Choreographer Dam Van Huynh presents a new solo work, In Realness, an unflinching take on personal and global political issues that combines movement and voice in response to social inequalities.
Over the past fourteen years, Van Huynh Company have brought challenging and political works to the UK dance scene. Drawing upon Choreographer Dam Van Huynh’s personal history as a Vietnamese child refugee growing up in the West, In Realness, dives fearlessly into the choreographer’s experience with his queerness. The work was created as a place of resistance to these oppressions and as a fertile ground for solidarity, inviting audiences in, to raise our voices together. Collective activism as a form of collective care. The work will premiere at Rich Mix on 13th and 14th May.
Van Huynh says about the work, ‘as a child refugee growing up in the West, I was always ashamed of my Vietnamese heritage, feeling of displacement, queerness. Through the making of this solo, I wanted to raise my voice unapologetically and empower myself and others’.
The solo was developed through a making process Van Huynh calls ‘junkyard art’. This process involves a visceral collage of quotations, movement, sound-art, and performance-art drawn together to form new perspectives. In Realness, works with texts by Walt Whitman, Audre Lorde, Pussy Riot, Alok Vaid-Menin (ALOK), Henry David Thoreau. The work draws on Van Huynh’s signature highly physical movement style working with dance artist Tommaso Petrolo and Hong-Kong based composer Ian Tang. The work was made in November 2021 via zoom, emails and Whatsapp in an effort to combat the challenges presented by the pandemic by finding creative, alternative ways of engaging imaginatively in the making process. Van Huynh Company established a relentless approach which demonstrates resilience and drive regardless of the circumstances. About this, Huynh says, ‘You can’t really suppress art making – if it’s going to come out it’ll come out’.
This work is supported by Centre 151
Friday 13 & Saturday 14 May 2022, 19:30
Rich Mix
Tickets: £12/£10
Box office: 020 7613 7498
www.richmix.org.uk