Lineage: a tender sound

Toronto Taiko Festival presents

Lineage: a tender sound

From the first breath and the first beat, we invite you on a journey of diasporic lineage — a story of communities made over time through the sound of taiko.

Honoured as the living ancestors of Canadian kumi-daiko (ensemble taiko drumming), San Jose Taiko (est. 1973, San Jose, CA) is taking the stage of the Betty Oliphant Theatre in Toronto, ON, as the last stop of their 2025 Rhythm Journey Tour. 

Take in the levity and wisdom of San Jose Taiko’s ensemble style, as they are joined for one evening by RAW Taiko (est. 1998, Toronto, ON) and Ame no Ato (est. 2022, Montreal, QC), two groups whose lineages trace back to the day it all began… 

In 1979, in Vancouver, BC, at the third annual Powell Street Festival, San Jose Taiko played in Oppenheimer Park. This performance inspired the creation of the very first Canadian taiko groups, which have since grown, reaching across multiple provinces, into the Canadian taiko scene that exists today. A player from the early founding days of Canadian taiko remembers: “With their first beat, their first kiai, the San Jose Taiko Group showed us a way. I was going to say a way forward, but it was not that. It was simply a way. A way to look both forward and backward at the same time. A way to look both inward and outward.”

From this way that was opened, has come the preservation of traditions, the creation of new ones, and the kind of invention that is only possible in the complexity that is diaspora: always here and there, coming and going, in grief and in joy, in solitude and in community. A tender path, we sound together. 

Saturday, April 5, 2025

Doors at 7:30pm | Show at 8pm

Betty Oliphant Theatre (404 Jarvis St.)

Sliding Scale Tickets from $20-$50

Accessibility:

• The Betty Oliphant is a wheelchair accessible venue. Please email info@rawtaiko.ca if you would like to reserve accessible seating. 

• There is one single stall accessible washroom on the main floor. 

• For the safety of our performers and audience, we strongly encourage everyone to wear a mask in the theatre. We will have masks available at the door. 

This event is produced by Toronto Taiko Festival and RAW Taiko, and generously funded by the Department of Canadian Heritage and Toronto Arts Council.