“Running”

We started a day with running as usual, but you know something? We ran without breathing through a mouth. It was harder than I had expected. I ran desperately with a runny nose. Who thought of this kind of tough training, running with breathing only through a nose?

“Running a Risk”

Please take a look at the picture.
What do you think we are doing?  We are standing on a very sharp slant. For some reason we felt like making human letters on such a dangerous slope. We wanted to write “YAMATO”. It looks so, doesn’t it?

“In the Local Language, Part II”

It’s time for greeting in a local language again! Today we greet from a country of Dracula, Rumania. “Here we go” in Rumanian, “Sunteti gata”

“Performance in an Event”

There is a huge building called “Nation’s Mansion” here in Bucharest. They say it’s the second biggest building in the world. In this building we performed two numbers of ours, “RAKUDA(Merry Drumming)” and “RAION KUMIKYOKU(Thunder Suite)” in a motor show of Mitsubishi Motors (a Japanese car manufacturing company). During the show three of our members disclosed a new model by closing the huge fan which had hidden the new car behind it. It was nice stage direction, which will have wide appeal to Rumanian people, I’m sure.

“Sumo Wrestling”

We are now intent on Sumo Wrestling after “standing on our hands”. Especially our male members are at it. Today Mr. Gen Hidaka and Takahiro Mon began sumo wrestling and it was a close match as there was no ring nor belt to grab. At last Mr. Gen Hidaka failed in using a sumo technique and Mr. Takahiro Mon won the match.

“Greeting in the Local Language Part III”

“Idimenat! (it sounds like this though we don’t know how to spell it.)” is today’s greeting in the local language. It was “Pod’me!” in Ko?ice which we visited two weeks ago. Anyway it’s hard to remember unfamiliar words. Although we practice saying the word many times, it easily slip our mind. We practice shouting the word on the stage and practice it both before and after eating rice balls and even right before the opening. We repeatedly practice, “Idimenat …, Idimenat ….”

“Making Drum Sticks!”

In the process of making a square piece of lumber into round sticks, each member has each point to care about. Ms. Marika Nito cares about the adjustment of plane blades. Ms. Saori Higashi, the length of wood shavings. Mr. Gen Hidaka is particular about the grain of wood. Ms. Misato Sugiyama cares about how coarse the sandpaper is. And Ms. Maiko Doi sticks to the mental state while sharpening the sticks. It was Mr. Takaoki Masui who was sharpening sticks with all his strength. Protein which he began to take recently seems to work. it has developed his muscles and he often breaks drum sticks during performances. He says it’s because of the protein.

“Easter”

One of our members had been looking forward to going to MacDonald hamburger shop today. It’s Mr. Midori Tamai. To tell the truth he had had a problem in his mouth and throat and he couldn’t have anything but water, yogurt and soup for about two weeks.
Today he had a hamburger at last which he had been eager to have.

“ The Rising Giant Taiko”

Today is the first day of six-day long concerts in Czech.
Today’s venue was a building like a gymnasium. The audience seats were on stairs. To our surprise the exit for carrying out our instruments was on the top of the stairs. We were to carry all the stuff we used on the stage up there!
The problem is how to carry our symbol, the giant taiko drum which is about 120 cm across. It weighs 500 kg! Local staff members quickly made a slope over the stairs and gathered around the giant taiko drum. The male members of “Yamato” joined them!
Then with a shout of “Read, go!” the giant taiko began to go up in the slope. It slowly climbed up the 45-degree slope with the brawny men.
“Woooo!,” shouted Mr. Midori Tamai!
The taiko bumped against a little difference in level. A few more muscular staff members came to help them immediately. The giant taiko began to move again and reached the top of the auditorium at last. Applause rose from us!
The men smiled with relief. We finished carrying all the stuff with the help of many people.

“Theater”

This theater usually provides shows by two productions. We put on a show today, when they don’t have usual shows. The small stage was surging through a lot of instruments, tools and a stage setting.

“Latter Half of Czech Tour”

We are on the fourth day of Czech Tour, performing in six different cities.
Here we’ll introduced the word for “Here we go!” in Czech. “Jdeme na to!”
As you have already noticed, it’s very similar to Slovakian. So it was easy for us to remember the word.

“A Problem Came Up”

A little before the opening, a problem came up! It turned out that the bar which audience use during intervals was behind the stage. It means they can see inside the wings. That’s a problem! We had an urgent meeting and concluded that we would close the wing curtain to cover the back stage. We were relieved to notice that before opening.

“Final Show in Czech”

The last venue was in Brno. We were all fired up for the last performance in Czech. We were all the more excited for the full house. This is the last day of six-day-long concerts in six different cities in Czech and also of our Eastern Europe tour. Thank you for coming to our concerts! Thank you very much!

“Arriving at London”

We’ve arrived in England!
We are going on a tour in U.K. for a month and a half to the end of April. First we are performing for two weeks in London. After that we are going to visit 15 cities around U.K., putting on 20 performances. We hope we’ll be successful!

“Preparation”

This is our second day in London. It’s a day for preparation.
For many hours before we arrived at the theater, staff members had been carrying in all the stuff from the trailer truck. At first we began marking the position of taiko drums on the stage. Then we checked lighting. It was not until late at night that we finished all the preparation. We are raising our motivation for the concerts beginning tomorrow. Time for preparation on the stage is also time for mental preparation.

“Press”

Now we are beginning performances in London.
It is often the case that we have a press conference and photographing on the first day of a run, and today we were asked to “jump“. We jumped repeatedly and photographing was over. It was a good warm-up.

“Hope to Spread Friendship through the Taiko Drums”

We finished the first performance successfully and we felt our new program “SHIN-ON” was received by people in London today. Lovely visitors came to see us. Some employees at the theater had asked us to let them beat the taiko. We had a very good time with them.

“Loving Severity”

This is our third day in London. A good point about a consecutive run at one venue is that we have a lot of time to spare for practice. When we give each performance at a different venue, we need a lot of time for preparation. Our schedule of one day here in Peacock is running and exercise in the morning and practice at the theater from noon. The senior members are sometimes too severe in instructing junior members.

“A Week Has Passed in London.”

We’ve finished five performances in four days. We are staying at a hotel which is like an apartment house. What is the best about it is we have a kitchen in the room. We make it a rule to cook by ourselves when it’s possible. So we cook three meals every day. Hearty meals are the best to heal our tired body! Today’s menu is hamburgers which Ms. Sugiyama’s good at cooking.

We’ve got into the second week at Peacok Theater in London. We’ve already performed in nine countries this year and had a lot of audience at our concerts. Many of them have said to us, “We are given energy from you. Thank you!” We often wonder if we deserve such appreciation and if we are doing well. That’s the tour.

“One By One, Carefully”

We went to Nottingham where we are supposed to perform on the sixth and seventh next month. It took us seven hours to go there and back,and demonstrated our performance just for three minutes. Anyway it was good for us to feel the theater staff members carefully preparing for our concert coming in ten days.

“19:25”

The time has come today, too. It’s five minutes before our performance. We give a concert of the same program every day but every concert is different as you know. We have different audience for each concert and we are different each day. We have various feelings in our tour life, which, we believe, are connected to our performance. Now our show is about to start.

“Thank you!”

This is the final day of the two-week run.in London We have to say, “Goodbye” to the theater. After our final show, the 500 --kg giant taiko drum and over 100 flight cases were hung from the stage to the exit. Thanks to the careful loading work, we didn’t have any big trouble and could save a lot of time. We are safely finished.

“Next Destination is ….?”

London was our first city to visit on this Europe tour. We still have 20 performances to put in 16 cities.