Musicians often get caught making sweeping statements about how "music can change the world," or how "music brings people together," or how "music speaks where words fail." Meanwhile, the rest of the population rolls its eyes at such "new-agey" abstraction and looks the other way.
But ask a member of the instrumental jazz fusion band Hiroshima and you'll know that it's true.
Hiroshima, an all Asian American group, formed in the late 1970s, after the tumultuous period in which America was first recognizing its diversity and the civil rights movement had gained momentum across the spectrum of American enthic minorities. Blending Japanese koto and taiko drums with Western jazz and popular sounds, the band recognized the power of exploring and promoting a unified and harmonious world through music. Hiroshima's leader Dan Kuramoto sums up the band's philosophy: "We create musically a cross-commentary about a multitude of cultures that comes from our backgrounds as Asian Americans growing up in a racially diverse America."
On Monday, September 27, Mu Performing Arts will host a lecture with Dan and June Kuramoto at the Hopkins Center for the Arts about "The Movement" in the 1960s and 70s that inspired the turn toward civil rights that ultimately inspired the group's message of unity.
But apart from its reason for existing, how does an instrumental ensemble--a group that depends purely on sound without the benefit of lyrics--send that message to a public that is none the wiser?
Enter. . . the music video.
In 1983, music videos were still a new, novel idea. We may look back on it today as the beginning of materialism and frivolity in music, the point at which "the look" became just as if not important than "the sound." But Hiroshima took the concept of creating a "music-inspired film" and used it to show the world who they were and what their music means. Observe:
Ignore the mullets and high-waisted tapered jeans for a moment and look at the people themselves. About two thirds of the way through the video, we have our main character removing a pair of mirror shades from his mysterious pursuer, revealing an all-inclusive dance scene where the divisions of race are non-existent. A small band of traditionally-dressed geishas perform with fans while young, fresh faces--white, black, Asian alike--groove together to electric guitars, drums. . . and koto.
If only MTV in 2010 had so much substance.
Find out more about the free lecture with Dan and June Kuramoto, as well as the performance by Hiroshima, here (scroll down for information).
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Monday, September 20, 2010
If at first you don't succeed. . . ?
Margaret Cho couldn’t hack it as an ABC sitcom star. Now she’ll try shaking her booty.Sixteen years after the ill fated All American Girl went off the air, Cho will return to the same network that dumped her, this time as a contestant for Dancing with the Stars.
Probably not the career arc the comedian pictured when she became the first Asian American to headline a prime time sitcom in 1994. When ABC canceled the show after one season, Cho accused the network of forcing her to lose weight and hiring a consultant to make her look “more Asian.”
(Playwright David Henry Hwang was reportedly hired to save the show. At a Mu panel discussion on yellow face casting, Hwang denied it, though I couldn’t tell if he was joking.)
If Cho is still bitter about the experience, she’s not letting on.
“Show business has changed a lot too, so it's a different kind of thing," Cho told Access Hollywood. "So, I'm really excited [about Dancing with the Stars]. I think it's great, I love the show, it's a totally different thing though. I was a really young person then and now, you know, now I'm more experienced and now I'm doing something different -- I'm dancing, which is new also for me.”
I’m not sure what Cho meant by show business changing. Has it? Sixteen years removed from All American Girl, the number of Asian American-headlined shows, drama or comedy, remains zero, with the exception of Maggie Q in Nikita on the CW. (It would be nice for a change to see a lead Asian actor not kick the crap of people.)
Meanwhile, we’ve had the endless Tyler Perry shows on TBS, a hodge podge of gay people on NBC’s Will & Grace, and George Lopez on. . . you guessed it, ABC.
On the bright side, Cho’s casting in Dancing with the Stars proves that network executives are at least comfortable with Asian Americans in ensemble or supporting roles. Witness Glee, Lost, and Hawaii Five-O.
Now if only an Asian American can make the first cut in The Bachelorette.
Frankly, I was hoping Cho would still be a little bitter about All American Girl. She certainly mined her miserable experience for comedic gold in subsequent clubs around the country. Somehow, there’s something sad about Cho making nice with ABC. I suppose bygones should be bygones but it feels like she’s selling out, at least a teeny bit.
Asian Americans can’t headline shows, but at least they’re finally good enough to wear shiny costumes and learn the tango.
Yay us.
by Thomas Lee
photo via Asian Pacific Arts at UCLA Asia Institute
photo via Asian Pacific Arts at UCLA Asia Institute
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
History ≠ tradition, foreign ≠ old
If we were to play a word association game in response to taiko, we would probably get words like rhythmic, driving, animated, powerful. Of course if you’ve ever seen a taiko performance, you know that it is all of those things. But if we were to ask a bit further, we might expect some other words to trickle into the mix: ancient, traditional, raw, authentic.
“Authentic” is a problematic term. It is a word we throw around regularly to describe things that we deem somehow more real or honest than comparable products. Taco Bell is not authentic Mexican food, but the little restaurant on the corner owned by the couple from Sonora is. You’ll find authentic jazz at the Blue Note, not on your local smooth jazz station. Only authentic MLB team jerseys are sold on the team’s official website; anything else is just a t-shirt with the team logo on it.
