Acrobaticalists

NANDA: A Review

“Nothing touches a work of art so little as words of criticism: they always result in more or less fortunate misunderstandings. Things aren't all so tangible and sayable as people would usually have us believe; most experiences are unsayable, they happen in a space that no word has ever entered, and more unsayable than all other things are works of art, those mysterious existences, whose life endures beside our own small, transitory life.”
—Rainer Maria Rilke

Twisp, Saturday night, December 10. The 15-degree air snatches away breath and shutters doors. The sun is a distant memory. To attempt movement, much less “unbounded imagination and creative agility”, seems an absurdity.

But in the Community Center gymnasium the absurd is about to take form. The air hums with energy as in the front, on mats, a tousle of kids is instructed to stay there: What is about to happen could be dangerous. Keep your head down. Don’t stick out any limbs. NANDA is about to begin.

As the lights fade to black and a screen rolls with dramatic opening credits (NANDA presents a NANDA production starring NANDA…), I am once again 7 years old and the world is magic. The music builds, the curtains part, the stage explodes into action, and the next 3600 seconds are measured in pure joy. When it is all over and my entire torso aches, I realize I have scarcely stopped laughing the entire time.

What is NANDA? Trying to touch NANDA with words is truly to take the unsayable and try to pin it down. From an opening scene of kung-fu fighting to a medley of air guitar and swaying hips, from a daring heist involving invincible robots to a comic radio-surfing lunch break, from one impossible juggling feat to the next, NANDA defies. Expectations, conventions, stereotypes, propriety, and most of all the laws of gravity are utterly ignored. For 3600 seconds this “four-man acrobaticalist performing arts troupe” demands my attention and it is theirs.

According to their website (nandatown.com), “Nanda” is a colloquial Japanese expletive for “What!?!” This is an apt name for a group with enough testosterone to fuel an F16 and enough whimsy to make Bambi blush. In a time when so many role models—male and female alike—espouse a pseudo-Darwinian view of conquest through superior strength, NANDA turns this all on its head.

It’s not just that the winner of a ninja fight scene may be the guy who gets to put on the silver spandex. It’s that winning may involve everyone doing a musical number à la the Rockettes.

To say more would only be to go further down the path that Rilke cautions against. The show will live on far beyond these meager words. NANDA is what??!, and what!?? is NANDA. Don’t miss it.