- On this edition of ARTEFFECTS, a traditional Japanese drum group based in Reno.

(drums beating) - We are thrilled and honored to be able to keep this very ancient art form alive in our Northern Nevada community.

(drums beating) - Singing underground.

- Whether it's Carmen or opera or sacred music I give my all.

I sing it because it's good communion with you.

With the person who's listening.

- A museum dedicated to posters.

- You just see an image and you understand the purpose of the poster right away.

In fact, that's what makes a good, effective poster.

- And the color of neon.

(soft music) - Neon is like eye candy.

I couldn't get enough of it once I really got into it.

- It's all ahead on this edition of ARTEFFECTS.

(upbeat music) - Funding for ARTEFFECTS is made possible by Sandy Raffealli with Bill Pearce MOTORS, Meg and Dillard Myers.

The Nevada Arts Council.

Heidemarie Rochlin.

In memory of Sue McDowell.

And by the annual contributions of PBS Reno Members.

- Hello and welcome to ARTEFFECTS.

I'm Beth Macmillan.

In our featured segment, we dive into the world of Reno Taiko Tsurunokai.

This Japanese drumming ensemble formed in 1997, and is celebrating its 25th year here in Northern Nevada.

We met the group's founder, and a long time member, and learned all about this extraordinary and heart-pounding craft of cultural expression.

(drums beating) - Reno Taiko Tsurunokai is a traditional Japanese drumming ensemble based in Reno, Nevada.

I just love drumming because it's just exciting for me.

It's not something that you hear just from the ears, but you feel it in the body.

- When people actually feel your music, it's quite an amazing experience.

- What's magical about it is to connect people together.

My name is Rieko Shimbo.

I live in Reno, but I was born and raised in Tokyo, Japan.

I was interested in drumming since I was really little, but I never really played drum until when I was in college.

I played in a rock band.

(rock music) When I heard my friend learning traditional Taiko drumming, I thought, oh, that'd be really fun to learn.

(upbeat music) I learned from a place called Araumaza, which is a professional Japanese traditional music and dancing group in Tokyo.

And I was part of that group and then learn and performing there before I moved to Reno.

I met Japanese American people who are really interested in a Japanese culture, and that's when I met Cindy.

- I asked Rieko if she would be interested in teaching some of us and she graciously agreed.

We organized the first workshop together, and, the rest is history.

25 years later, we're still drumming in our community and every day it's fun.

(foreign language) (drums beating) - The Taiko drum has two different parts of it.

So not just the rhythm itself, but also the movement is a big part of it.

How we move the arms, how to hold the batchy, how to stand, how to use the whole body.

More like a martial arts in a way, because you have to have the whole body in a very balanced way and also use the strings in efficient way without hurting the body.

- Part of our choreography includes leg and arm movements.

- Some of the songs we actually move around.

Rotating and playing around.

The visually makes it more interesting and exciting.

- It's actually quite artistic.

So it's really a full body drumming experience.

(drums beating) - We have different types of drums.

The biggest one is called Odaiko and we have tsuke daiko or shime daiko which is the smaller ones.

- The smaller drums are usually doing like a bass beat.

The larger drum are doing the actual song, and sometimes the large drum, we play both sides of it differently.

- Also we have other instrument, accompany drums, chappa or Kane, which made out of metal and make a little more piercing sound or more cheerful accessory for this ensemble.

And then also we have the bamboo flute that we play.

And then the voice is also a big part of the ensemble.

Sometimes people ask, what does that mean?

And then like it's not really mean something.

Some of the things are just like cheering sound.

A lot of songs that we play it's coming from different parts of Japan in the villages like farmers' villages or a fisherman's village.

- Buchiawase is what we call a fishermen song.

That's also quite athletic, which is in line with the strength you sometimes need as a fishermen when you're throwing out nets or fishing large fish.

So it's wonderful to know the meaning behind the songs, because then when you're drumming it, you have eight different perspective of how you should be drumming and performing.

- I try to be really focused on, on the sound, immerse myself in the moment because that's maybe the best thing that I can do to really do my best, to connect with people and create something amazing.

Taiko drum is not only for Japan because now its spreading all over the world.

The reason why its go spreading all over the world, it because it has such a strong fact for people to feel it and then being together and then being connected.

Music can connect so much.

And that really changed my, like when I come, came over here, I had a confidence and feeling that I can really connect with people with the drumming.

(musical instruments playing) - To learn more, visit renotaiko.com.

Now it's time for this week's art quiz.

According to the Guinness World Records, Steve Gaul of Canada achieved the longest recorded marathon drumming session in August, 2015.

How long was the session?

Is the answer, A: 36 hours and five minutes, B: 76 hours and five minutes, C: 113 hours and five minutes or D: 134 hours and five minutes.

And the answer is D: 134 hours and five minutes.

Singer Martina Bruno is known as the angel of New York.

As part of the Metropolitan Transportation Authorities music under New York program, she goes below ground to sing for the city subway riders.

(singing in foreign language) - I know how it is to work in the morning and the hustle and bustle.

One day I heard a little girl sing and it really touched my heart.

