SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

KODO -  One Earth Tour, Europe 2009 : Royal Festival Hall, London, 7.6.2009 (CC)


Kodo is a phenomenon. This is not the first time I have seen this astonishing travelling troupe from remote Sado Island, Japan, so it acted as a reminder as to just how powerful this almost exclusively percussion mode of expression can be. There was a difference - when I saw them last time, it was from a safe distance in a cheap seat a long way away from the stage. This time, it was the front bank of stalls. Oh my.

Although the event includes singing and various instruments, it is primarily intended as a celebration of the Japanese taiko (drum). At the centre of the experience stands the huge o-daiko, a drum so massive that when battered by two players (as here, during the second half of the concert), it evokes a physical response, somewhere deep in one’s gut, the sheer physicality almost overpowering. The drum, amazingly, is hollowed out of a single piece of wood. Flutes and what I believe to be the Japanese equivalent of the Chinese erhu, the kokyu, added an unmistakable folkish feel to the piece called “Nishimonai”. One was instantaneously transported: this was the real deal.

“Kodo” means either “heartbeat” or “children of the drum”, both of which can be seen to be appropriate. The ensemble consists of some fourteen members. Theatre is of the utmost importance, be it the primal, topless males dripping sweat as their faces contort in agony as they fire yet another salvo via their drums directly at us, the audience, or the gentle sound of a single-line highly melismatic folk melody. The male members are dressed ascetically in black and white; females enjoy more variety. The star guest, dancer Kieko Kojima, was effortlessly graceful. Some of the dancing seemed to imply the self-orgasms of Stravinsky’s “Sacrificial Dance” from the Rite of Spring, except amplified in effect.

Despite being percussion only, the evening held tremendous variety. The minimalism of Reich seemed to hover over some pieces, while in others the music moves in waves of unstoppable crescendos. Whatever was going on, though, ceremony is at the heart of everything in this show

The website is http://www.kodo.or.jp/news/index_en.html. Recordings cannot possibly do Kodo justice, but I do in fact own one and it acted as a momento to an unforgettable event the first time round. The troupe moves on now to Athens (June 11), thence to Turkey (Izmir on the 13^th, Istanbul on the 15^th and 16^th), and then to France, Spain and Belgium before finally lighting up Zurich on July 14^th. Unmissable stuff.

Colin Clarke 


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