Intercollegiate Taiko Invitationals 2017

This past Memorial Day weekend was the 23rd Annual Intercollegiate Taiko Invitationals (ITI) hosted by UCLA's Kyodo Taiko and Yukai Daiko. From early in the morning and throughout both days, members of 16 different collegiate taiko groups* got to meet each other and take workshops from professional taiko players**. Workshops ranged from various naname and odaiko forms to bachi twirling to polyrhythms, while the instructors came from all over California and beyond to teach. During the first morning, collegiate players got to watch an instructor demonstration and each evening the players got to perform with their groups during the collegiate showcases. 

Every year at ITI, the collegiate members make their own hachimaki based on themes or cool ideas and then exchange their creations with others as a way to make new friends and have something unique from the event. Here is Bakuhatsu before we exchanged our dog-theme hachimaki.

Bakuhatsu had a phenomenal time learning so much from the instructors and from the other collegiate teams and would like to thank Kyodo and Yukai for hosting such an amazing event this year. We already can't wait for next year's ITI at UC Riverside hosted by Senryu Taiko!

*USCD Asayake, Cal Poly Touzan Taiko, UNLV Rebel Taiko Experiment, UCI TaiKomotion, UCD Bakuhatsu, Kazan at USC, UCR Senryu, UCI Jodaiko, University of Washington Taiko Kai, The Claremont Colleges Taiko, CSUN Jishin Taiko, University of Oregon Ahiru Daiko, Cal Raijin, Stanford Taiko, UCLA Yukai Daiko, UCLA Kyodo Taiko

**Kris Bergstrom, Kristy Oshiro, Prota, Unit One, Tiffany Tamaribuchi, Taiko Project, Eien Hunter Ishikawa, Masato Baba, David Wells, Shoji Kameda, Naruwan Taiko, SJ Taiko, Bevin Chan, Clara Takahashi, Young Kang, Reid Taguchi, Eric Briggs, Mike Hirota

​Written by Shai Nielson, BTD Historian 2016-2017