By Brian Gray
The Ballad of Emotional Incompetence at the Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival is a dance production choreographed by Dat Nguyen. Rated FFF, meaning it is the fringiest of the fringe, it is certainly one of the reasons that Fringe Festivals exist: to push the envelope of experimentation and artistic expression. In a word, to get a little weird, which is the type of performing arts that I can really bite into.
The Ballad is, in a word, a study present by Nguyen. In his statement, he describes using “collage as a tool to explore the complexity and nuance of by bodily experiences.” The performance runs the gamut of dance styles, using modern dance techniques to open the show, moving to more avant-garde movements, and using pop dance techniques as well. A great deal of the show revolved around writhing movements, and focusing on movements of multiple dancers as one, interacting with each other. This draws attention to the body, as it writhes and shakes, representing, at times, an internal struggle through various scenarios in which the dancers are engaged. What struck me the most throughout the piece was how multiple ideas were playing out at once. For instance, near the beginning of the show, a cast member interviews an audience member while a dancer seems to painfully push around a piece of cloth on the floor, falling in a manner of exhaustion. The audience’s attention is immediately split. Do we focus on the enjoyment of the audience member and the interviewer who seem to be enjoying their chat? Or do we ask about the woman who seems tortured on the ground? In another moment, several dancers begin dancing using pop dance music to an 80s song while a dancer on the floor convulses. This adds a layer of depth to the performance, pulling the attention of the audience in multiple directions, pushing the viewer to make links and create their own stories of the collage.
The Ballad by Dat Nguyen is a challenging piece. It’s a piece that incorporates the audience and asks the audience, as critical observers, to participate in the piece through active interpretation and reinterpretation of the movement collage that Nguyen has composed. If you are seeking a piece that really defines what Fringe Festivals are about, then The Ballad of Emotional Incompetence is your production.
The Ballad of Emotional Incompetence by Dat Nguyen
Featuring: Megan Bertelsen, Natalie Gotter-Fulton, Wilson Paul Hicken, Nora Lang, Xochitl Marquez, Troy Martin, Dat Nguyen, Emma Sargent, and others (performers vary throughout the production).
Music/Soundscape by: Rene Aubry, Balanescu Quartet, knggaroovindaloo, Salvatore Sciarrino, Tim Kahn, Bonnie Tyler, klnkschap
Poem: Meli Penfold
Tech Crew: Rebecca Aneloski, Shane Davis, Katelyn Limber, and others.
Video: Nora Long
Motionvivid presents The Ballad of Emotional Incomopetence at the Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival
The Gateway, 110 S Rio Grande St, Salt Lake City, UT 84101
Festival admission $5, show tickets $10
Motion Vivid Facebook Page
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