KVT on Huhmmm…

Definitely not Ho-Huhmmm

Take a man born on a Sunday, Kwesi Johnson, who is a griographer (someone who tells tales through dance movement) and who is the artistic director of a British dance company that carries the Hebrew name of a messenger – Kompany Malakhi – and which specializes in transferring the movements of funk, hip hop, jazz dance, British urban body movement fusions into theatrical contemporary dance pieces that utilize the latest street sounds and technologically savvy stage sets and which are getting some rave critical reviews in the UK.

Take +84, a young Vietnamese contemporary dance group that takes its name from the international phone code and that has shown its innovative movement works internationally and has collaborated with some cutting edge choreographers and dancers and who work with a group of young movers and groovers in Thai Nguyen City to develop an urban, street-cred dance form.

Stir the pot and put the results into a 45-minute performance at the Dong Da mound overseen by the immense statue of Emporer Quang Trung ready to pound into the fray, and surrounded by the spirits of the thousands of Chinese warriors his forces dispatched and entombed under the mound of earth.

Start the performance with a one-man dance piece on the summit on that mound. A piece that perhaps evokes the spirits of the dead and seems to fuse movements that range from hip hop back through time to Hindu funeral petal scatterings.  Projected images of the dancer on three shrouds of mourning cloth illuminated the feel of spirits in the air.

Follow the performer … he a messenger? … who is bearing a folded white scroll down the winding stone steps, a path perhaps to the shades of the dead and lit by flaming torches. Line up along a wide stone pavement where, in the flickering light, four male dancers perform a piece that seemed to have its genesis in the Brazilian capoeira style often used by the Malakhi dancers. The dance was full of mock aggressiveness, feints sweeps, body throws, kicks and fluid aerobatic play. Bodies moved fluidly from the floor to stances to aerial movements. The battle ended with the dancers unrolling the long white shroud as a carpet and two protagonists and the messenger weaving and moving along it leaving a tattoo in blood red footprints.

We promenade, following the dancers to a stage, raised like a sacrificial platform above the heads of the audience. The messenger and the protagonists roll, throw, lift and gyrate until they look behind. And borne aloft by three great white balloons over the heads of the crowd, is the scroll carrying its bloody message – to the gods? to mankind? to the future?

Whatever the message and the reality of my interpretation, it was a really enjoyable and engrossing contemporary dance performance. The large, predominantly Vietnamese audience was as enthralled as I was and perhaps for them the symbolism of the venue gave an even more intense meaning to the performance.

This was part of the British Councils’ marvelous commitment to the fostering of collaborative, artistic learning and exhibition between cultures and this particular venture was innovatively effective and totally worthwhile.