129 BMP - Động Phách Tách Kén

Ho Chi Minh City  Vietnam 

2024

DIRECTOR & CHOREOGRAPHY | Bùi Ngọc Quân

STAGE DESIGN | LIGHT | Mara Madeleine Pieler

MUSIC COMPOSER & PERFORMERS |Tiny Giant & Đan Dương

PERFORMERS | Nguyễn Duy Thành, Lâm Duy Phương (Kim), Sơn Lương, Nguyễn Ngọc (Mini Phantom), Chiêm Thị Thảo (Balienzz), Bùi Quang Huy (Snoop Gee), Nguyễn Đỗ Quốc Khanh (Nega)

DRAMATURGY |Lyon Nguyễn & Red

PHOTOS | Dương Gia Hiếu

Produced by: H2Q Dance Company

In collaboration with: Goethe Institut Vietnam Viện Goethe Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh

A NEW EXPERIMENT WITH HIP HOP ON STAGE

DURATION: ~70 minutes

11 dancers and musicians encounter on a time-abstracted stage, both raw & surreal. Within the friction between one and another dancer are their internal “battles”, discreetly releasing energetic footsteps, familiar yet estranged; tense yet cheerful, rebellious yet humorous. One moment they appear "cool", the next we see them embrace vulnerability. With each step, they move closer towards themselves. Taking street dance moves and Hip Hop battles as inspiration, dancing through the urban atmosphere, rhythmically traversing between layers of abstract sounds and glitter, the artists of “129 BPM: Động phách tách kén” insist that audiences join them on a journey into the unknown.

“129 BPM: Động phách tách kén” marks choreographer Bui Ngoc Quan's first (proper) independent project in Vietnam, after a long time accompanying the dance troupe Les Ballet C de la B (Belgium) and basking in the atmosphere of European theater. In this project, Bui Ngoc Quan had the opportunity to accompany Vietnamese street and sound artists, proposing a new experiment with Hip Hop on stage through cultivating situations that challenge the limits of the body and question human relationships.. As the artist once said: "My work is always inspired by the people I work with, from their personal stories, dreams and fantasies"!The project is also the beginning of a long journey of H2Q DANCE COMPANY that centers around our goal/vision: to build a community of artists with independent thinking, constantly proposing new questions and experimenting with different ways of making art.*”Động phách tách kén” / “The pulsing pupa detach”: “Động” in the sense of moving, changing, vibrating; “Phách” in the sense of mind and soul or rhythm unit; “Tách” in the sense of detaching; “Kén” in the sense of cocoon, casing, shelter. Audiences can either choose to bring these notations into the performance, or simply come with an open-mind and be ready to "tách kén" (“detaching the pupa (cocoon)") with the artists.