The back-by-popular demand production of Taiko Drum & Dance: Hana Hou! featuring Kenny Endo and the Taiko Center of the Pacific directed by Betsy Fisher with musical guests Yi-Chieh Lai, Reggie Padilla and Reid Ishikawa returns to the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Kennedy Theatre Mainstage. This concert explores interactions between taiko and diverse dance forms and runs November 3, 4, 10, and 11 at 7:30 p.m. and November 12 at 2 p.m. with free pre-show chats at 6:45 p.m. on November 4 and 11 in the Earle Ernst Lab Theatre.
Two newly conceived musical compositions by Kenny Endo premiere in this heart-pounding production. The first accompanies Kumu Hula Noenoelani Zuttermeister’s choreography in a dance that employs traditional hula movements and a unique intermingling of hula implements and Japanese instrumentation. In Endoʻs second new piece, Peiling Kao, UH Mānoa’s newest dance faculty member, choreographs Capricious with an ensemble of eighteen dancers.
Howard Asao, longtime instructor of Japanese dance, uses five dancers, long, rippling streamers, and traditional Japanese dance to evoke the feeling of water spirits. Sai Bhatawadekar, professor of Hindi-Urdu and director for the Center for South Asian Studies, touches on themes of sustainability in Vriksha, a Bollywood dance, accompanied by Endo’s composition “Ancient Beginnings.”
Okinawan dance instructor Yukie Shiroma creates a modern piece that draws inspiration from her background in Okinawan dance in Steel Rain. An electric coupling of contemporary dance and hip-hop dance shapes Spirit of Rice, choreographed by Associate Professor Amy Schiffner and dance alumnus and Hip Hop teacher, Kent Shinomae.
Tickets for Taiko Drum & Dance: Hana Hou! are available online, by phone at (808) 944-2697, and at official outlets. Cash sales at the Kennedy Theatre Box Office are available from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday through Friday with extended sales hours on show days. For more information, visit the Kennedy Theatre website.
