'Finding Her Beat' spotlights female Taiko drummers

CATHY WURZER: We're done with the politics, at least for the next 10 minutes or so. We're going to talk about taiko drumming. You've heard of taiko drumming, right? It's been part of Japanese culture for thousands of years. And for nearly that long, only men have played the drums. Minnesota filmmakers Dawn Mikkelson and Keri Pickett have collaborated on a new documentary that follows a group of women taiko drummers in their effort to claim their place in the art form and on the stage.

Finding Her Beat is getting its Minneapolis premiere this Friday at the Sound Unseen Music and Film Festival in Minneapolis. I'm so happy that Dawn Mikkelson and Keri Pickett are with me. How are you guys doing?

DAWN MIKKELSON: So good to be here, Kerri. Thank you for having us.

CATHY WURZER: I'm glad you're with us. Hey, Dawn. How's it going?

DAWN MIKKELSON: It's good. I just called you Kerri.

CATHY WURZER: It's OK. Kerri Miller's in Bhutan right now, so it's fine. You're stuck with me, OK? You're stuck with me. It's good. Thank you, Keri and Dawn. Keri Pickett is not with us right now, is that right? OK, I'm sorry. We're having some problems. Let me just talk to you, Dawn, first, and then we'll bring Keri in here. It's all good. So tell us about the idea for Finding Her Beat. How did it come to you both?

DAWN MIKKELSON: Well, so Jennifer Wier-- who is the Executive Director of Taiko Arts Midwest and the brain behind this momentous concert that happened on February 29, 2020-- she came to me. We've been friends for over 20 years. And she said, I'm doing this amazing concert.

I'm bringing the top women from around the world together to just blow the roof off of the Ordway. Would you film it just so we have it, kind of document it for later? And the more we talked, the more it was just like, this is more than just a concert. This is a movement. This is a documentary film. And conveniently, she agreed with that.

And so Jen and I started talking about what that meant, and then I brought Keri Pickett on board. And two years later, we were filming that concert just before the world shut down for COVID.

I mean, really, Jen and I were connecting as women who create art and who work in male dominated art forms, and so that was our connection to each other. And I think that comes through in the film.

CATHY WURZER: Keri Pickett is on the line. Hey, Keri.

KERI PICKETT: Hey.

CATHY WURZER: Sorry about the technology here. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't.

KERI PICKETT: That's OK.

CATHY WURZER: But thanks for joining us on the phone. So I understand that you were the DP-- the director of photography-- on this documentary, and you were working with our friend Dawn. Did you two ever work together on anything before?

KERI PICKETT: No. We are both members of the Film Fatales, which is a national organization of women who have directed a feature film or a television series, and so we were connecting on that level. And so she brought me in as the co-director and the director of photography, and it was just such an exciting process.

I had never really been on a team like that before. I'd been kind of a solo filmmaker myself, and so it's been quite the opportunity to work with Dawn and to be able to tell this story and to do it in a cinema verite way, which is a very difficult way to film. And so it was a lot of footage. It was a lot to cover.

CATHY WURZER: So for folks who've not had the opportunity to experience taiki drumming-- I've only had one chance in my life. and it reminds me of-- I mean, it's this joyful, rowdy experience. Can you describe taiko for us? Dawn, I'm going to toss to toss that question to you first.

DAWN MIKKELSON: Well, I mean, taiki drumming for somebody who has not experienced it before-- what I will say is that you sit in that room, and it vibrates you to your core. And there is nothing like it. Jennifer Wier talked about how when they go into a new venue, dust will fall from the ceiling that hasn't fallen for decades.

So it just shakes the venue, and there's something very primal about that. We've talked about how taiko speaks to the first thing you experience. You hear your mother's heartbeat in utero, and I think that there's something very powerful about taiko drumming.

And I would say taiko drumming is an international drumming. Many cultures have drumming that is similar to that in the sense of creating that primal place.

