Asia Dance Channel

Moves & Sorts

23 January 2010

The Actors Studio @ Lot 10

By Joey Teh Hui Fen

Moves & Sorts was organized by MyDance Alliance and The Actors Studio to encourage fresh and experimental dance works by local artists. It is also the first MyDance Alliance event in the FUSED series for the year 2010.

The first performance, Tribe, featured three dancers - Nanci Traynor, Shirl Leong and Nikki Law. Directed by Nanci Traynor and music by DJ French Chris, the dance was about a community of women who expresses their feminine power through the Tribal Style Belly Dance, a dance form born of the non-ruling class of nomadic tribes in North Africa, India and Central Asia. The three performers fully brought out the spirit of the dance. Their facial expressions exuded happiness and joy while their gorgeous body movement were soft and their curves eye-catching.

The second show is performed by Hii Ing Fung, Jasmine Lee Mei Ling, Lau Beh Chin, Lim Hooi Meng, Lim Siew Ling, Nancy Ng Pei Yu, Tan Shion Por, Teh Xiao Min and Yap Chee Yee. The name of dance was CITY.THOUGHTS. There were eight girls and a guy in the performance show. The dance was a silent one whereby the dancers use their facial expression to relay the message to the audience. There was also silent interaction between the dancers. At the beginning, eight of the dancers placed a handbag box on the body of one of the dancers. After that, all the dancers stood behind and looked at the person at the front of the stage. The message of the dance was “You look at me looking at me looking at you." An ensemble of dancers comes together under LAPAR lab to present choreographer Low Shee Hoe's improvisational exploration of the relationship between the city and me, myself and I.

CITY.THOUGHTS uses silence to amplify the interaction between the dancers. The male is the main dancer in the dance show. He leads the other eight female dancers to performance the show. In the beginning, eight of the female dancers place the handbag box made by white paper on the body of the male dancer. After that, all the dancers stood behind and looked at the male dancer standing in front of the stage. At this juncture, we see the literal description of the message in the program which said, “You look at me looking at me looking at you." But what do they see? And what are they thinking about? The answer is highly subjective as choreographer Low Shee Hoe explored the relationship between “the city and me, myself and I.” The improvisational self-exploration performance was presented by LAPAR Lab’s ensemble which comprises of Hii Ing Fung, