BabyliftPerformance by Anh Vo at Montréal, arts interculturels November 2022
Anh Vo’s evening-length solo, BABYLIFT, attempts to conjure the ghosts of the Vietnam War (a.k.a. the Resistance War Against Imperialist America). Named after a 1975 mass evacuation of children from South Vietnam to Western countries—which resulted in a plane crash that killed 78 of those children— BABYLIFT is first a memorial to the unmourned and unremembered. Striving to queer linear masculinist history, Vo weaves together cultural memories of the US Civil Rights Movement, freedom fantasies of the 1960s, contemporary pop culture, and current leftist activism. Set to a disorienting soundscape, BABYLIFT juxtaposes repetitive ritualistic movements with sexually provocative gestures, speculating on the erotic of haunting that can be both terrifying and pleasurable.
I contributed the sound design, live scoring and sound mixing, and original music for the performance.