Photo and videos by San Jose Taiko.

San Jose’s highly acclaimed Japanese-American drumming group is trying something new: free experimental performances in urban spaces around the city.

With $20,000 in support from Knight Foundation, San Jose Taiko has embarked on these small experiments that tap into Greater San Jose by using “space as inspiration” for performances, according to Franco Imperial, the group’s artistic director. This “Inspiration by Discovery” initiative is also supported by The James Irvine Foundation. The idea is to have free performances that take advantage of unique spaces or acoustics around San Jose, Imperial said.

“Taiko” is a barrel-shaped Japanese drum but is used in San Jose to describe both the drum and the drumming ensemble. San Jose Taiko—founded in 1973–empowers its members with creative control: All compositions they perform are written or arranged by the group. The organization has 20 members and an apprentice, with ages ranging from 24 to 52.

The first of these three experimental performances was held last summer: The drumming group twice took over the iconic Circle of Palms Plaza in downtown San Jose, which is located between the San Jose Museum of Art and the Fairmont Hotel. Video from a GoPro mounted on a drone captured a birds-eye view of the circular performances.

Very little of the performance was rehearsed beforehand, Imperial said, which led to a casual, “anything-could-happen” atmosphere that appealed to much of the audience.

“The idea was to sort of throw ourselves into the space and see what comes organically,” he explained.

While this first event was announced via social media, the prominent Circle of Palms location, where there is a lot of pedestrian traffic, naturally drew people.

“One of the great discoveries was finding that person who just happened to be walking through, maybe on their way back from work, and they’re seeing art in San Jose in a very different context,” Imperial said, adding that he believes art should be part of the everyday.

Imperial said both audiences and residents have been rattling off suggestions for places in the city to try for future performances.

San Jose Taiko has a busy 2016 planned, including debuting new work, going on a national tour and holding a home season concert in San Jose. The group hopes to advance the taiko art form by increasing audience understanding of the art they create and evolving the art form through innovative performances and programming, according to Imperial.

“We hope folks walk away from our events with the knowledge that they saw people striving to be the best versions of themselves through this medium and that they realize that the energy from fans contributes to that,” Imperial said. “Hopefully they take away the knowledge that taiko, in the way we present it, is a contemporary form that continues to develop and evolve.”

Vignesh Ramachandran is a Bay Area-based freelance journalist. He can be reached via email at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @vigneshr.