<Begin Segment 24>

TI: And yet as you developed this you, you looked towards Japan also. I'm looking at your, the milestones of the taiko group and you did a lot with Kodo, or, or back then, Ondekoza.

RH: Right.

TI: So talk about that, the influence of why looking to Japan was important for you.

RH: Well, we realized and understood and always wanted to keep in mind that, even though we were trying to do our own thing here, this instrument, the taiko, that we were trying to use was from Japan, so we needed to understand what the roots of that meant and what that was all about. And so, 'cause working in a vacuum, for us, we knew we were missing a lot of information. We didn't understand what that was. Most of us at that time had not even been to Japan or even lived in Japan or spoke Japanese that well, so that, that was kind of a missing piece of information for us. When we heard about this group Ondekoza, which was the first really major taiko group to come from Japan and start touring and doing performances here, we really were excited about the idea of, wow, this is something real different, or another taiko group to, from Japan especially. And when we got to see them for the first time, down in Los Angeles, it was a mind blowing experience because, one, it was not just taiko, but it was just so intense and it was just the amount of discipline and intensity that they played with, and also the musical talent was just overwhelming. But their, the other parts, too, is basically is -- what we were doing was basically music, or taiko in the festivals, so it was a lot of outdoor, that kind of festival setting -- Ondekoza brought this taiko to a stage performance in a theater with staging and lighting and made it much more theatrical, and so just totally changed the image and perception of how the taiko can be presented and in different ways. And so it made us realize that this is an art form that's starting in Japan that we need to kind of look at and see what that's all about.

And so we took from them not, not so much their music and musical ideas, but more their organizational things and how they operated. One, they operated somewhat collectively, and for us here in San Jose especially, we had no one teacher or sensei or leader, so we were operating in that same way. We had to somewhat depend on everyone to help participate and be involved in that leadership, so when we learned about Ondekoza we emphasized that even more to try to rotate the leadership. And we felt also that was kind of within the context of what we were talking about within the community anyways, that we needed to develop everyone as leaders and develop to share. Also the gender issue for us, which was real different from the groups in Japan because it was male dominated, we had a lot of women involved and playing with our group already, so that was important for us to maintain that and that there was no gender issues that the women only could do certain things, the men only, would be highlighted in certain ways, so we felt that everyone should be able to play all the parts and be equal in that way. So that was very important for us that really set us apart from the Japan-based groups.

TI: Because the Japan based-groups were primarily male? I think the ones...

RH: The early groups, especially Ondekoza, they had a few women, but they, they didn't even play the drum, the taiko. They basically did the dance and the singing and other kinds of things and all the taiko were being played by the men.

TI: Okay. And at this point, how much, had you been to Japan?

RH: I had not. I had never been to Japan. PJ had. She lived in Japan for almost a year prior to this, so she understood a little bit more about the culture and language and things, but many of the other members had not been to Japan at all.

TI: How about speaking Japanese at this point back then?

RH: Very little because lot of us, like for myself, even though I grew up with Kibei parents, I kind of, I didn't really spend a lot of time trying to maintain, understand, or speak Japanese, so that was not my primary language at all.

TI: Because I, so I noticed in your resume that in the early '80s you went to go study in Japan, and so that was a pretty big jump for you.

RH: That was, and so, and that was my first opportunity to go and the group Ondekoza had shifted in membership and they restarted as the group Kodo, and when that happened they were wanting to launch their first US tour, so they asked us if someone from our group would be interested to join them, to help them with that. So I thought, wow, this is an incredible opportunity, so I did that. I went to Japan, initially just a short time span just to learn what they were doing, and then we actually left on tour and came back over here and toured in the U.S. for about six weeks, and then we went back to Japan and toured over there for about six weeks. And so I was able to continue and be on that tour with them over there and got to see a lot of stuff that probably would've never experienced, smaller towns, the theater, how the Japanese theater works, how this particular company, like Kodo or a taiko ensemble, works in Japan and on the road. So it was a great learning experience for me. And then after --

TI: Now, one thing I read, I just had to ask about this, 'cause I read how when they train, or when they practice, they would, like, run long distances before they would actually play and, like marathon length runs. Was that part of the training that you were exposed to?

RH: Running was a big part of it, was, most of the members at that time with Kodo, we would have to get up, it was pretty regimented schedule when you're living on Sado with them and their training process. We would have to get up somewhere around five in the morning or something and the first thing you do is you gather and do exercises as a group and then you go out and run, so most of the members would run about ten kilometers, or about six miles, basically. And then you'd come back and you have, you have breakfast and then there's the so-called chores, the cleaning of the halls and the building, and then you get ready for the first practice, which would start at nine o'clock. And then there'd be, everything was kind of rotation, you would participate either helping to clean different way, or you'd be on a cooking crew for that day or whatever, but also there would be, like, two practices, the morning and the afternoon. And then evening was either lectures or sometimes free time to do your own thing, but it was like six days a week we did that. That's all we did.

And so I toured with the company for about, let's see, we were on the road from about September through almost Christmas time in December, and then after that went back to Sado to stay with them through the holidays up 'til about end of February, and so that's when I was involved with this training process that they were doing because they were all back into training. But Sado, I don't know if you know where it is, it's on the east, eastern side of Japan, the Niigata side and it's where, and it did get all the heavy snow and winter winds from Siberia and from the, from that end over there, from Russia, so it's very, very cold, a lot of snow. And so my first experience in running in snow -- because I grew up here, we don't have snow, you know. [Laughs] And so that was my first experience of living and having to deal with snow in that way, but we would run even if there was snow on the ground in the morning. It was, I mean, it had to be really bad weather, like typhoon coming in, that we wouldn't go out and run, but we would basically run no matter what, if it was raining or snow or whatever.

TI: And how was that experience for you? It seemed like a pretty intense experience.

RH: It was intense, and I always, looking back, you could be amazed at how much your body and how much you could push yourself, doing stuff that you don't think, that's impossible to do, and so I never thought I could survive that kind of experience, but I would go out there and do that with 'em just because everyone else did it, so I didn't want to feel like, well, "The lackey American's over there, he doesn't want to participate." So I tried my best to try to keep up with everybody. It was difficult, but eventually kind of got into it and just got better at it and just, you're able to kind of overcome the obstacles. And even practicing, like it was, in Japan, typical Japan, the rooms are not heated and the main rehearsal hall, it was a old school building, so it was very old and not very modern, so there was no heat at all in that main rehearsal hall, and actually, I remember looking down at the floor, when it was really windy you could see snow blowing up through the floorboards sometimes because it was that kind of old structure. But you would be in there barefoot practicing for a couple hours at a time and by the end of practice your feet would be like, almost like frozen solid because you'd be on this floor that's like standing on ice blocks for a couple hours. And that was, that was part of the training and process that you would do every day.

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.