The challenges of bringing the Japanese drum style to an American audience are laboriously told, but the performance scenes are thrilling

This performance-driven documentary tracks the lengths to which organisers and players went in February 2020 to put together a show featuring mostly female taiko drummers from both Asia and the US. (Taiko are Japanese barrel-shaped drums that come in a range of sizes, from roughly bucket-sized to airplane-engine sized.) Taiko also refers to a whole style of performance that has grown up around ensembles playing together in overlapping or contrapuntal rhythm patterns, sometimes supplemented with singers, dancers and other traditional Japanese instruments. Professional taiko performers are traditionally men – who perform in relatively little clothing because it’s fierce, sweaty work but perhaps also so that viewers can admire the players’ muscular physiques. Like many traditional Japanese performance styles, women were excluded from it until recently and, inspired by touring companies of taiko drummers, it has taken off in the US, not just among Japanese expats but among wider Asian-American communities.

Enter Jennifer Weir, the CEO of TaikoArts Midwest, who is one of the film’s producers and a woman of Korean lineage who was adopted by Americans. Weir and her wife Megan Chao-Smith, who is also a drummer, conceive a plan to put on a showcase featuring some of the best female taiko players they can rustle up, including luminaries such as Chieko Kojima and Kaoly Asano from Japan as well as Sacramento-born Tiffany Tamaribuchi. The film basically tracks them through the ups and downs of bringing the company together, rehearsing despite language difficulties, finding a venue that can accommodate their numbers and putting on a show that acquires the name HERbeat.