Curious crowds of onlookers joined to circle around beautifully costumed Chinese performers.  Their white makeup complemented their bright garments.  It could have easily been a picture perfect scene from one of their all too familiar exotic parades.  The swarms of people sadly took away most of the view.  Yet entertainment mostly arose by the laughs and warm smiles coming from the troupe’s faces.  And without much trouble, their growing audience followed their blaring percussive instruments into Damrosch Park, ending the “Lion Dance”.

International Body Music Festival Concert: The Americas last Thursday,  as a part of the Lincoln Center Out of Doors Summer series, fused traditional and contemporary forms of music using only the human instrument.  There was but one question on my mind all evening.  How?  How was it humanly possible that all of these distinct sounds  were coming out of the mouths of so few people on stage?  How could their timing be so nearly impeccable?  Well, after a time I stopped questioning and let the music consume me.  It was a different kind of music though, one with an infectious powerhouse beat.  You could say it was an a capella line-up of outrageous individuals, recreating the primitive music of our ancestors.

It was all too easy to forget that the festival encompassed individual talent merging into spectacular ensembles.  Each and every person lent their unique abilities to an evocative concert of cultural appreciation.  Vocalists Zoe Ellis and Destini Wolfe of the SLAMMIN All-Body Band were the roaring songbirds of the night.  Destini Wolfe’s R&B take on Nat King Cole’s “Nature Boy” unleashed her ravishing riffs and commanding belt.  Slammin’s beat boxer Steve Hogan acted as the band’s human drum set.  It was completely inspiring to watch music being created before me.

San Francisco’s own Derique Mcgee appeared in the festival, performing the traditional African-American Hambone.  He even sneaked in the moonwalk, and developed  the dance with his comical antics.  Cousins, Celina Kalluk and Lucie Idlout bewildered spectators within the first few minutes of the fest.  One made dark guttural noise while the other “sang” in a higher pitch.  They noted that mostly men “throat-sing”, and all the power to those daring ladies.

Remember that last infectious song you just couldn’t get out of your head for days?  You couldn’t help but instantly download it onto your iPod and keep it on repeat until your body rang with its addicting chorus?  That is what the Brazilian troupe, Barbatuques,  came across as in their NY debut.  Their time on stage was considerably longer than the other acts.  They incorporated clapping and stomping into their dance numbers and even chanted in Portuguese.  So they went in the right direction because a little change in language always livens things up.

My experience from that evening was more of a cultural awakening than anything else.  Music isn’t only what we listen to on the radio. Some music always needs to be performed live to be heard.