Taiko Boom: Japanese Drumming in Place and Motion Volume 23 (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780520272415)

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.

Author: Shawn Bender
ISBN-10: 0520272412
ISBN-13: 9780520272415
Publisher: University of California Press
Language: English
Published: 08/07/2012
Pages: 280
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.10lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.20w x 0.90d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 03/01/2013