Taiko Boom: Japanese Drumming in Place and Motion Volume 23

With its thunderous sounds and dazzling choreography, Japanese taiko drumming has captivated audiences in Japan and across the world, making it one of the most successful performing arts to emerge from Japan in the past century. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted among taiko groups in Japan, Taiko Boom explores the origins of taiko in the early postwar period and its popularization over the following decades of rapid economic growth in Japan's cities and countryside. Building on the insights of globalization studies, the book argues that taiko developed within and has come to express new forms of communal association in a Japan increasingly engaged with global cultural flows. While its popularity has created new opportunities for Japanese to participate in community life, this study also reveals how the discourses and practices of taiko drummers dramatize tensions inherent in Japanese conceptions of race, the body, gender, authenticity, and locality.

Author: Shawn Bender
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 08/07/2012
Pages: 280
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.80lbs
Size: 8.90h x 5.90w x 0.80d
ISBN13: 9780520272422
ISBN10: 0520272420
BISAC Categories:
- Social Science | Anthropology | Cultural & Social
- Music | Genres & Styles | International
- Music | Musical Instruments | Percussion

About the Author
Shawn Bender is a Cultural Anthropologist and Assistant Professor of East Asian Studies at Dickinson College.