Now we’re spending more time together, rehearsing and performing with Painted X-Ray, it got us reminiscing about our early days playing together in Montréal.
We started playing together just before the tsunami in Japan, in March 2011, and our first gigs were wee ten-minute slots at benefit concerts and events to raise money for the relief effort in Japan. Among those was an artistic vigil,Tamuke—an evening of music, art, archery, and live calligraphy—which we found profoundly moving and which cemented our commitment to playing taiko together in a way that felt truthful and sincere.
We followed this up with small gigs at bars, cafés, restaurants, and yoga studios in Montréal, plus a memorable afternoon busking in the Sherbrooke metro station when we had the police called on us by an irate kiosk attendant (thankfully, they were quite amused at the sight of us and simply asked if we could play a bit more quietly).
Neither of us had access to a vehicle at this time so we carried our taiko around on a variety of home-made and salvaged trolleys. This aroused a fair bit of interest from passers-by and proved to be a useful way to advertise ourselves, although we did wonder if we were the only unmotorised taiko group in North America.
We also ventured south of the border, getting the overnight bus to Vermont for Ringo Matsuri, a taiko festival in an apple orchard organised by Burlington Taiko, with a range of taiko groups from Québec, Ontario, and New England.
Our final gig in North America was a concert at Casa Del Popolo, Montréal, in January 2012, with Shane Connolly from Issho Taiko Drummers in Scotland (which Alison had co-founded), cellist Toby Kuhn, taiko player Ignatius Kim, and Montréal musician, Gambletron, playing musical saw.
We both left Canada later that year, Yumi to return to France and Alison to Scotland, where new taiko travels awaited…
Skyline photos by Léa Grahovac