Box Office: 800-841-2787 (ARTS)
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KODO One Earth Tour 2023: Tsuzumi
March 23, 2023 | 7:00 pm
Feel the reverberations of heaven and earth in harmony with this all-new performance from internationally renowned taiko performing arts ensemble, KODO. Entitled “Tsuzumi,” this explosive performance, created to commemorate the ensemble’s 40th anniversary, will electrify, dazzle and uplift audiences of all ages. Guided by three words that underpin the KODO mission living, learning, creating – the visceral sound of KODO’s taiko drumming explores the limitless possibilities of the traditional Japanese drum forging new directions for a vibrant living artform. KODO has given over 6,500 performances in five continents cementing the ensemble as a global phenomenon like no other. Don’t miss a beat!
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LOCATION: Schaefer Center for the Performing Arts
INFORMATION AND TICKETS: Contact theschaefercenter@appstate.edu, call 800-841-2787 or 828-262-4046, visit the box office at the Schaefer Center for the Performing Arts, 733 Rivers Street, Boone, NC, or purchase online.
TICKETS:
$25 adults; $20 local resident (proof of residency in Watauga, Ashe, or Avery counties); $10 students
SHOWTIME:
Thursday, March 23, 2023 | 7pm; doors open at 6pm
ABOUT KODO
Exploring the limitless possibilities of the traditional Japanese drum, the taiko, Kodo is forging new directions for a vibrant living art-form. Since the group’s debut at the Berlin Festival in 1981, Kodo has given over 6,500 performances on all five continents, spending about a third of the year overseas, a third touring in Japan and a third rehearsing and preparing new material on Sado Island. Kodo strives to both preserve and re-interpret traditional Japanese performing arts. Beyond this, members on tours and research trips all over the globe have brought back to Sado a kaleidoscope of world music and experiences which now exerts a strong influence on the group’s performances and compositions. Collaborations with other artists and composers extend right across the musical spectrum, and Kodo’s lack of preconceptions about its music continues to produce startling new fusion and forms.
photos byTakashi Okamoto
PRESS COMMENTS
“Traditional rituals recast as theater, and contemporary thoughts about ancient instruments both figure in Kodo’s performance, which includes ancient and modern compositions. Yet with tense, angular postures, with stylized, frozen gestures and, in one playful piece, with animal-like scampering and slithering, Kodo reminds its audience that, above all, its music is a matter of flesh and blood, wood and stretched skin. Kodo can raise the roof, but the group can also show extraordinary finesse.” —The New York Times
“Having spent some time with them, jazz drummer and composer Max Roach thinks of the Japanese drummers of Kodo as regular guys. On stage it’s another story – clad in sweatbands and loincloths, they are like percussionist kamikazes. You expect them to drum till they drop. ‘The technique they use to play percussion instruments is totally different from anything I’ve ever seen,’ he says… ‘They deal with that ‘visual sound’ more than anyone I’ve ever known.’” —The Village Voice
“Indeed, if there is such a thing as perfection in music, Kodo comes as near to it as any group in the world.” —The Boston Globe
“Superlatives don’t really exist to convey the primal power and bravura beauty of Kodo. … Throughout, the devil of it is the combination of the discipline of a surgeon’s scalpel with the primitive, muscular endurance of a cavalry charge. The speed and dexterity are as impressive as the physical tenacity is breathtaking.” —Chicago Tribune
“Balancing a deadly aggression with utter tranquility, their sound stretches from the lightest of rainfall to cataclysmic thunderclaps, from pleasant laughter to discordant fear and from silence to – just once here – a wall of sound, as high, frightening and impregnable as a mountain. Musicians, theatre directors and all interested in the sheer power of sound to feed emotions should take note.” —The Guardian / UK
“The spectator is crushed by their power and then suddenly, silence. Complete silence as if life had stopped in an instant, no applause, not even a breath. I have never seen a show where the audience was so close to suffocating. Don’t miss this, the sound of their drums will be engraved forever on your memory.” —Le Quotidien de Paris / FRANCE
Dynamic, electrifying vision ….Nothing will prepare you for the 1,000 lb. drum assault, the precise timing or the wall of sound. An essential experience.” —Time Out / UK
We would like to thank our corporate, hotel and media sponsors for their generous support.
