Shidara drummers exhibit "power and raw energy," Megan Chao Smith says.

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For Megan Chao Smith, participating in the Japanese taiko group Shidara has been the ultimate workout experience.

"We train for about 11 hours every day and only take one day off a month," Smith said in a phone interview last week. "We start off running at 5:30 in the morning. Then we do 300 sit-ups and 300 push-ups, followed by hours of muscle training and practice. It's insane, but the way we are pushed every day beyond our mental and physical limits is what makes us great as a group."

Smith is the only American in the 16-member drum group that comes through the Berger Performing Arts Center Saturday and might just be the ensemble's most enthusiastic participant.

An avid piano player from age 9, her first experience with taiko was in her native Boston in her 20s.

"I was invited to see some taiko by a friend, but I had always had a very mainstream picture of the Japanese arts. Very formal and controlled. So I told her, 'No thanks,' " recalled Smith, 37. "When she finally talked me into it, I was amazed at the group's power and raw energy."

So started a musical journey for Smith that took her from practice taiko groups to a cross-country move to train with taiko master Tiffany Tamaribuchi in Sacramento, Calif., to Japan in 2003 to seek out the art form at the source.

Her search eventually landed her in Shidara, a small group of dedicated drummers located in the rural Japanese town of Toei, in a mountainous region known as Okumikawa.

"I had seen Shidara in the States in 2002, and their performance had tears streaming down my face because I had never seen such energy and talent," Smith said. "I never thought I would be able to make it into such a group. At first I thought maybe I could go practice with them for a couple of months. I went for three months to live with them and try it out, and I guess we sort of fell in love with each other."

It's no surprise that Shidara is swinging through the Old Pueblo on the group's first major tour in the United States. Tucson has had its own taiko group, Odaiko Sonora, since 2002.

The upcoming performance is co-sponsored by Odaiko, and founding member Karen Falkenstrom is serving as Shidara's tour manager after the group's stop in Tucson.

"Other world-class taiko groups offer incredible precision or stunning choreography, and are to be lauded for that," said Falkenstrom and fellow Odaiko co-founder Rome Hamner in an e-mail response last week. "Shidara, however, offers this same precision and mastery, and something more. Their songs invoke the sounds and power of the place. It is this deep connection with their natural environment, and the way they share that sense of place with their audiences in performance that sets them apart."

Smith says audience members should expect to see plenty of high-intensity activity at the show and experience the world through group members' eyes.

"It's as if the wind, the water and trees from our home will be present onstage," she said. "We want to transport people to our mountains and see things like our Hana Matsuri harvest festival devoted to the gods and the natural world. It is really going to rock."