CulturalFest Countdown: Meet Taiko Kai

It's almost time for the CulturalFest Performance Showcase on February 10! Learn more about one of this year's performers, Taiko Kai.

How did your group begin? Tell us a little bit of your story.

Taiko Kai was founded by sisters Kim and Kellie Matsudaira. Armed with only their taiko experience (and help from their sister Jaymi), the two created the club in 2013. They made all of our drums, equipment, and costumes by themselves—and taught new members how to play! Since then, we’ve grown from the three sisters to a club with over 30 members.

What do you hope the audience will take away from your performance? What do you hope they will learn about the culture that your performance represents?

What makes taiko really unique is how infectious the energy is, so we hope that the audience enjoys our taiko spirit! We always have a blast performing, and hopefully it shows.

What has performing in past CulturalFests meant to you? What can the audience expect to be different this year?

CulturalFest is the most professional performance that we do as a group, so it’s always a really exciting opportunity for our new performing members. We love sharing the joy of taiko and seeing the rest of the performing groups, too! This year we’ll be playing Matsuri, which means festival in Japanese. It’s a piece based off of traditional festival songs in Japan, but every taiko group has their own version of it. This version of Matsuri is actually new and was arranged by our current practice director!

Is there anything else you would like people to know about your performance?

Almost all of our performers started playing taiko after joining our club, and some of our performers only joined in fall quarter! If you’re interested in learning how to play, check out our website or message us at our Facebook page.

Learn more about Taiko Kai on their website and on Facebook, and come see their performance on February 10!