Tao performing a concert on January 25, 2015 in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany ">Germany.html" ;"title="Freiburg im Breisgau, Freiburg im Breisgau,

thumb"> Tao performing with a taiko drum TAO: The Martial Art of Drumming is a Japanese drum and dance ensemble formed in 1993. This performing group combines music and dance to reflect Japanese tradition, but also incorporates Korean Korean may refer to: People and culture * Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula * Korean cuisine * Korean culture * Korean language **Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl **Korean dialects and the Jeju language ** ...

Maori, and Music of Indonesia">Indonesian Indonesian is anything of, from, or related to Indonesia, an archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. It may refer to: * Indonesians, citizens of Indonesia ** Native Indonesians, diverse groups of local inhabitants of the archipelago ** Indonesian ...

influences. While some songs are traditional, most are modern compositions created by members of the troupe. Its performers train in their own center in the Kujū Highlands on Kyushu">Kujū, Ōita">Kujū Highlands on Kyushu called Grandioso. The strenuous physical demands of their performance style demands that all performers also train as athletes. Their daily workouts, which start at 5 a.m. and end at 10 p.m., including a 20 kilometer run, calisthenics, martial arts training, and hours of dance, drum, and music practice. During the first ten years, 400 trainees ran away, after which the founder and "boss", Ikuo Fujitaka, adjusted the training regimen. 40 people have dropped out between 2003 and 2008. Many of their performance pieces include only percussion instruments, and in some cases only

taiko are a broad range of Japanese percussion instruments. In Japanese, the term refers to any kind of drum, but outside Japan, it is used specifically to refer to any of the various Japanese drums called and to the form of ensemble drumming m ...

drums, but other pieces include the

shinobue The ''shinobue'' (kanji: 篠笛; also called ''takebue'' (kanji: 竹笛) in the context of Japanese traditional arts) is a Japanese transverse flute or fue that has a high-pitched sound. It is found in hayashi and nagauta ensembles, and plays ...

, or Japanese flute, bamboo

marimba The marimba () is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars that are struck by mallets. Below each bar is a resonator pipe that amplifies particular harmonics of its sound. Compared to the xylophone, the timbre ...

, gongs, and the

koto Koto may refer to: * Koto (band), an Italian synth pop group * Koto (instrument), a Japanese musical instrument * Koto (kana), a ligature of two Japanese katakana * Koto (traditional clothing), a traditional dress made by Afro-Surinamese women * K ...

, a horizontal harp. After more than a decade touring Japan, the group performed at the

Edinburgh Festival Fringe The Edinburgh Festival Fringe (also referred to as The Fringe, Edinburgh Fringe, or Edinburgh Fringe Festival) is the world's largest arts and media festival, which in 2019 spanned 25 days and featured more than 59,600 performances of 3,841 dif ...

, where they sold out of tickets for 25 straight days and outsold every other performance group.Vancouver Sun, January 27, 2010
They have been touring internationally ever since.

References

External links

TAO Official websiteDRUM TAOオフィシャルブログ
{{Authority control Japanese dance music groups Taiko groups Musical groups established in 1993