Soh Daiko (3/25/17)

Bang the drum slowly. Or not. This was my second (at least) experience with the drummers of Soh Daiko, and what a treat it was. As it turns out, it was not everyone’s cup of tea, as two moms with a small gaggle of kids left before the performance ended. I was enchanted and enthralled.

Soh Daiko is a group of drummers (based in NYC) patterned after Japanese drumming styles, both formal and improvisational. At any given time there were one to ten drummers on stage (plus some of them doubling on bamboo flutes, brass bells, conch shells, and gongs). Really cool stuff.

I could give you the names of individual pieces but that wouldn’t mean too much to you. Suffice it to say that there was a mix of solo, duet, and group drummers, sometimes with two people drumming on each side of one drum. Most pieces had four-based rhythms—ONE-two-THREE-four—but there were also subtle variations. And the range of volume (sans microphones, thank-you-very-much) was incredibly varied. Though I say, “Sans microphones,” microphones were used to introduce performers and pieces, as well as to amplify the sound of the bamboo flute from time to time.

Having said that I’ve seen Soh Daiko before, there were a couple of set pieces and characters that I recognized. One such character was the hapless fisherman, who eventually catches fish but then tends to fall asleep afterwards. Another set piece is “Shishimai” (“Lion Dance”), where a dancer/performer wears a Lion costume and performs to drum/bell accompaniment. The Lion costume has a real snappable jaw, which comes in handy when roaming through the audience and mildly terrorizing children. (Those of us who have read the program notes know that the Lion’s bite is good luck—alas, I don’t think many of the children read that part!) A little later, the fisherman returns and the Lion steals part of his catch, in a cute turn of events.

As silly and light-hearted as this seems, these are truly musical athletes on stage. They beat the drums, they move from place to place, and they execute intimate choreography (spinning from drum to drum, around a partner who is also spinning from drum to drum). When, as in the finale, that includes eight drummers, that is no slight feat.

New this year (at least new to me) was bringing children from the audience on stage and having them demonstrate the rudiments of drumming technique. In this case, we had three groups of six young drummers. The company members showed the stance—forward leg bent, drumsticks held aloft—and then went through a series of simple instructions. While the first group was going through their paces, one little girl waiting in the wings, so to speak, was moved to dance and spin in excitement. She later proved quite capable as a young drummer. In the third group of youngsters, one fellow mastered right hand-left hand One-two-Three-four, but then went to town banging, banging, banging. Kids do the darndest things!

From the introductory remarks, where the host kept saying “So-Day-koh,” (d’oh! – it's "So-Die-koh"), this was the fourth iteration of this concert at this venue. I hope to see many, many more.

ConcertMeister