WOMEN’S MARCH
Leading up to the Women’s March in 2018, Galen and members of Jiten Daiko organized a coalition of taiko drummers from around the Bay Area to perform at the UN Plaza as the march streamed past. Six ensembles came together and played for several hours straight. Men from the ensembles were invited to play supporting roles in this performance and women were invited to perform their hearts out center stage and soak up the full power and love of their community.
Jiten Daiko and Bay Area Taiko Ensembles performed at the SF Women’s March again in 2019 and 2020.
MARCH FOR OUR LIVES
DRUMS NOT GUNS! ART IS STRONG! COMMUNITY IS STRONG! Taiko is a constructive, peaceful, and community-oriented expression of power. In the wake of the Parkland shooting and the continuing onslaught of gun violence, Galen and members of Jiten Daiko invited taiko ddrummers from across the San Francisco Bay Area to join us in solidarity and march in the March for our Lives 2018. Leading up to this event we created a new composition that combined elements of pre-existing taiko compositions from each of the participating ensembles and marched together while performing our collective composition.
BUDDHIST TAIKO GATHERING
REGIONAL TAIKO GATHERING
In July of 2016, Galen and members of Jiten Daiko organized Regional Taiko Gathering: Bay Area, the first ever gathering of its kind. We organized “non-taiko workshops for taiko drummers” - workshops in body percussion, Japanese folk dance, Korean dance drumming, Axis Syllabus and more, led rhythmic community building activities, facilitated discussions about our observations, hopes, and dreams for our taiko community, and organized a showcase featuring youth, senior, and professional taiko ensembles, and a performance by the Chinyakare Marimba Ensemble.
In spring of 2018, Galen Rogers and Jiten Daiko were invited to help organize, participate in, and lead workshops at the first ever Buddhist Taiko Gathering organized by Jun Daiko based at the Mountain View Buddhist Temple. Inspired by our own discussion with the ministers at the Budhist Church of San Francisco where Jiten Daiko based, Galen and members of the ensemble led a workshop on different creative expressions of community, on listening to team mates even when you're making noise as well, and on cultivating a hive mind with a group.