Taiko-Toting Kodo Keeps Traditional Beat

Experiencing an evening of taiko drumming might seem to be a prescription for decibel disaster. The large Japanese drums can be enormous, more than 4 feet in diameter, weighing as much as 1,000 pounds and producing low-frequency sounds powerful enough to suggest the imminent onset of a major temblor.

But Kodo, the 17-member Japanese ensemble that has been largely responsible for introducing the traditionally based percussion music to American audiences during the past decade, offers vastly more than overwhelmingly incessant rhythms. On Wednesday, in the opening performance of a five-day run at UCLA’s Royce Hall, the initial work--”Mikazuki-no-yoru”--quickly established the imaginative quality of its music via a layered, shifting set of rhythms based on a five-beat sequence. Somewhat later in the program, “Nanafushi” showcased individual improvisations over a pulse in 7/8 time. Not your everyday sort of traditional pieces.

Nor did the members of Kodo limit themselves to the large taiko drums. Their arsenal included small, snare-drum-sized percussion, tiny frame hand drums, flutes, cymbals and shakers. All were employed in dramatic fashion in a series of pieces offering visual as well as aural attractions.

In “Hana-hachijo,” a pair of drummers, male and female, brought subtle waves of interrelationship to a work executed on opposite sides of the same drum. Other compositions, many written by ensemble members, included various groupings of players, often supplemented by elegant dance movements and traditional costuming.

The program climaxed, appropriately, when the largest drum--the O-daiko--was wheeled onstage poised atop its own platform. Played on opposite sides by two drummers stripped down to loincloths, muscles straining as they pounded the huge instrument with tree limb-sized sticks, the instrument produced a startling array of sounds, from wall-rattling rumbles to fast-paced, body-shaking rhythms.

Then the entire company, like spirited Pied Pipers of percussion, gathered the portable flutes and drums, and brought an enchanting evening to a close by dancing its way through the aisles and out the hall.