Fall Tour 2015: Part 6

Back to the grind!

Burlington took a long day of driving to get to, but it was a great experience with Burlington Taiko.  We homestayed with a few of the senior members of the group and received some great hospitality.

Before lunch we went over to the Burlington Taiko dojo to meet up with their founder, Stuart Paton.  It's always fun seeing new practice spaces, and BT has a really nice one.  We talked a lot about his ideas for making taiko and modifying the sound made, some of them pretty unique and I'll be curious to see what evolution they take.  After lunch, we came back to the dojo and spent about two hours just talking about grip and striking technique, with Stuart giving us a lot of things to think about by the end!

Right after that we did a two-hour workshop for ~16 people, most of them members or apprentices in Burlington Taiko.  Two hours is really short and we plowed through a few things that gave people a chance to try new concepts out.  It'll be interesting to see what (if any) BT decides to utilize down the road.  The potluck after was great to chat with people, but it wasn't long until we were back at our homestays, sleeping for the next day.

It was a pretty easy day that followed, with a two-ish hour drive to Castleton, VT, and about three hours of waiting in a bakery for the rest of the touring crew to drive in with the equipment from the last theater before the split a week earlier.  They had flown in the day before.  After lunch we had our load and tech in, which didn't take all that long.

This morning was a school show in the theater for ~450 kids, and we'll perform again tonight with a regular 2-hour concert in a few hours.  We know some of the BT folks are coming down to see us, so we hope we can give them a really good show (you know, along with the several hundred other audience members, ha!)

Tomorrow it's off to MA for a in-school show show, then from there NH and a final stop in WV.  I may or may not blog again before we head back, but if not, I'll write something up shortly after I get back!