Asia Dance Channel

A Discovery with Hong Kong Renowned Choreography, Yuri Ng

14 November 2009

Dua Space Dance Theatre, Puchong

By Lim Yu Wei

Photographs: Courtesy of Dua Space Dance Theatre

It was a sizzling hot affair for Dua Space Dance Theatre (Dua Space) and the public. Dua Space organised a work-in-progress performance titled ‘Unknown Discovers Unknown’ choreographed by a Hong Kong’s talented and experienced choreographer, Yuri Ng. Eight dancers led the audience into a journey of discovery – they were Kent Tan, Howord Hew, Kenny Leow, Lim Hong Jie, Ester Wong, Jiun Chen, Lily Ho and Loke Lean Shun.

(Left, Anthony Meh, Right, Yuri Ng)

A Saturday afternoon traffic jam resulted in the performance starting 40 minutes late; however, the audience did not show emotional disquiet during the waiting. This was because Ng took the trouble to entertain and interact with the audience during this time. He invited some of the audience to help his dancers “pose” in ways that they think would represent “Adam” and “Eve”. Then, he asked the rest of the audience to identify the pose that identifies “Adam” and “Eve”. Although this was not the official performance, Ng already made a pre-achievement with this session. It was a clear sign that the audience’s imagination was stimulated as they create their own ideas of “Adam” and “Eve”. This exercise certainly paved the way for the audience to understand meanings and movement before the start of the journey of discovery. At the same time, it also sets the expectations for the performance to come.

The performance officially started when each dancer stepped forward to introduce themselves. In the beginning, the atmosphere of the whole theatre was tranquil. Each dancer sat on a chair in single file and moved about in quiet. When a watermelon was brought into stage, it firmly captured the attention of audience, as it did the dancers. The dancers toyed around with the watermelon and began to talk about the benefits of consuming watermelon. However, one of the dancers (Jiun) disagreed with another’s (Kent) opinion, and said that the durian is better. An argument erupted as they raised their voices rooting for their favourite fruit, which ended with a loud thumping on the table.

This signalled a scene change as all the dancers grouped themselves by gender sitting in at opposite rows facing each other. Ng played ‘God’. He dictated the roles these dancers have to play and the dancers have to ‘become’ the character using body expression. Some interesting characters were ‘created’ - Tunku Abdul Rahman, Jet Lee, Anita Mui, Yama, Ho Hsien-ku, Madonna, a pervert with hands, sailormoon, male doctor, female doctor, and many more. The audience definitely had a good laugh looking at these characters.

Another fruit made an entrance, this time, a smaller fruit, the kiwi. Each dancer took turns to play with the kiwi. The last dancer unexpectedly squashed the fruit with his bare hands and threw it on the floor, and smeared the fruit on the glass windows. The cleaning process was clearly incorporated into the dance as another dancer literally ‘cleaned up the scene’ with a glass detergent in one hand and a cloth in another.

The next scene was the climax of the whole performance, and proved to be quite a challenge for the dancers in terms of memory and spontaneous improvisation. The dancers sat on chairs arranged in a circle. Each dancer creates a movement, which must be approved by the dancer sitting on the left. The approving dancer must add more movements into the earlier approved movements and the accumulated movements must be approved by the dancer sitting on his/her left; and this goes on until a series of movements was created and until the last dancer has added his moves. Then each dancer made his/her exit, emptying the ‘circle’.

At the end of this performance, one by one the dancer gave a short conclusion of their performance.

The performance ended with rapturous applause. This was my first experience watching a work-in-progress performance, and needless to say, I was very impressed. There has no luxurious stage and prop fineries, but I still enjoyed this journey of discovery very much as the performance exceeded my expectations. I followed Ng and his dancers in a journey to discover, to seek, and to evolve the ‘unknown’. It is an experience that I look forward to again. Well done!