It made a difference in my day.

And so I was maybe I can do that for other people.

I just graduated college and I was like, what am I gonna do with my life?

And let me help people out while I figure it out.

And so one day there was this lady, she came up to me really really upset.

"You know you have a beautiful voice, honey.

It sounds just like an angel.

What are you doing down here?"

And I was like, I wanna be an angel.

♪ How precious is that great... ♪ I decided to take this seriously at some point, and not just moonlight.

I was tired of getting harassed by the cops and becoming part of Muni, allowed me to have a schedule.

And then I could really keep that schedule, that structure.

So right now I am at Yale Divinity school where I will be getting my M.Div.

I work as a chaplain.

I gig a lot.

And so that's how I balance everything.

I don't think I would have ended up at divinity school, if I didn't sing in the subway.

People are crying and tell me all their issues in the subway.

And I wanted to be able to be of service.

I tend to like do the goodies-oldies but goodies, I like to tap into the collective consciousness of New Yorkers.

So it's like laden in your subconscious, and people usually react to things that are very familiar.

Ave Maria's is a big one.

It's an, I could sing Ave Maria all day.

♪Ave Maria Whether it's Carmen or opera or sacred music, I give my all.

I sing it because it's good communion with you with the person who's listening.

It humbles me because I sing, I worship.

I love the shuttle.

I do the Grand Central shuttle.

It's just less interference basically, and I guess my comfort zone.

I'm used to being there.

I like the energy.

Every subway has its own culture, which is kind of weird, but it's true.

When you're in Grand Central, there's a lot of business people, but then people transiting, and it's a very interesting mix.

(singing in foreign language) But I just want them to know that they had an angel and they are not alone.

I'm not saying my personality is angel, but at that moment, that's what I'm wanting to channel.

(singing in foreign language) Singing in the subway, it could be very chaotic, but very beautiful at the same time.

That's New York city.

(singing in foreign language) - Learn more at martinabruno.com.

Poster house the first poster museum in the United States opened in New York city in 2019.

Through exhibitions and events, the museum explores the history art and the global impact of the Poster.

Let's take a closer look at the permanent collection.

- Hi, I'm Angelina Lippert, the Chief Curator of Poster House, the first museum in the United States dedicated to the art and history of the poster.

A poster is a public facing notice meant to persuade that marries word and image.

This phenomenon really began in the late 1860s when Jules Chéret the father of the poster perfected the already existing color with the graphic process, so that posters could be made cheaply and quickly using the full spectrum of the rainbow.

Prior to this time, posters were primarily text-based, so they were broadsides and that required that you had to be literate in order to understand them.

Posters do away with that.

You just see an image and you understand the purpose of the poster right away.

In fact, that's what makes a good effective poster.

If a poster doesn't communicate its purpose to you in less than a second it's failed.

Poster house typically has two or three exhibitions on view at any time, in addition to our permanent poster history timeline, which you can see behind me.

The beginning of this timeline starts with the father of the poster Jules Chéret.

So because the earliest posters are done via stone lithography, every single color making up that poster would have to be printed separately, and by combining those colors, that's how you get the full rainbow effect in any given poster.

And that's what Jules Chéret invented.

And what makes this poster incredibly special is it's actually a progressive proof.

A progressive proof is really really rare because a printer would typically only make one.

And it was a way for a printer to determine if all the different colors separated out line up, and if it prints cleanly.

Chéret originally designed this for a department store, however, it rejected it.

We don't know why because it's a beautiful image.

The next stop on the poster history timeline focuses on Leonetto Cappiello the father of modern advertising.

One of the things you'll notice in this poster is that the background is a flat saturated black.

He was the first poster designer to really offset a central image with a sharp, flat saturated background.

He puts a woman in a green dress on a red horse, but what does that have to do with chocolate?

This poster is for Chocolate Klaus.

And that was the entire point.

This is the first time we see a mascot born in advertising.

In fact, people were so captivated by this beautiful image that they would go to their local store, and instead of asking for the chocolate by name, they would instead say, "can you give me the lady on the red horse," and that's how that brand became memorable and known throughout Paris.

(upbeat music) The next step on our timeline is Marcello Nizzoli poster for Campari.

Campari has one of the richest histories in posters.

They've created literally hundreds of posters.

All are standout.

This is very interesting because it's Italian Art Deco.

Italian Art Deco in advertising combined a lot of different styles.

So you'll get elements of futurism, of cubism and also the Italians love to play with shadow and really deep, rich colors in their posters.

So you'll get a lot of that in this design.

This is one of my favorite posters in the collection.

It's by the Stenberg brothers.

It's for the film, the Last Flight.

Poster design in Russia at this time under Lennon was a hotbed of creativity.

These designers rarely saw imported films before creating the posters for them.

They would just get the title or maybe a film still very minimal information.

I also often have to tell people that this is not photo montage.

The ability to insert a large photograph into posters was not really available at this time.

Instead, what the Stenbergs would do is project a film still onto the wall of their studio, and then trace over that figure.

And also this style of art would be made completely illegal under Stalin.

And so it's a really short, beautiful, important period in poster history.

