Served
Nine dancers, one abundant table, and the choreographer who made our fall launch party unforgettable
WRITER Melody Saradpon
PHOTOGRAPHER Brendan Mainini
VIDEOGRAPHER Paul Koncept Guintu
“I trust you! So much!” Dillon Nguyen is telling me this, laughing, explaining why he brought eight dancers to our Abundance launch without telling them the whole story. “I just said, I have a gig. Whoever wants to do it, let’s do it.”
He works with a core crew of dancers from COMMONALITY SJ, the San Jose dance collective he co-founded in 2017. Though he's on hiatus now, when he calls, they come.
That connection—between us, between him and his dancers—shaped the highlight performance of our Fall launch party.
I had asked him to dance and choreograph something around abundance. Our florist designed a stunning table, overflowing with fruit, Renaissance portraits, and candles. I sent him The Platform as inspiration, and requested something uncomfortable. He came back with The Menu. Two horror films where excess becomes entrapment.
His song choice, "FEEL THE BA$S" by Josh Levi, pulses through the piece like a mantra. When I call it avant-garde, he lights up: "That's the perfect word. I wanted something that felt enticing. Something pulls you in."
Then he makes another connection: "Like that movie with Jordan Peele..."
I know where he’s going. “Get Out?”
"YES! Get Out! BOOM! You're in the sunken zone... I just wanted to find something alluring and ominous with the heavy bass."
His concept was clear: dinner guests who don’t realize they’re becoming dinner, and succumbing to the hypnotizing pull of excess.
Watch Dillon work in a kitchen and you’ll understand his choreography.
“I’m a huge foodie,” he says. Tennis or Food Network or Chopped—that’s his TV diet. During his time as a cook at Panda Express (“I will advocate for Panda until I die!”), he discovered movement everywhere. “The way we learned how to do the dance of deep-frying, tossing the wok, cutting and prepping the vegetables, there’s always a tempo. Always a groove.”
He pauses, reflective. “If you pay attention, there’s a beat to life. There’s some rhythm or tempo we’re following.”
I ask if he’s ever tried dancing and cooking at the same time.
He sways, demonstrating. “I’m always dancing. Music on. Moving and grooving in the kitchen. It’s art.”
His piece explored abundance as horror. But for him personally, it means something else entirely.
“Abundance…more than you need. If I have something that’s an abundance for myself, I’m not going to keep it. I’m going to share it with others.”
This shaped his creative approach to our project. Nine dancers instead of one. Each got to choreograph their own section—their first public performance as a group this season. "If I'm going to open the door, I'm going to make sure people can follow behind me."
Find Dillon on Instagram @dielondielondielon
