TaikoPeace Co-Hearts
“My TaikoPeace journey wouldn’t be possible without the kindness and generosity of those who share my mission for a peaceful world who I fondly call my “co-hearts”.”
PEAR URUSHIMA
TaikoPeace Co-Heart, Activator, Magnifier, Producer
Pear is a long-time, dedicated supporter of TaikoPeace, graciously wearing many hats in sharing TaikoPeace with the taiko community around the world.
She has produced and created content for many TaikoPeace virtual events which entailed behind-the-scenes preparation, developing presentations, and audience coordination. Among the seminal moments she helped bring to life were the launching of TaikoPeace, the 25th Anniversary of Ei Ja Nai Ka as well as Rhythm of Restoration:The Buoyancy of Freedom and Purify/Electrify/Clarify. She also produced the design and development of the TaikoPeace website, a project she helped envision as the digital home base for TaikoPeace.
Using her artistic eye and creative talents, Pear actively supports the merging of art, taiko, and TaikoPeace. Her mandalas can be found in the Mandala Garden. Two of her stories, “Hidden Inspirations” and “I am a Taiko artist” can be found in the Community Garden.
She was a collaborator on the TaikoPeace Charter for Compassion and produced the manifesto of values as a free gift to the community.
Pear is passionate about the power of taiko to transform. Her hand-made set of TaikoPeace drums were built to spread joy and peace through making taiko drumming accessible to local groups for healing, well-being, and education.
IRIS SHIRAISHI
TaikoPeace Co-Heart
Iris has been living and working in St. Paul, Minnesota for almost 40 years. She performs with ensemble-MA, a group of TaikoPeace musicians whose mission is to perform for and teach those without ready access to taiko. She’s collaborated with PJ and TaikoPeace co-hearts in developing the TaikoPeace Charter for Compassion and TaikoPeace values as well as given her time, energy, and guidance to all TaikoPeace events and initiatives. Her original composition, “Heiwa” is a song and dance that emanates the mission of TaikoPeace. Read Iris’s story “It Started With Compassion” in the Community Garden section.
HANNAH-JASMINE BRUNSKILL
TaikoPeace Co-Heart
Hannah-Jasmine is the Founder and Director of Taiko Journey, leads a community taiko collective, and Zasso, a performing taiko group in Devon, UK. HJ was a 2012 recipient of the Winston Churchill Fellowship to deepen her taiko knowledge and experience taiko around the world. She brought the first TaikoPeace workshop to the UK in 2012, and Ei Ja Nai Ka to the UK Taiko Festival for the first time in 2013. A School for Social Entrepreneurs graduate in 2014, HJ committed to make Taiko Journey's social objective to nurture and sustain the wellbeing of individuals, organisations and communities through taiko.
HJ generously contributed her energy and spirit towards the making of the TaikoPeace Charter for Compassion and continues to be a sounding board of wisdom for TaikoPeace initiatives. Read about HJ’s journey in the Community Garden - “Ei Ja Nai Ka: The Spirit of Belonging”, “Follow the Fishing”, and “Isn’t it Good”.
CHRIS and DAN KUBO
TaikoPeace Co-Hearts
Chris and Dan are the hosts of “Furusato”, the spiritual home of TaikoPeace in Northern California which has become a vortex of peace-making, music-making, and story-telling. They are light holders of the ancestral path for Ei Ja Nai Ka on their homeland, a community where farmers continue to embody the spirit of essential workers. Together, they have beautifully inculcated taiko into the culture of their community for the past many decades. Their endless generosity in supporting the taiko community and TaikoPeace on all fronts has helped to ground and root this movement with the generational values they embrace.