Via Community News Service, a University of Vermont journalism internship
For more than 40 years, one local man has helped bring a unique form of Japanese drumming to Vermont. Stuart Paton grew up in Tokyo, where he fell in love with taiko.
Paton is passionate about spreading the word about taiko through teaching, performing, and making these special drums.
(See below for video transcript)
Stuart Paton: I’m a teaching taiko artist-in-residence. I teach taiko, Japanese drumming, in schools, universities.
I’m one of the co-founders of Burlington Taiko. We started in 1986 and we make our own drums. I am the chief taiko mechanic. And I really like making drums. We’ve been together since 1986, so that’s a 40-year taiko group. So, we have made a lot of taiko.
Taiko, Japanese drumming, its history comes from different parts of the world. Taiko is a combination of movement, percussion, and voice.
I grew up in Tokyo and I speak fluent Japanese and that’s how taiko touched my life. I started my taiko study 42 years ago. My first year in college in Ohio, a taiko group from New York City called Soh Taiko, S-O-H Taiko, they performed. The nest summer, I went and studied with their teacher, Mr. Tanaka, in San Francisco. A couple of years later, three of us started Burlington Taiko.
Kyle Ikeda: My name is Kyle Ikeda, and I started playing taiko at Burlington Taiko in 2014. Burlington Taiko is a taiko center for Burlington. It’s the only one in Vermont that teaches, performs, and makes taiko drums.
Stuart Paton: Favorite taiko memories, let’s see…in Vermont, playing right after the rain at the Vermont City Marathon. We had our raincoats still on the drums. We hit the first note, boom! And all the water that was resting on the plastic bags just splashed into our face. It was kind of like a Blue Man Group performance.
Taiko is auditory nutrition. And when we hit the drum, especially if the skin has been on the drum for years, it’s mellow, it’s deep. If someone hasn’t heard it ever or they haven’t heard it in a long time, it’s nutrition.
There’s always people who haven’t seen taiko and there are always people who haven’t tried taiko. I’m around for the rest of my life, and come visit!