A half-dozen University of Richmond students stand straight with their feet several inches apart. On one shoulder rests a single thick drum stick — also called bachi — while the opposite hand clutches another stick ready to spring into action.

Slowly, a student starts hitting a handsome drum, using his left hand first, then right, then left. The rhythmic beat intensifies, prompting syncopated, standing yoga-style moves from each performer. Suddenly, the lead student leaps to his left side and another student replaces him, picking up the sounds — without missing a beat.

Welcome to Taiko drumming, a style of traditional Japanese percussion offered as a course in UR’s Global Music Ensemble program. Taiko’s origins in Japan’s history includes military and religious ceremonies, as well as festivals and kabuki performances. A renaissance of the music occurred in the 1950s, and today it is considered a worldwide concert phenomenon.

“It’s a mixture of percussion and dance, music, and movement,” said Alasdair Denvil, an adjunct professor who has led the course and UR Taiko Ensemble for seven years. “The rhythms incorporate the dance movements and vice versa. I first encountered taiko in 1997 on a trip to Japan.” After taking a couple of taiko lessons in Japan, Denvil continued to take lessons in New York and brought his skills to UR after Paul Yoon, UR’s first taiko course instructor, left.

As part of the course, UR students play taiko — hand-made, traditional Japanese drums — as they learn the relevant rhythms and movements for traditional and modern compositions. At the end of each semester, students, usually four to 10, participate in a concert with performers from the community-based River City Taiko, which also is directed by Denvil.

“The UR Taiko Ensemble performs at the end of the semester’s Global Sounds Concert, along with the gamelan, West African and Brazilian ensembles,” Denvil said. “It’s sort of their final exam.”

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a spring concert did not occur in 2020, and social distancing prevented the Global Sound Concerts last fall and this past spring. However, the songs that students learned and performed were captured on film.

“With COVID receding, we'll hopefully go back to having the Global Sounds Concert at the end of the semester,” Denvil said. “It's a great opportunity for the students to perform live and to see the other global ensembles perform.”

​Denvil believes that a growing affinity for Japanese culture is part of the reason students, and others, enjoy taiko drumming. Other reasons loom, or boom, larger.

“It’s very accessible,” he said. “While it helps to have a background in music or dance, most people have little difficulty learning taiko. For people with a music background, the dance aspect is a challenge; for people with a dance background, it's the percussion that's trickier. I've taught taiko to people ranging in age from four to about 80, and they've found it both challenging and achievable.”