Kodo Puts a Visceral, Visual Spin on Taiko Drumming for 40th Anniversary Tour

The members of the Kodo Taiko Performing Arts Ensemble are just as apt to impress seasoned jazz drummers as they are musical novices.

Take Max Roach, for example, the legendary jazz percussionist and composer who redefined the sound and dynamic of the American art form in the 1950s. Before he passed in 2007, Roach spoke to the Village Voice about Kodo, an ensemble that specializes in Japanese drumming styles, compositions and performance.

Roach saw that contemporary quality and marveled at the group’s sheer presence onstage. “The technique they use to play percussion instruments is totally different from anything I’ve ever seen,” Roach told the Village Voice in the 1990s. “They deal with ‘visual sound’ more than anyone I’ve ever known.”

It would be a misnomer to attach the word “traditional” to the group’s approach to Japanese taiko percussion; while they draw on the deep cultural roots of their country in terms of instrumentation and method, they are thoroughly modern in terms of their repertoire and their adaptation of the art form.

The visual component is impossible to ignore during a performance by Kodo. They specialize in taiko, a Japanese word that can be translated roughly as both “heartbeat” and “children of the drum.” The troupe members take to the stage clad in headbands and loincloths; their onstage approach includes gymnastic leaps and acrobatic flourishes; the drums themselves—rendered of wood and animal hide—are massive, and serve as onstage personas of their own.

But the very music itself also seems to offer a visual component, a feature that has made the Kodo Performing Arts Ensemble a global lure since its formal launch at the Berliner Festspiele in 1981. The Kodo troupe produces a percussive, tactile brand of sound, one that audience members can see in the drums’ visual vibrations and one they can feel in the vibrations that will reach the back of the balcony at Macky Auditorium when the group visits the CU Boulder campus on Feb. 15.

For more than 40 years, Kodo has been delivering this impressive dynamic to audiences across the globe from their home base on the rural island of Sado in Japan. Their “One Earth Tour” formally began in 1984 and, for their anniversary celebration, the group has focused on their driving artistic mission statement, one that’s just as much about community as it is about sound.

“The sound of our taiko will echo out from Sado Island to the world, and from the world to Sado Island,” Kodo Taiko Performing Arts Ensemble Leader Yuichiro Funabashi notes on the group’s website. “We will continue our One Earth Tour; our mission (is) to remind people of the common bonds we all share. We will strive to connect people through the resonant sound of taiko, creating moments and spaces brimming with joy and smiling faces.”

Kodo performs on the Artist Series at Macky Auditorium, on Feb. 15, 2025.