Taiko Scenarios

The Minneapolis-based taiko group Mu Daiko challenges notions of Minnesota as uniformly white and ideas about Asian America as a coastal phenomenon. The chapter uses ethnographic interviews, participant observation, and performance analysis to argue that taiko outreach (low-tech engagements, often with an educational aim) creates familiar scenarios that reveal pervasive racial attitudes toward Asian Americans. Building on Diana Taylor’s “scenarios of discovery,” the chapter demonstrates the ways taiko outreach sometimes reinforces the idea that Asians are perpetual foreigners, while at other times they create opportunities for meaningful connections between performers and audiences. A focus on the group’s Korean American adoptee members prompts a challenges easy definitions of Asian America and the Midwest and highlights Minnesota as a key site for Asian American cultural production.