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Ondekoz Taiko Drummers Of Mt. Fuji

Decent Essays

In the video called Ondekoza (Taiko Drummers of Mt. Fuji), my first impression of the performance was that it seemed to be a traditional drumming ensemble by just looking at the Japanese drums, and the traditional clothing of the players. However, the drumming style of the video was a slightly strange, because usually ancient and traditional music would consider focusing on Japanese traditional values, religion, stories, or ethnicity. Nevertheless, there was a one scene where a drum player wearing an underwear showing his hips was playing the big drum when suddenly another a man came out with a European bottle of wine or Champagne and was drinking and spitting around on the other drummer’s back. It was very foreign and odd that both men represent something not Japanese like the man came out with a European bottle and the other drummer wearing an underwear that show his hips in a Japanese setting. To figure if the Ondekoza performance is a traditional concert, I had to read an article called “Drumming from Screen to Stage: Ondekoza's Ōdaiko and the Reimaging of …show more content…

One of them was Honma Masahiko, a local historian and teacher on the island of Sabo which he helped Den to grasp some ideas and thoughts by a different performance in the region- Sabo Ondeko (demon drumming) which inspired Den to create the ensemble Ondekoza. Another person was Miyamoto Tsuneichi who was a native ethnologist and inspired Den through a book called “The People Who Live on the Sea” which is about the Japanese culture and its people. Miyamoto later financially helped to organize Den’s Ondekoza and building a Summer School of learning the Odaiko on the island of Sabo in 1970. Later on, the ensemble Ondekoza was aided and documented by another Den’s older friend name Shinoda Masahiro, who became the first director documenting

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