Ondekoza

Ondekoza is a Japanese troupe specializing in a giant taiko drumming and the music itself is intense and full of drama.

Founded in 1969 by Den Tagayasu, in Sado Island, Japan. Ondekoza was influential in the rise of the kumi-daiko (group taiko) style of taiko. Not a taiko player himself, Tagayasu helped transform taiko from a festival-based music form to a virtuosic performance art performed on stage.

The now widely recognized style of wearing only a 'shimekomi' ('fundoshi loincloth) was originally started by Ondekoza when Pierre cardin suggested that the physique of the drummer be exposed. The traditional Japanese drummers do not play only in underwear.

Part of a larger movement to rediscover Japanese folk art, Tagayasu brought together a group of young men and women to Sado Island to study and live. Largely without formal musical training, the original members lived communally in an old school house while studying taiko, other kinds of folk music and traditional dance. 

One of the keys to the groups success was the arrangement of traditional melodies and styles into stylized, artistic musical pieces.