a Dean Miyakusu que organizaran algo para la juventud de su congregación. Ellos empezaron un grupo que luego se convirtió en uno de los más influyentes grupos de taiko de las Américas.

(26 de enero de 2005)