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MONTREAL — In retrospect, the earplugs handed out to audience members arriving at last week’s dance premiere should have been a sign.

Not to mention the message from choreographer Dave St-Pierre distributed with the program declaring, “You have to vomit art. You have to f—ing VOMIT it!!!!!!”

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But after the performance of Suie (Soot) got underway at Montreal’s high-brow Place des Arts, many in the audience were dumbfounded as ear-splitting machine noise took the place of music, a dog barked at the dancers and a character with his hand stuck in a Pepsi machine repeated ad nauseam, “My hand is stuck in the vending machine.”

Critics present said many people walked out during Wednesday’s premiere and, last Friday, the promoter took the rare step of inviting subscribers to change their tickets for another show.

Citing the “numerous negative comments” it had received since opening night, the contemporary dance promoter Danse Danse warned ticket-holders in an email that they could be in for a surprise.

The message quoted from St-Pierre’s artistic statement about vomiting art: “Suie is my breaking point. Suie is your tinnitus. Suie is our implosion. Suie is an incomplete combustion,” he wrote.