Japanese and international cultural performance in Japan.

Some can, some genuinely cannot. Large drums need floor loading and a solid surface rather than a carpeted riser, several dance forms need a clean flat floor and no footwear, and a few pieces are tied to a setting and are not offered outside it. A garden or a temple site brings weather, noise and its own permissions. We survey the space with the troupe before the piece is confirmed, not after.

Expect both to be refused, and not over money. Many forms belong to a school or a lineage that sets what may be performed and in what shape, and sponsor branding on costume is outside that entirely. There is usually a workable answer — an excerpt the troupe already performs, a branded stage rather than a branded performer — but it is found by asking, and a buyer who promises the client a custom version first has made a problem for themselves.

Not without framing, and that is what turns cultural performance from decoration into the moment delegates remember. A short bilingual introduction, a line in the programme about what the form is and why it exists, and placement at a point in the evening where the room is actually watching will do more for the client than a longer piece. We write the framing as part of the booking.

Because their own calendar outranks ours. Many traditional performers carry obligations to their community, their school and the regional festival calendar, and around those dates the strongest groups are committed long before a corporate brief exists. New Year and the main festival seasons are the tightest. Ask early, or accept a different ensemble of genuine quality rather than the one the client read about.

The strongest argument for holding an event in Japan is that it could not have happened anywhere else, and cultural performance is the most direct way to put that on a stage. It is also the element most often reduced to a decorative five minutes. Explera treats it as programming: the right form, performed properly, at the point in the evening where it lands.

Two to four months for most ensembles. Longer around the festival calendar, when the best performers are already committed to their own communities.

Traditional performance carries obligations that a commercial booking does not. Some forms are tied to a school or a lineage, some cannot be performed in an arbitrary setting, and a request to compress or modify a piece may be refused for reasons that have nothing to do with money. We will tell you when that is the case rather than agreeing and disappointing the room.

A written quote per enquiry, covering the artist fee and the destination-side costs as one figure. We do not publish artist fees — they are set by the artist and their management, vary by date and market, and any published number would be wrong the day it shipped. Quotes go to the agent at net rates; delivery is white-label.