Matthew Paluch, armed with earplugs, sees (and hears) Dam Van Huynh’s Exquisite Noise… and emerges unscathed.
When you enter a theatre and are handed earplugs, and words like ‘extreme’ and ‘severe’ are bandied about, one can understandably start to feel a little apprehensive.
As is often the case, the bark is worse than the bite, and I emerged unscathed after the one-hour-ish experience of Exquisite Noise by Dam Van Huynh.
I’m not sure there’s such a thing as an exquisite noise, but considering the work is looking at the broad subject of dissent, an oxymoron feels befitting.
Throughout the work I was thinking… sometimes along the lines of “waste of time” or “too easy”, and at others “this can be read quite seriously” and “yep, that works”. In the end, my opinions felt too different to be absolute, but I exited bemused rather than annoyed.
Dance is difficult to define, but I’d argue that 70 percent of the piece didn’t include dance language per se – people screamed in each other’s faces, ran nowhere, swung tyres, and limp bodies were manipulated and tossed around.
A lot of this was accompanied by strobe lighting that alternated colour, and exquisite noise that included a backing track that sounded like a motherboard being chewed up with live voices. The performers offered the odd recognisable word, but soon their rendition would become digitally manipulated or executed in a shrill, gibberish manner, so the possible power of the words didn’t get very far.
Forty minutes in, a large sheet of plastic was unfolded and wafted around by the cast. This was a ‘too easy’ moment until their movement created a large bubble that stayed in place unaided. Visually, it looked impressive – alive, scarcely moving, reflecting the different colours of pools of light.
In this kind of situation, a dialogue can take place. An engaged member of the audience can start to ruminate. Is Van Huynh trying to replicate a vacuum of sorts? An echo chamber? Who does it belong to? Does it signify resistance? And if so, on which side of the battle lines?
Equally, perhaps I was reading too much into the moment and trying to create depth where it didn’t necessarily exist. But one could argue that’s an example of art in motion, where cause and effect have a field day with no tangible boundaries in place.
The last 10 minutes of the work were the most successful – it’s what I would call the riot phase. Each dancer followed a set (-ish) pattern. They would sit and start to shake their fist and head vigorously. The movement would then propel backwards, but the individual wouldn’t necessarily give into the flow. At times, they’d flip over and reach forward with a sense of physical urgency and then disappear into the darkness only to reappear and repeat the process.
All of the above was being realised with exquisite noise and atmospheric lighting as a backdrop, and consequently took the mind somewhere. One saw an active body in peril, one of resistance and community, and all of this represents the power of dissent when used for a valuable cause.
One aspect that can’t be questioned is the conviction of the six dancers – this should absolutely be acknowledged and recognised. Is my life better for having seen Exquisite Noise? I’d say yes, as the piece got me thinking and will probably encourage a trip to Van Huynh’s next work to see where his story goes.