Sonic Bodies: Japanese Taiko Drum Legend EITETSU HAYASHI in Concert

Free and Open to the Public, No Ticket or RSVP Required.
Swarthmore College,
Lang Performing Arts Center
500 College Avenue, Swarthmore PA 19081

Celebrated as Japan’s most pre-eminent and pioneering taiko drum artist, Eitetsu Hayashi has received worldwide renown and standing ovations for his dynamic and thunderous performances, including at Carnegie Hall, Sydney Opera House, Philarmonie de Paris, and Waldbühne Berlin.

“Sonic Bodies” presents an evening of Hayashi’s emotionally resonant and thought-provoking repertoire – a trailblazing combination of taiko music and choreography steeped both in Japan’s cultural roots of Buddhism and Shintoism, and international, transcultural influences – including pieces never yet seen in the United States.

With refined artistry and technical precision across an array of taiko styles, including the deep tones and lightning cracks on the o-daiko – a nearly 700-pound taiko the size of a car and carved from a single old-growth tree – Hayashi and his elite ensemble, “Fu-Un no Kai” (The Society of Wind and Clouds), push their physical and spiritual limits to a near-superhuman edge, expressing sound through their bodies to transport the audience.

A recipient of two of Japan’s highest honors: the Fukuoka Grand Prize, and the government’s Order of the Rising Sun, and now surpassing the 50th year of his legendary career, Eitetsu Hayashi unceasingly forges ahead, his name synonymous with Taiko.

Featuring a massive joint performance of Hayashi’s “Sen no Kaikyo” (“One Thousand Echoes of the Sea”) with Swarthmore Taiko Ensemble and regional collegiate and community taiko players, Sonic Bodies will illustrate how Taiko, with its combination of movement and drumming, is unique among drumming traditions in its communicative power to evoke images and feelings that invoke our lived, and often ephemeral, sensibilities.

“Eitetsu Hayashi has almost single-handedly brought Japanese drumming to the level of art music … a music that knows no boundaries.”
-Peter Barakan, UK-Japan broadcaster and music critic, NY Times

Presented by the Swarthmore College Department of Dance and William J. Cooper Foundation as part of the Cooper Series. Co-Sponsored by the Japanese Language Program, Asian Studies Program, and Department of Religion.

For more information on all event programming for Swarthmore College’s Taiko Legend: Eitetsu Hayashi in Residency, please visit HERE.