Daily OpusEverything I write is freely rebloggable. Just keep the source and tell people about my books :D [Until I decide otherwise, my pronouns are Ze/Hir/Hirself. As in "Ze went to the shops to get hir medication hirself". Thank you for the respect.]
Japanese-American taiko drumming brings a lot of the rhythms of jazz into the traditional Japanese art, so Benny Goodman + taiko is actually not that big of a stretch.
Still, this is pretty dang cool!
For some context:
JA taiko, or really any modern taiko, is kumidaiko, or ensemble drumming, which was created by jazz drummer Oguchi Daihachi in the 50s. Prior to this, taiko was used in festivals or ceremonies–it was not the performance art we see today.
The group featured here is San Jose Taiko, the third-oldest group in the US (behind San Francisco Taiko Dojo and the LA-based Kinnara Taiko). They’ve played a huge role in shaping taiko in California as well as the rest of the United States, and go beyond being just a performance group by using taiko to bridge cultures (see their performance of Day of Remembrance with Aswat Ensemble here).
Please please please give SJT a quick YouTube/google/Facebook search and show them your support. It’s so great that this video in particular has gone viral, but the work SJT does to further add to and preserve the art of taiko is so important!!
Take some time to learn more about taiko too–it is so much more than taiko drum master or exotic performances by men in diapers. And maybe you might find a video of me playing LOL…….
[video description: a modern Japanese American taiko troupe dressed in 1940s US clothing and hairstyles joyfully play taiko drums, large angled drums, and dance while a swing band in the back of the room plays “Sing Sing Sing.” (from the youtube description: “From Swingposium, our 2017 immersive theater program with Epic Immersive and the Wesley Jazz Ensemble. "Singing in the Present" is a mash-up of our signature song, “Gendai ni Ikiru (Living in the Present)” and Benny Goodman’s swing classic, “Sing Sing Sing.”
) /end video description]
Check out the youtube channel, San Jose Taiko did this performance as part of Swingposium https://taiko.org/swingposium - from their website, which includes some other videos that intro what the show is about:
“Swingposium combines taiko, jazz, swing dance, and immersive
theatre to tell a hidden history of one way Japanese Americans
maintained morale in WWII Internment Camps – through swing dances with
live big band music. An immersive environment surrounds the audience
with the sights and sounds of “camp,” their active participation pulls
them deeply into the emotional trajectory of the story: the fear and
loss of being sent to an Internment Camp, the struggle to maintain
dignity and hope, and the ultimate victory of the human spirit. From
past presentations, we find that the immersive experience affects people
deeply, inspiring community dialog.”
It was developed out of honoring the experiences of surviving camp musicians, some of whom were involved at the beginning of this project and have since passed. Watching these videos gave me a LOT of feelings… I hope someday to see them live again in Japantown…
These ten ducklings were found orphaned and they were brought to a pet duck called Stella who had just hatched nine of her own two weeks prior. She immediately claimed the ten as her own.
a protester in LA at an action in rememberance of Breonno Taylor was shot in the head with a “less-lethal” round. he was denied medical care and legal council and is now facing 8 years in prison for assault with a deadly weapon.
1. White Privilege doesn’t mean your life hasn’t been hard. It means your skin tone isn’t one of the things making it harder! There’s plenty of other privileges (socio-economic, male, heterosexual, cisgender, christian, able-bodied) but white privilege is perhaps the most enduring throughout history.
2. White Privilege exists as a direct result of both historic and enduring racism, biases, and practices designed to oppress people of color.
3. White Privilege means you actively benefit from the oppression of POC You are the dominant representation on all media No on questions your citizenship Products are designed for you 1st People at work look like you You don’t get harassed for existing in public locations Inherited power and wealth Your actions aren’t perceived as those of all your race
4. Systemic racism exists at every level of society. The wealth gap (90% White owned vs 10% POC owned) Black graduates are 2x more likely to be unemployed Black americans are 30% more likely to get pulled over Black students are 3x more likely to be suspended Black americans make up 40% of the prison population Black americans are shown 18% fewer homes Black women are 4x more likely to die from childbirth And this is only a small port of the oppression
5. What would I do with my White Privilege?
Teach other White folks the barriers to success for POC Promise to listen to and amplify the voices of POC Be more than “not racist” but actively anti-racist Confront racial injustices even when it’s uncomfortable.
Yes, I’m gonna keep posting this. I’mma post this on repeat. And if you think that “politics” have no place in a hearth witch blog…
Well other than mostly telling you to go fuck yourself if you come at me with the whole “but all lives matter” and “my life is hard too”… I’d invite you to sit with the idea of what hearthcraft is. What is the point of hearth witchery? And consider that I am also an Irish polytheist, and the idea of hospitality is sacred to me.
My hearth is a safe place, and that means no bigots allowed. But more than that, it means that *I* have to be a safe place. I have to learn and grow.
So the Dems control the White House. This is GREAT. It also doesn’t really change a damn thing about systemic racism. It does mean, hopefully, that progress can be made, but it’s not a light switch.
You still need to be examining your privilege and supporting BIPOC and working to address racism on personal, local and federal levels.
on one hand i understand the frustration with the fact that duolingo is only Now putting up yiddish as a language when they have fictional languages like klingon on there but on the other hand part of the reason why is that they literally for years could not pick a specific dialect of yiddish and ended up
actively employing yiddish scholars to work in bits from academic+historical yiddish as well as contemporary vernacular yiddish and basically had to build the entire thing ground-up rather than being handed some showrunner’s language bible
