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.
Shawn Bender is a Cultural Anthropologist and Assistant Professor of East Asian Studies at Dickinson College.
“Thought-provoking, informative and fresh, Bender’s multi-faceted ethnomusicology of taiko promises to endure as the definitive scholarship on the topic for some time to come." -E. Taylor Atkins, author of Blue Nippon
“Immensely readable, unique and thoughtful, Taiko Boom is a must-have for anyone interested in taiko, and there are many--it’s difficult to overstate the explosion in popularitytaiko has experienced globally. Flashy and powerful, it’s unlike any other music. Bender presents here the first thorough look at this art form in Japan, detailing the origins and meaning of this style.” - Jennifer Milioto Matsue, Associate Professor of Music, Asian Studies and Anthropology at Union College
280 pp.6 x 9Illus: 20 b/w photographs, 1 map
9780520272422$29.95|£25.00Paper
Aug 2012