Theater Review: Hot Brown Honey — The Remix Wants to Rock Your Boat

The audience quickly became as raucous as the stage at Hot Brown Honey — The Remix.

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Hot Brown Honey — The Remix

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When: Until October 8

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Where: York Theatre, Vancouver

Tickets and information: From $49 on elcultch.com

The Honeys are back: seven beautiful, loud, and proud indigenous women from the South Pacific looking to flip the script, shift the paradigm, and rock their ship.

Playing The Cultch in those distant days before COVID-19, Hot Brown Honey was one of the best shows of 2018. The Remix brings back key artists from that cast plus impressive newcomers in a dynamic blend of hip hop momentum, racial politics feminist, high powered acrobatics, comedy and dance.

Once again, co-writer, music director and MC Kim “Busty Beatz” Bowers stands high on the stage with her lights flashing, calling the action below and encouraging the audience to make some noise, not just concert cliche. familiar, but as a politician. take action, undoing the historical silencing that women of color have experienced.

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Audience engagement is essential to the show. Busty Beatz leads call-and-response chants like “When I say love, you say respect.” And we do, the audience quickly becoming as raucous as the stage.

Las raucuas de The Cultch Hot Brown Honey —The Remix runs through October 8 at the York Theater in Vancouver.  Photo: Alan Moyle.
Las raucuas de The Cultch Hot Brown Honey —The Remix runs through October 8 at the York Theater in Vancouver. Photo: Alan Moyle. Photo by Alan Moyle /jpg

Rhetoric works best when embedded in performances. All the women radiate a fierce presence, displaying muscular dance moves, unafraid to show off their bodies. Her politics is embedded in her strong, unapologetic femininity according to her motto: Decolonize and Hydrate. The remarkable transforming suits also make a statement. Co-writer and director Lisa Fa’alafi also receives partial choreography and costume design credit.

A centerpiece of the show features back-to-back contrasting hip hop dance routines. Dressed as men in a music video, the women exaggerate their sexy moves in the recording of Bell Biv DeVoe’s misogynist That Girl Is Poison, becoming increasingly ridiculous until they are literally swinging their fake male members like necklaces.

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They quickly transition into a chorus of women whose dance moves are even more lewd than the men’s, mimicking various sex acts, flashing cat-faced underwear, and hitting Trudeau and Trump masks with gigantic inflated breasts. Anything you can do, I can do better.

Another sketch features Alinta McGrady as a Rude mother, singing: “Your turn to listen, my turn to speak.” introduce Polynesian coconut women struggling to work and feed their children, dramatically embodying the oft-repeated slogan: “Revolution can’t happen without childcare.”

Three of the most spectacular individual performances are back from the 2018 production. Lilikoi Kaos returns with her jaw-dropping hula hoop act, beatboxer Matehaere Hope Haami once again does amazing things with a microphone, and Fa’alafi repeats his powerful dance demolishing the dark polynesian maiden stereotype.

Energetic newcomers Ghenoa Gela and Mayu Muto join the ensemble, with Muto adding an impressive aerial routine worthy of Cirque du Soleil on one rope.

This show is not for everyone. Minus the politics, it sometimes feels like a heavy metal concert, a high-tempo barrage of blaring noise and blinding lights.

But his timing is perfect. Coinciding with our National Truth and Reconciliation Day, it exposes us to another set of indigenous perspectives on the nature of truth and the necessary prerequisites for reconciliation. Entertainment with a serious bonus.

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