Review: Drum Tao from Japan presents The Dream – dance accessorising drumming
Graham Watts sees Drum Tao’s The Dream – a fast-paced, athletic, uncomplicated and joyful show.
| Title | The Dream |
| Company | Drum Tao |
| Venue | The Peacock Theatre, London |
| Date | 11 March 2025 |
| Reviewer | Graham Watts |
Drum Tao is a Japanese ensemble, formed in 1991, that does exactly what it says on the tin. They drum. A lot, and on a huge variety of taiko, from those strung around the shoulders, marching band style, to others so huge that the performers have to perch above them, stand in front of them, or lie with their legs fixed in a straddle around these huge cylinders: the strain on their abdominal muscles while beating these monster drums with their torsos arched backwards, using something akin to thick tent poles, was painful just to watch!
I learned that a Japanese ensemble performing on such a different array of drums is known as kumi-daiko: a hybrid of martial arts and entertainment developed into a new artform mid-last century with Drum Tao as the latest and best-known exponents. Although the company travels the world and performed in Edinburgh more than 20 years’ ago, this brief season at The Peacock Theatre was its London debut. Incidentally, some confusion whilst googling past performances was resolved when realising that they have up to three groups performing simultaneously in Japan or somewhere around the world.
Although drumming was clearly the main event, it would be wrong to suggest this production was only about percussion. The eleven performers (nine men and two women) were multi-talented: the women (Shima Sasaki and Ai Anekawa) began the work playing shinobue (a version of the side-blown flutes that are evocative of the sound of Japan); other instruments played by the drummers during the performance included the shakuhachi (the popular end-blown woodwind instrument); the sanshin, something like a long-necked banjo; a large free-standing stringed instrument rather like a harpsichord, the name of which escapes me, which is plucked by a standing instrumentalist; and small, saucer-like cymbals, with red tassels, which were played cheekily by the smallest of the men who was something of a court jester, bouncing all over the place and being – at one point – brusquely pushed aside by the Samurai-like performance leader, Taro Harasaki with his nose and eyebrows fearsomely detailed in white makeup, and who banged the largest of the deep bass drums.
The event was much more in the style of a concert than a work of theatre, without any semblance of narrative – dance was merely a means of accessorising the drumming – and it was difficult to reconcile the non-stop musical numbers with any meaningful concept of The Dream.
The dial of the performance emotion was stuck at full-on, cheeky joyfulness with cheesy grins on permanent display and a certain one-upmanship in constant competition between the performers: one would play a drum riff only for another to try to outdo him with a more complex rhythm. A certain comedic intent flowed through the work and into the busy encore after which Harasaki addressed the audience from front-of-stage to promote the “merch” on sale in the foyer and encourage the audience to sign up as Instagram followers, in return for which they would receive a sticker. There was a certain element of audience interaction, particularly towards the end when everyone was encouraged to clap along with the rhythms. Regrettably, not my cup of Tao.
If the comedy was cheerily simplistic, the drumming was immense. The Drum Tao performers undergo the most intensive training in their own bespoke centre in the Kujū Highlands of Kyushu (the third largest of Japan’s islands). I read that 400 trainees failed to complete the rigorous training in the first decade of the company’s existence and given the intensity of this performance, I can quite understand that rate of attrition.
The rapidity of the choreography in the drumming and the synchronised movement between the drums were impressively coordinated by these athletic performers. There were also a couple of isolated instances of juggling – one performer balanced and then spun a large cube structure on the palm of his hand; others played with metal fans, one of which was thrown speedily through the air to be caught by a colleague standing further upstage without the two performers looking at each other.
The show’s direction – by Fujitaka Ikuo, Drum Tao’s founder – uses the universal language of drumming to build a fast-paced, athletic, uncomplicated and joyful show. It helps that the whole ensemble is universally good-looking. Drum Tao is, above all else, a music group and the members all have that look of pop stardom. I appreciate the distinction between Korea and Japan, but they looked like a K-pop band!
This highly commercial, energetic, and entertaining show was just right for the Peacock Theatre’s ambience and audience. It’s taken almost 35 years for Drum Tao to get to London, but the undoubted success of this brief visit will no doubt mean it will not be too long before there is a welcome return.
Graham Watts is a freelance writer and dance critic. He writes for The Spectator, Tanz, Shinshokan Dance Magazine (Japan), Ballet Magazine (Romania), BachTrack and the Hong Kong International Arts Festival and has previously written for the Sunday Express, Dancing Times, Dance Europe, DanceTabs, London Dance, the Edinburgh International Festival and Pointe magazine (USA). He has also written the biography of Daria Klimentová (The Agony and the Ecstasy) and contributed chapters about the work of Akram Khan to the Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Ballet and on Shobana Jeyasingh for the third edition of Routledge’s Fifty Contemporary Choreographers.
He is Chairman of the Dance Section of The Critics’ Circle and of the UK National Dance Awards and regularly lectures on dance writing and criticism at The Royal Academy of Dance, The Place and (until the war) for Balletristic in Kyiv. He was a nominee for the Dance Writing Award in the 2018 One Dance UK Awards and was appointed OBE in 2008.
