1st Place Float
Here’s a fun little slice of life!
Yesterday, my local Taiko group won Best Float and Best Music in a local parade. Your 1-minute of obligatory footage… (click image to play video)
Yes, that’s me in the silly white viking hat yelling kakegoe and drumming our extended dance remix of the traditional Japanese festival song “Matsuri Bayashi”.
Why are we dressed somewhere in-between Viking and traditional Japanese garb?
Because this was the 50th Annual Scandinavian Heritage Festival, which is kind of a big deal in the small town of Ephraim. And though the approximately 5000 person population qualifies Ephraim, Utah as a small town, it’s actually the biggest town in all of Sanpete County which is right in the middle of Utah.
Like literally, according to the USGS the geographic center of Utah is GPS N39 23.200 W 111.41100 which is between Ephraim and Manti. You don’t get more middlish than here.
Though I’ve lived near here for the last 8 years, it’s only recently that I’ve gotten involved in anything locally. Mostly because there really wasn’t anything much of interest going on for someone not of the church-going or hunting & fishing persuasion. But now there is!
Just before racing over to help put the finishing touches on the float assembly and queue up for this parade, I was playing berimbau and conga for a local capoeira group assembling in a park in the county seat of Manti. The day before that I was singing, beatboxing, and playing jazz & bossa classics on a festival stage with The Sammy G Trio with local music students for an hour, then another Taiko performance. (Not bad for someone just getting over bronchitis, right?)
Earlier this year, I also launched a free weekly wellness series at Skyline Family Wellness Center. Leveraging my TaKeTiNa training and CircleSong experience, I lead rhythm journeys once a month, and support my wife Denise Lynch as she leads meditations with my live handpan/djonga/singing bowls soundtrack. We’re also starting to lead chant/kirtan events there, and helping to form a sound healing community.
It’s funny to me that my studies at the Ali Akbar College of Music, California Brazil Camp, Globe Sound Healing Institute, Open Ear Center, School for the Music Vocations, and skills developed from years of performing all over the world are getting some exercise again. Like speaking another language, I forget that I know anything until I hear something and it all comes flooding back.
Though I do still sing return home for vocal improv fun with some of my San Francisco Bay Area friends occasionally, it’s pretty rare these days. My next performance back there isn’t until October. And in the meantime, I’m learning a lot about taiko, capoeira, bossa nova, and picking up plenty more instrumental skills (my next challenge is pandeiro!).
I have always loved learning and playing music with others. Now that I’m no longer interested in pursuing a career in music, it’s fun to help build on a small scale and a local level here in a place where deviations from the monoculture are becoming more acceptable. This is not the life I ever would have imagined for myself. But, for now at least, it is working out alright.
And I didn’t even realize there was a competition. FIRST PLACE! WOOHOO!!!