BOOKINGS

What happens at a RAW Taiko performance? There is the simplicity of the act - a gesture of arm and hand and stick across the taunt skin of a barrel. A gentle caress at one moment and a thunderous power the next. To see women who look like me, share something of what I know deeply in my body, is a powerful experience, one that leaves me full and electric.

The drums take all of what the performers release and offer back language to articulate the joy, sorrow, rage, celebration, what is possible, what has not been but can be. In other words, the drums tell stories, awaken history; stir our lives from their uneasy places. The drums call us back to memory, memories that reach beyond us to face generations of women, ghosts that came before, invited by the drums to dance.

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--Carianne Leung, review excerpt of Crooked Lines (2017)