RAW TAIKO

WHAT'S NEW WITH RAW

Moving Between

This November, RAW Taiko returns to the Betty Oliphant Theatre with a concert line-up of original compositions by RAW members and collaborators!

Moving Between uses drums, dance, and storytelling to animate memories of transformation – how we make our lives between perception and experience, in cycles of holding and breathing, in social and cultural entanglements, and across our generous range of feeling. Resonating at a frequency between our boisterous and our quiet rage, this concert features RAW Taiko in collaboration with guest artists Jihyun Back (TO) and Valerie Hongoh (MTL), and showcases musical expressions that thoughtfully combine Korean percussion and dance, with taiko.

DATES

FRI November 14th, 8:00pm ET

SAT November 15th, 8:00pm ET

SUN November 16th, 2:00pm ET *Families with young children encouraged to attend this matinee showtime*

Sliding scale tickets from $25 - $55 (+HST)

Buy Tickets

Accessibility

Betty Oliphant is a wheelchair accessible venue. Please email info@rawtaiko.ca if you would like to reserve accessible seating.
Audio-visual elements will include captions.
There is one single stall accessible washroom on the main floor.
In order to increase safety for our performers, particularly in the dawn of cold and flu season, we strongly recommend that audience members mask while in the theatre. Free masks will be provided at the door.

We recognize support from the Ontario Arts Council and Toronto Arts Council, without which this concert would not be possible.

CURRENT STUDIO RAW PROGRAMS

"Taiko is an art rooted in power, demanding your recognition of its power. Kumidaiko, the group play style you will experience here tonight, is an exercise in how much more powerful we are in collaboration. In how much louder we can be. In how much harder we are to ignore.

And this is RAW—a powerhouse group using their individual power as an even stronger collective. They are dedicated to speaking truth to their lived experiences and providing a platform for those who have been encouraged to remain silent.

Taiko—as RAW plays it—is a challenge to every dangerous silence."

--Harper Ross (Oberlin College Taiko member) Feb 2023

What is RAW Taiko?

RAW Taiko, founded in 1998 as Raging Asian Women Taiko Drummers, is an artist-run Toronto-based performing arts organization made up of East and Southeast Asian women and gender non-conforming drummers. We carry on the diasporic Taiko tradition that grew out of Asian American and Asian Canadian participation in gender and racial justice movements in the 60s and 70s. One of the few taiko drumming groups of its kind in the world, RAW Taiko exists as a critical response and challenge to both systemic and internalized oppressions. RAW Taiko plays large drums as creative resistance for social change, carving space for self-expression, education and community building.

RAW Taiko has performed at a wide variety of events including Pride celebrations in Toronto and Buffalo NY, Harbourfront Music Garden, Muhtadi International Drumming Festival in Toronto and Tobago, Mayworks Festival of Working People and the Arts, and Toronto’s WinterCity Festival. RAW Taiko performs annually at labour union conventions, International Women’s Day events, art festivals, social justice events, and more.

Adrienne Mak, Stephenie Hui, Courtney Ayukawa, Young Park, AQ Hui, Cia Posuma, Wy Joung Kou, Rae Barilea, Julie Tian. Photo by Mich Chiu, 2025.

Our History

In 1998, three former members of Wasabi Daiko formed Raging Asian Women Taiko Drummers. RAW Taiko began as a self-taught group with senior members passing on knowledge to newer members, and each member collectively supporting each other’s learning. Over the years, through different apprenticeship cohorts, RAW Taiko has gained skills through workshops, lessons and intensives with Yoshikazu Fujimoto, Masami Miyazaki and Eichi Saito (of KODO), Ryutaro Kaneko (formerly of KODO), Kiyoshi Nagata and Aki Takahashi (of Nagata Shachu), Roy and PJ Hiyabayashi (of San Jose Taiko), Tiffany Tamaribuchi (of Sacramento Taiko Dan), and Megan Chao Smith (formerly of Shidara). Several members participated in the KASA/Mix tour of Sado Island, and the North American Taiko Conference and Summer Taiko Institute over the years.

Laura Coramai, JoAnne Kim, Victoria Chu, Amy Lin, Alice Te, Brenda Joy Lem (RAW Alumni)

Our Name

Founded as Raging Asian Women Taiko Drummers, our name has been one way we have signaled to audiences and community members the lives, experiences and perspectives at the heart of our creative resistance.

We came from the anger of East/Southeast Asian women who wanted to challenge the stereotypes that suggested Asian women were weak, submissive, quiet or isolated. As we have grown, so too has our collective awareness of the depth and breadth of our intersectional struggles. Our name has taken different forms to reflect this thinking, and to honor the identities of the drummers who make up our organisation as people who have lived experiences of anti-Asian racism and misogyny.

Today, we are RAW Taiko, and we exist as a place for East/Southeast Asian women and gender non-conforming people to gather, share, rage, joy, drum and be.

Poster: Raging Asian Women at Shout Out for Global Justice - Massey Hall, June 25, 2010. Photo by Matthew Fung

Education

As a compliment to performance, RAW Taiko is invested in creating opportunities for taiko education at all skill levels. RAW Taiko offers classes and workshops in a variety of settings. These include community and educational outreach in workshop series such as our annual 6-weeks with Queer Asian Youth group (ACAS) and offerings of introductory taiko workshops to the general public.

RAW Taiko also runs a series of programs within the Toronto District School Board including assemblies and workshops for May Asian Heritage Month, and after school taiko programs for high school students at Forest Hill Collegiate Institute and Harbord Collegiate Institute. These programs focus on youth empowerment, particularly for girls, gender non-conforming and LGBTQ+ community members.

In July of 2012, RAW Taiko took on the ambitious task of organizing and launching Toronto Taiko Festival (TTF). The first festival, which included three days of workshops, public forums, and a public concert, drew over 500 audience members, 50 workshop participants from over 15 cities, 2 international teachers, and performances by 4 Canadian Taiko groups. TTF returned again in 2017, 2022, and is planning its next iteration for August 2024.

Read more about TTF at www.torontotaikofestival.org

Toronto Taiko Festival - Music, Activism, Identity. 2012