Who We Are
First and foremost, we are group of people who are extremely passionate about what we do. We love taiko drumming and we love traveling around the world to meet people who also love taiko drumming.

We are a professional taiko ensemble called Wadaiko Tokara, which was created in the fall of 2003 by Art Lee who, in 2005 became the first non-Japanese person to achieve the title of Grand Champion of the world's most renowned taiko competition - The Tokyo International Taiko Contest.

Members of Tokara have been active taiko instructors throughout the world, with daily workshops and classes, intensive one-week to one month courses, and two to three month residencies for group building and acting as "Visiting Artistic Director" for full summers to help create and/or build new taiko groups to become self-sustaining.
Tokara also acts as host and taiko ambassadors through the creation of two of the world's most popular taiko intensive courses in Iida City, Japan; The INADANI Taiko Drumming Course and Tokara Bootcamp. We also produce the Saiwai Shimoina Wadaiko Festival every year in June.

About HARUKA
With a growing nudge from many of our fans and colleagues, we decided that 2016 was the year to pull together and work hard on the creation of our first online teaching venture. With decades of combined teaching experience, Haruka Online Taiko Courses was created with the idea of bringing Tokara's style of unique taiko education to taiko beginners and professional performers alike.

We look forward to expanding our offering of courses and workshops in the near future, as well as short drills and workshops by visiting taiko instructors.