MUSIC REVIEW : Ondekoza’s Long Return

Ondekoza, the taiko schismatics who separated from Kodo with the group’s original name, turned up at the Japan America Theatre for two unheralded performances Monday. On a three-year run-and-drum tour around the periphery of the United States, the demon drummers brought along two tables full of souvenirs but forgot the programs.

Which must have made a piece like “Sogaku” seem even more cryptic. A runner in a track suit jogs in place on a treadmill, with a veiled figure all in black seated at his feet like a refugee from “The Seventh Seal.” The metronomic slap of running feet powers the piece, decorated with everything else in the Ondekoza instrument bin--drums of course, shamisen , shakuhachi , various gongs and rattles, and even the cross-cultural insert of “Orange Blossom Special”-type train effects.

Periodically, one of the percussion clan emerges from behind four large drums hanging from the rafters to fan the lone runner, or blow a bit of “Oh, Susanna” on harmonica. Clearly, “Sogaku” reflects parallel obsessions with body rhythms, and perhaps some of Ondekoza’s experiences in running around America.

This is a piece that is hard to imagine in the more formalistic repertory of Kodo. But other program elements revealed the shared roots. Tagayasu Den’s “Odaiko” and “Yataibayashi” set pieces displaying the power of the largest drums and the physicality of the performers are common to both ensembles, staged almost identically as Ondekoza has returned to the loincloth costumes of Kodo.

The dueling shamisens medley of Ryohei and Kohei Inoue was in the percussive tsugaru style also favored by Kodo, though the shamisen -four-hands bit and the comic appearance of “The Camptown Racetrack” was an original music hall lift. Marco Lienhard contributed a haunted, fluently inflected shakuhachi solo. Yasuko Takakubo took the central part in many of the patterned drum medleys, and also supplied a bravura dance--mock martial arts with parasols.

Opening the program was a vigorous, well-disciplined number from Zendeko, a local junior taiko band of 13 drummers and a flutist.

The encore set began with the full ensemble--nine men and one women here--lined up singing the drinking song “Sakaya Uta-Sake.” Zendeko returned for bows, and added four dancers to the freewheeling festivities, which incorporated the audience applause, as gleefully directed from the stage.