Futari Tomo

This essay explores the queer acts and intimacies forged through the practice and performance of taiko, a contemporary form of Japanese drumming widely practiced in North America and, more recently, worldwide. Tracing acts of spectatorship, performance, and the creation of a taiko duet, “Futari Tomo,” this essay ruminates on the space taiko and performance more generally make space for negotiating queer intimacies and lives. It further ruminates on the blurred boundaries and the spaces between two people, music and dance, performer and spectator, and performance and the everyday as it looks at taiko from the space of the backstage, in rehearsal, and in performance.