Ahead of their Macau performance, Anna Bisazza speaks with Jean-Sébastien Dallaire, of French-Canadian performing trio BAM! Percussion eXplosion.

Best defined as drumming, miming and grunting masters, this Canadian trio’s buffoonish show has enthralled audiences for over a decade thanks to its trans-cultural humor and universal language. Coming to Macau for the first time, BAM performs on top of the Monte Forte – Macau Museum – for free on Thursday 28; giving you an extra reason to not miss out on this unusual family show guaranteed to stamp a smile on your face.

What is it that you do?
I get that question a lot and I every time I think can do better. Let’s see… It’s all about imagination and fun. We’re a bunch of guys that get on stage and become characters. We play with drums but we don’t only drum, we transform the drums into objects for sketch comedy gigs. Is it clear? [Laughs] I’ve been doing this for ten years, and when someone asks me: “What do you do?” I say: “Go watch the video, because it’s hard to explain!”

How did you come up with the concept?
It was an accident. We wanted to play drums and be really serious, but it just went the total opposite way. I guess it was a mix of our personalities. We wanted to be like Tyco or Kodo drummers. We still do that, but we’ve added the clowning.

It looks exhausting. Is it as tiring as it seems?
Yeah, it’s a good workout, but we’re all pretty fit. We like to do a lot of sports outside of BAM, so we keep in shape. When we aren’t, we pay the price, because it’s harder on stage and our lungs hurt. We do yoga, kick-boxing and stuff like that. The best is when we tour, then we are in really good shape. Right now we’ve been playing a lot, pretty much every week, so it’s good.

What inspires your performances?
Lots! Every day I go on YouTube and look for different stuff. We obviously all love music, jazz, rock, and metal; and in percussion it’s the same: there’s Latin percussion, and African percussion, we try to mix it all up. And we love good shows. We tour a lot around the world and get to see some amazing performances. That’s our inspiration, every time we see a great show, our jaws drop to the ground, and we think: “Man, we’ve got some work to do!” [Laughs] No matter how good you get, there’s always someone who’s going to blow your mind.

How do you feel about the comparisons with Stomp?
Yeah, we get that a lot. There’s no way around it. Everyone has seen Stomp, it’s an amazing show. We started in 1999 and we first saw them in 2004, which we’re glad we did because it showed us all the stuff we have to stay away from, moves that have been done by them up to the point where we can’t beat it. We try and do our own thing; for sure we are a lot more theatrical and crazier than Stomp.

What’s the best part of being BAM?
The travelling is great. I’ve seen 28 countries. Also, having fun on stage and making people laugh. When you get off stage and people come to you and say: “Wow you made my night,” that’s a really good feeling. And also being creative, that’s my favourite part. Writing stuff and creating stuff that people will watch and go: “That’s amazing, how did you think of that?”

You’ve created this language, BAMspeech, that everyone understands, but what does it mean?
It’s blah blah basically. Sounds. When we first started we were just miming, but then we added sounds to make the show livelier.

So is this what you mean by trans-cultural humour?
Yeah! As soon as you don’t have actual speaking you can call your show universal. Having tested our show around the world, most of our stuff works, but it’s always a surprise, you never really know. It’s always interesting to go somewhere for the first time and try out the show.

How are audience’s reactions different?
So different! It’s crazy. The first time we came to Asia, we went to Japan. The Japanese are very nice but they are also very shy. We are used to getting people to scream and make a lot of noise, so when we got there it was really hard on us at first. They really liked it but they weren’t showing it at all during the performance. And then right after that, we went to South Korea where we were expecting the same kind of reaction, but it was crazy! The South Koreans are nuts, they are like the Spanish people of Asia: loud and insane…We’re not sure what to expect in Macau.

Your show is free in Macau, why’s that?
That’s the way it’s been programmed, it’s fine, we love playing outdoors. And apparently nobody has heard about us in Macau, so it’s good that we are playing outside so people can hopefully discover something new.

What plans does BAM have for the future?
We want to keep touring, for the last three years we’ve been getting more and more theatres and concert halls. That’s been our dream from the beginning, to have a cool hour and a half production. We also have TV projects in Canada, creative stuff like that.

How do you keep having fun?
When the audience is really good, we don’t even have to think about having fun, because we are having fun. They are like batteries that get us going. But when that’s not the case or we are a bit tired, then we have to use our imagination – like pretend you are playing in front of 15,000 naked people.

!BAM Percussion! Perform eXplosion at Monte Forte 8pm, Thursday 28. Free admission.