aka The Mount Fuji Taiko Festival, 2011, Japanese High School Drummers.

Taiko drumming is always pretty awesome, but what really grabbed me about this performance is the expressions on the face of the girl at the center three-drum set (captured in the video’s still below). I don’t think I have ever seen that combination of intense concentration and rapturous joy on anyone’s face. We get to share the happiest ten minutes, so far, of this young girl’s life.

The cameraman at first tried to pan across the group to cover everyone equally, but a couple of minutes in, you can tell he/she starts to realize who’s the star of the show. Repeatedly he starts to pan away from her, then realizes she’s about to do something else remarkable, and the camera jerks back to her. By the end of the video, the camera is on this girl at least 90% of the time. There are some remarkable close-ups of her face in there, too. And oh BTW, she is a great drummer–it’s not just her face turning in a magnificent performance. Most of the kids had a single drum, a couple had two, but she’s the only one, apparently, who could master the three-drum set. Definitely watch it full screen.

Enjoy!

Edited to add: “nailed it!”