S’pore Fringe Fest: Dance, dude, dance. Or else.

SINGAPORE — Joget, Abang, Joget (Dance, Brother, Dance) isn’t what it sounds like. It’s not joget with a wink and a smile but with a leer and a sneer. It’s not a friendly invitation but a fierce command. Heck, it’s not even a dance piece — unless you consider being thrown around and abused, erm, moving.

Physically brutal and morally confrontational, this dark piece from Noor Effendy Ibrahim and his merry gang called ponggurl echoes elements found in his other works: The domestic weirdness and cannibalism of Bilk Ahmad Berdaki, the gluttony and pulley structure of Si Ti Kay, the whole S&M thing at his “porn stars conference” at last year’s SeptFest, and the self-flagellation from a previous performance in the RITES performance art series (which is actually where it all started, a durational piece called Dancing With The Ghost Of My Child). And in Joget, Abang, Joget, all of this is combined into one, cohesive… biblical parable of sorts.

(ATTENTION: Seems like some readers aren’t happy that I never give any “Spoiler Alert” heads up for some recent posts but Effendy said during the post-show talk that what we saw last night will be different from the remaining shows… although I’m not sure *how* different though. Oh, what the hell.)

In the centre of the room, bathed in red light (courtesy of a rather gorgeous, but maybe a tad CNY-y, array of lamps hanging from the ceiling courtesy of lighting designer Anuar Mohd) is the piece’s Jesus figure — a loinclothed Yazid Jalil gasping and arching his back, seemingly both in ecstasy and pain.

Enter a couple, Elizabeth De Roza and Mish’aal Syed Nasar, and the Passion of Yazid begins. He’s carried around like a baby, gets assaulted, endures a blade running down his chest, hung like a piece of meat or a sacrifice.

More than the narrative, it’s the barrage of images and the sensations you feel throughout all this stays in the mind.

Elsewhere, you have a series of powerful snapshots — a baby tub filled with red liquid with De Roza washing her legs, the sound of leather on skin as Effendy whips himself, Mish’aal running the blade down his tongue while he’s wearing his S&M muzzle.

It’s not just a disturbing piece, it’s pretty exhausting, too, as the moods change in a flash: One moment the stage oozes lust, the next it glows with love — and then just pure violence and hatred.

There’s an interplay of weight and lightness here — the graceful, fragile figure of Yazid’s character against the lumbering forms of his bullying adversaries, the creaking of floorboards as the tormentors carry him counterpointed by such uplifting music from the amazing Angie Seah, one of the show’s two sound designers, the other being Mohamad Riduan who handled string improv duties.

The performance artist’s voice was the perfect ingredient to give this sinister production a nice little touch of the ethereal. Her powerful, throaty chanting, especially when coupled with the harmonium she played was eerie and hypnotic.

In Joget, Abang, Joget, you experience the sensuous in the spiritual, the sublime in the perverse. Or the other way around la.

Joget, Abang, Joget runs until Jan 11, 8pm, The Substation Theatre. Tickets at S$19 from Sistic. R18 (Mature Theme & Nudity). For more information on the festival, visit www.singaporefringe.com