CATHY WURZER: And Keri, I mean, it must have been just a fabulous experience to shoot this thing because you've got these humongous drums-- just the visual of that. And then as Dawn just mentioned, I can't imagine just the sound, the audio.

KERI PICKETT: It's a healing art form. And I think to see women coming together and making such amazing sounds on these beautiful drums is a healing vibration on so many levels. And so, yeah, it was an art form. And whenever an artist gets to film an art form, I think it's a lucky day.

CATHY WURZER: Say, I'm curious, Dawn. How have women taiko drummers been kept off the stage? I mean, all this time. Is it still the case?

DAWN MIKKELSON: Well, this is an interesting piece in that when taiko came to the United States somewhere around the 1960s, women really flocked to it, and it became-- currently in the United States, I believe it's somewhere around two thirds of taiko drummers are women. So it's not that they weren't playing.

However, as Jennifer Weir has stated a number of times, participation does not equal equity. And so what was happening was even though the majority of US players were women, they were not being brought on as primary players. They were not being brought on as teachers. They are not the ones who are brought in as a professional. That was always given to the men.

And I think that hearkens back to the roots of taiko, which is hundreds of years old and comes from a place of-- this is where people were to talk to the gods was through taiko. And so back in the day it was like, well, obviously, men are the ones who talk to the gods.

So even though they're playing, there's still this thing from the past. And so Finding Her Beat is really about not just taiko, but it's women and anyone who doesn't want to wait for the gatekeepers to invite them to do the work anymore. It's about expressing yourself creatively and claiming your space and producing your own film and persevering in this time.

CATHY WURZER: So Keri, almost like women redefining power on their own terms?

KERI PICKETT: Yeah. One of the amazing things is when I was filming in Japan in the fall of 2019 and I was at the Kodu School, which is the very traditional school-- and I was learning and following [INAUDIBLE] for the film. I said, well, there's a woman student here.

And she said, yes, but really when she finishes, she'll have all of that training, but she really will probably not be allowed onto the traditional taiko stage in Japan. And one of the amazing things that happened because of our film is that already our film has had an impact on the culture of Japanese drumming in Japan, and Kodu School is now featuring that young woman on their videos and putting her center stage.

And so I believe that even though our film hasn't screened and premiered in Japan yet, we've already made an impact. And as Jennifer Weir says, now history has been made, and all of these women have proven that they can do it. There's no going back. It's a Herbeat movement from here on.

CATHY WURZER: Gosh, Dawn. I wonder what will happen when you start to screen this movie in Japan.

DAWN MIKKELSON: It's a good question.

KERI PICKETT: I hope good things, yeah.

CATHY WURZER: I wonder what other changes might occur, you know?

DAWN MIKKELSON: Hopefully, it'll be good.

KERI PICKETT: I do expect some push back.

CATHY WURZER: I'm sorry, Keri. Go ahead. Say it again?

KERI PICKETT: I do expect some push back, but I do expect also that this embracing of the time for women has come internationally and that it will happen there, too.

CATHY WURZER: Final word from you, Dawn?

DAWN MIKKELSON: I'm just so proud to have been able to be a part of this, and I think that it says something that we're screening here in Minnesota, that our first screening sold out. And so if you want to come, please buy your tickets online. It's happening on-- Sunday at 8:15 is our second screening. They're going fast. I think that Minnesota, frankly, is a rare place, and it's the only place I think this story could have happened. And we're so excited to bring it home.

CATHY WURZER: All right. Dawn Mikkelson, Keri Pickett, thank you so much for talking to me. Best of luck to you.

KERI PICKETT: Thank you, Cathy.

DAWN MIKKELSON: Thank you. You too.

CATHY WURZER: Dawn and Keri are the co-directors of the documentary Finding Her Beat. As Dawn mentioned, it's screening this Friday, November 11, at the Sound Unseen Music and Film Festival in Minneapolis. You can head to the film's website for more on that. It's herbeatfilm.com.