After that, we look at the mid century posters of Switzerland and the international type of graphic style.

These posters are amazing because you get an array of printing techniques, all in one poster.

After that, we focus on psychedelic posters, where we have nine amazing examples of the most important psychedelic poster artists from 1966 to 1978, an incredibly short explosive period in poster design.

All these posters advertise the main venues for psychedelic music at that time.

So the Fillmore, the Winterland, the Avalon, as well as a ton of bands that you will absolutely know like Big Brother and the Holding Company.

(upbeat music) After that, we focus on Paula Scher and her remarkable contributions to the Public Theater in what is now almost 30 years of advertising for one single institution.

She helped redefine how theatrical advertising was done in New York, making it as vibrant and explosive as the theater itself.

For the letter press process we focus on Amos, Paul Kennedy Jr. A favorite designer of mine.

He combines a layering technique that makes his posters completely unique.

He's a contemporary letter, press printer working in Detroit means he's making his living, making posters today, which is amazing.

Poster House is still collecting important posters made today.

We actively collect posters from all around the world from all major and minor ad agencies.

So please stop by and see them.

(soft music) - Discover more@posterhouse.org.

The vibrant colors of neon signs have electrified America for nearly 100 years.

The craft of creating a neon sign is called tube bending.

It's an art form well-known by Ken Heins of Reno.

Ken and his team have created countless signs across the region for decades.

We visited Ken's shop to learn all about the color of neon.

(soft music) - My art is hot glass electrodes and neon gas and fire is my paintbrush.

My name is Kenneth Hines and I am a neon tube bender.

I've been doing neon in the Reno area for 38 years.

I am the last full-time neon tube bender in Northern Nevada.

Neon tube bender is the craft that you take glass tube and you shape it to a specific pattern.

Then you put cold cathode electrodes on each end, pull a vacuum on it and backfill it with neon or argon gas.

The term neon is the red neon gas.

The majority of reds, pinks, oranges are neon gas mixed in with the other color phosphorous in the tubes.

Argon, is a blue, a little drop of mercury goes in and there's fluorescent phosphorous in the tubes.

And that's what makes the colors with the argon and a little drop of mercury vapor.

I have a fire that's adjustable up to 16 inches and I have a blow hose that I keep in my mouth at all times.

So when I make a tight bend, it collapses and then you just get a little puff of air and blow it back out to the original diameter.

Hot glass looks cold.

So you've got to be very careful with that hot glass because it burns down to the bone and getting cut with glass it really bleeds a lot because it makes such a clean cut.

We do deal with high voltage as well, pretty serious things, but you get used to it.

You're mindful of it all the time.

It's about a 10,000 hour process to really learn it, to really get it good, where you can do anything that comes in the shop.

When we go to create a neon sign, the first step is design.

(soft music) Somebody says, "hey, I'm interested in neon sign."

So what we do is we put them in contact with the designer, Dennis and Dennis is an old sign painter that started in the vinyl business when the computers came out and I went to him to make patterns for me years ago, and we've been good friends for the last 25 years.

- I will make a pattern for Ken in reverse.

He will bend all the tubes.

I will create a cabinet out of acrylic or whatever we were doing the cabinet from.

When the neon is completed, Ken and I will put everything together on the cabinet, and then we will wire in the transformers to complete the project.

Nowadays we've been actually including remotes for the neon so people can actually turn them on remotely without having to go up to the sign.

- We not only create new neon signs, we do restorations as well.

This sign right here, the dice there, they're a flag Mount, which means that they're hanging out over the sidewalk.

You can see it from both sides.

They were originally displayed on the Paradise Motel in Sparks, across from the plantation casino.

It got taken down.

So I stripped them and had them powder-coated and totally rebuilt all the neon new transformers, put it on that piece of expanded metal and hung it on the wall.

And it's been a quite the conversation piece for a couple of years now.

- I've been a graphic designer for about 40 years now.

And neon is my passion these days.

I love designing neon and seeing it come to fruition.

Working with neon is quite unique because it takes me to a place where I'm really happy with what I'm doing.

It's not like work.

I enjoy the creativity and the finished product and the satisfaction of creating these beautiful pieces that people have in their homes or in their businesses for years to come.

- I think people expect to see it, especially in downtown Reno or downtown Las Vegas.

It's just part of the overall awe.

- When you're driving down a highway or you're an old road and you see a bright neon sign in the distance, it's kind of alluring and it kind of attracts you.

Neon has been around for about a hundred years and Ken and I are working hard to keep that art form alive and well in Reno.

We just wanna keep it going.

- To learn more, visit colorofneonreno.com and that wraps it up for this edition of ARTEFFECTS.

For more arts and culture, and to watch past episodes visit PBS reno.org/artifacts.

Until next week I'm Beth McMillan.

Thanks for watching.

- Funding for arteffects is made possible by Sandy Raffelli with Bill Pearce MOTORS.

Meg and Dillard Myers.

The Nevada Arts Council.

HeideMarie Rochlin.

In memory of Sue McDowell and by the annual contributions of PBS Reno members.

(upbeat music)