The Inside Scoop on Mu
I like to describe the process of rehearsal as one of crystallization—that which was murky and unclear gradually forms into a beautifully crystalline performance—under some stress and pressure, of course. For TenChi Taiko, I see this crystallization in the way the shape of each song becomes clearer as we near the performance. “Hooves II” grows faster and more powerful with every variation in rhythm, “Kiyomizu Cascade” blends into “Kumano Ki,” which builds to “Zenryoku,” and suddenly the drummers start to listen to thesongs as if for the first time. With each annual concert there's theexcitement and anxiety of premiering new compositions, like this year’s“Odori,” “Kanazawa Blue” and “Asobi” – songs that challenge us to druming new ways, to imagine taiko with a new perspective, to clarify new creations through the old process. What I like the most, is witnessingthe magic that happens when our group commits our creativity, time andenergy to one taiko goal – the concert performance. It is at oncepowerful and moving.

And then, as quickly as they arrived, the two magical weeks of the taiko concert are over. We take a few days to recuperate, and then move on to the next challenge – our New Eyes Festival in January. Our focus quickly shifts to the search for the new plays that will become our future mainstage productions. We don’t start the process in January, of course. We have been canvassing for these scripts since last summer and reading through all the submissions. But, it is in January that actors and directors bring the plays to instant life (just add water) so that we can judge which ones we want to commit more time and energy to. I always feel that in these staged readings we can recognize so much that is hard to find on the page alone. Theater is ultimately an aural and visual experience, and I have been surprised so many times by how scripts impact me, and audiences, when they’re read aloud. Two years ago, we discovered Cowboy Versus Samurai at our New Eyes Festival in this way. We have developed it further through workshops, and now it has made its way to New York, where there is a production currently running and receiving great reviews. We bring it back to Minnesota and our mainstage in February at Mixed Blood.

So, TenChi Taiko flows into the New Eyes Festival which flows into Cowboy Versus Samurai. It's a non-stop, fast flowing, creative river that keeps all of us at Mu paddling as hard as we can!