Progressive Taiko

Annual Celebration of the Arts attracts 4,000-plus.

This April, PROTA is working on a few new compositions. We are very excited and hope to showcase our new work soon, since, up to this point, we’ve basically been using only Kyodo songs hehe.

Congrats to UCLA NSU on an awesome culture night!  Most of us were present in the audience being loud, obnoxious alumni but hey, that’s what makes an awesome culture night right?  (I’m sure the hundreds of parents in the audience would disagree and say we were just annoying)

The theme was about redevelopment and the selling of properties in Little Tokyo.  I’m sure a lot of you have noticed that there are a lot of changes occurring in Little Tokyo.  This year’s CN focused on the importance of community involvement in the process of redevelopment and the responsibility that we have to Little Tokyo, even if we are famous or hold positions of power.  Good stuff.

The taiko was awesome as well (We are a bit biased).  9-person Yonsei was great!  I don’t think we ever were able to get Yonsei to be as clean as this Yonsei.  Prota member Kevin Suda debuted his new song, which was also pretty sick.

Good job NSU and Kyodo!  Otsukaresamadeshita.

On December 14, 2008, Progressive Taiko had the honor or once again performing for the now Speaker of the Assembly, Karen Bass’s end of the year celebration. Although, Craig was too lazy to get photos from the event, it was once again a performance with a high energy audience and just a great feel all together.

And props go to:

• a group of young Korean American drummers who just rocked our socks. The form, the dancing, and the beats were incredible…. props to you.
• an individual African American woman who was also equally as incredible as the Korean Drummers…. props to you
• Assemblywoman Karen Bass, and all of her staff including Amanda Martin (thank you for everything) and Jenny Wood… props to all of you.