MUSIC REVIEW : A Manic San Jose Taiko Beats No Drum Slowly : At the Irvine Barclay, the 10-member New Age group entertains with exuberant, varied playing but fails as a cultural experience.

IRVINE —  On paper, the Japanese-drum-playing gang of 10 called San Jose Taiko perfectly fills the current multiethnic prescription for cultural funding.

Formed in 1973 by “Asian Americans searching for an artistic expression of their unique experiences,” San Jose Taiko calls on and reinterprets the sounds and symbolisms of a common ancestry with energy and flair. In doing so Saturday night at Irvine Barclay Theatre’s Cheng Hall, the group entertained a small but enthusiastic audience with varied, exuberant, soft-shell drumming, frenzied hip-hop choreography and an unabashed commitment to fun.

It fails as a cultural experience, however, one in which artistic integrity and personal expression withstands the demands of polished routine. The fact that the group has received funding from such varied organizations as the California Arts Council, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Western States Arts Federations must be very depressing news for starving string quartets.

Musically speaking, in fact, the best that could be said for San Jose Taiko is that it would form the perfect pit orchestra for the sacrifice scene in the next remake of “King Kong.”

Still, considering that arts funding is increasingly making obeisance to the New Age genre into which San Jose Taiko falls, it certainly deserves the rewards that such highly professional groups can be expected to reap. Group members banged the drums with manic glee and occasionally subtle intensity, and even included flute players who occasionally strolled onstage to set moods of pretty musical poetry.

The San Jose troops commanded by Roy Hirabayashi and P.J. Hirabayashi left no doubt that every number, whether it involved a solo drummer mesmerizing the audience with a simple hypnotic monody or a battery of drums warning of an impending Gotterdammerung, was obsessively choreographed with precision and detail. The black, white and purple martial arts uniforms in which San Jose Taiko was outfitted merely served to reinforce the impression of their performance’s being as much a cheerleading contest as an arts event.