Some people enjoy vocal performances, others instrumental, and still others dance, but there are few venues where an audience can find all three.  The International Body Music Festival, presented on August 12th as part of Lincoln Center Out of Doors, is one of those places.  Directed by Keith Terry, the show featured talented artists from all over the Americas who used their bodies to mimic instruments, create beats, and entertain.  Although hampered by dragged out performances, the Festival exhibited a great deal of festive, compelling talent.

The Festival presented four performers and performing groups: a pair of Inuit throat singers (Celina Kalluk and Lucie Idlout), the SLAMMIN All-Body Band, a traditional African American Hambone performer (Derique McGee), and the Barbatuques, a well known group from Brazil.

Each performance was entertaining, and the caliber of the showcased talent was obvious. Destani Wolf, a vocalist in the SLAMMIN All-Body Band, was like a mix between Mariah Carey and Alicia Keys, displaying an astounding vocal range while imitating scratching records, a trumpet, and more.  Her band-mate Steve Hogan was impressive as a beat-boxer, using his voice in place of a drum set.

Solo artist Derique McGee added personality and humor to his performance of Hambone, a type of body music invented by slaves when their masters forbid traditional drums.  Not only was McGee outstanding at his craft, but he imbued his performance with charisma and quirk, aided by a wacky, miniature polka-dot tie.

The Barbatuques were impressive overall, but vocalist Marcelo Pretto was the standout.  He was introduced to the audience as a janitor walking across the back of the stage while the rest of the group performed.  This guise was quickly abandoned, and he transformed into a multi-octave, impassioned, growly-voiced rapper who quickly won the audience with his tenacity.  While Pretto is undoubtedly talented, at the point that he entered the performance, the audience was ready for a breath of fresh air.

The largest mistake of this production was the pacing.  As aforementioned, the performers were skilled and, for the first half hour at least, each set was enjoyable.  However, in an attempt to fill the two and a half hours allotted for nighttime shows, the performances were stretched beyond the limits of the audience’s attention span.

This became especially apparent during the Barbatuques’s segment, which closed the show.  Their repertoire of trills, birdcalls, and double-Dutch-esque beats could only be repeated so many times before it grew dull.  When eccentric audience members become more interesting than the main event, the show should not go on.

Despite its drawbacks, the International Body Music Festival served its main function: it presented an underrated style of artistic expression for the public to experience and, hopefully, enjoy.  Whether a mish-mash of New Yorkers and tourists fresh off the street were the right people to appreciate it is an important question.  But hey, it was free.  And as free shows go, this was not a bad choice.