But the problem with “authentic” is that it has variable definitions. One of the first things you learn as a budding ethnomusicologist is to never, ever describe any kind of music as authentic. Who decides what authentically represents a culture? What kind of discrepancy does it allow for differences between individual, location, context? At what point does something cross the line between authentic and avant-garde?
It is our tendency in Western society to look at an artistic tradition of another culture, see it’s dissimilarity to our own, and label it as authentic. Someone who looks different from us and sounds different from us must be traditional. . . authentic, right?
What they’re really thinking is that it must be old.
So what do we make of a group like Mu Daiko?
They’re chasing each other around the stage! Someone’s wearing a tie! She’s singing!
Is it authentic, traditional, raw enough to be taiko?
It depends on your definition of taiko. And of authenticity and tradition.
What few people realize when they view a taiko show, what they see is very different from the taiko that existed 2,000 years ago. At its origins, taiko is a solo art with perfunctory purpose: relaying messages to villagers, serving in religious ceremonies, ordering soldiers on battlefields. Needless to say, what you find in the 21st century is very different from its ancestry, inspired by a revival of Japanese culture after World War II and infused with modern influences from ensemble performance and martial arts. Does that not make it authentic? A feudal Japanese soldier would probably say no.
In North America, taiko has grown into its own means of expression, an art form around which Asian Americans of all backgrounds—interestingly with women in the majority—can connect with a cultural experience. North American taiko groups have long been inspired by the musical culture of the West, with many ensembles describing themselves as a blend of the taiko drumming of Japan and the popular rhythms and sounds of hip-hop, jazz, techno, and so on. Does that not make it authentic? A member of a rural community taiko group in Japan, where men still far outnumber women in taiko—would probably say no.
What do we call it, then? Who is the ultimate authority on authenticity in taiko. . . or any other artistic form, for that matter? The very nature of art is that it lives, breathes, and changes with the times. We expect it to evolve and surprise us with something new each time we encounter it. We may not always like what we get, but if it hadn’t been for artists in Japan pushing the boundaries of what the drums could do, we wouldn’t have groups like Mu Daiko today.
Maybe we can use “authentic” to describe taiko. After all, variation, experimentation, growth, and change all represent the authentic condition of art in the modern world, no matter what culture it comes from.
“Authentic” is a problematic term. It is a word we throw around regularly to describe things that we deem somehow more real or honest than comparable products. Taco Bell is not authentic Mexican food, but the little restaurant on the corner owned by the couple from Sonora is. You’ll find authentic jazz at the Blue Note, not on your local smooth jazz station. Only authentic MLB team jerseys are sold on the team’s official website; anything else is just a t-shirt with the team logo on it.
But the problem with “authentic” is that it has variable definitions. One of the first things you learn as a budding ethnomusicologist is to never, ever describe any kind of music as authentic. Who decides what authentically represents a culture? What kind of discrepancy does it allow for differences between individual, location, context? At what point does something cross the line between authentic and avant-garde?
It is our tendency in Western society to look at an artistic tradition of another culture, see it’s dissimilarity to our own, and label it as authentic. Someone who looks different from us and sounds different from us must be traditional. . . authentic, right?
What they’re really thinking is that it must be old.
So what do we make of a group like Mu Daiko?
They’re chasing each other around the stage! Someone’s wearing a tie! She’s singing!
Is it authentic, traditional, raw enough to be taiko?
It depends on your definition of taiko. And of authenticity and tradition.
What few people realize when they view a taiko show, what they see is very different from the taiko that existed 2,000 years ago. At its origins, taiko is a solo art with perfunctory purpose: relaying messages to villagers, serving in religious ceremonies, ordering soldiers on battlefields. Needless to say, what you find in the 21st century is very different from its ancestry, inspired by a revival of Japanese culture after World War II and infused with modern influences from ensemble performance and martial arts. Does that not make it authentic? A feudal Japanese soldier would probably say no.
In North America, taiko has grown into its own means of expression, an art form around which Asian Americans of all backgrounds—interestingly with women in the majority—can connect with a cultural experience. North American taiko groups have long been inspired by the musical culture of the West, with many ensembles describing themselves as a blend of the taiko drumming of Japan and the popular rhythms and sounds of hip-hop, jazz, techno, and so on. Does that not make it authentic? A member of a rural community taiko group in Japan, where men still far outnumber women in taiko—would probably say no.
What do we call it, then? Who is the ultimate authority on authenticity in taiko. . . or any other artistic form, for that matter? The very nature of art is that it lives, breathes, and changes with the times. We expect it to evolve and surprise us with something new each time we encounter it. We may not always like what we get, but if it hadn’t been for artists in Japan pushing the boundaries of what the drums could do, we wouldn’t have groups like Mu Daiko today.
Maybe we can use “authentic” to describe taiko. After all, variation, experimentation, growth, and change all represent the authentic condition of art in the modern world, no matter what culture it comes from.
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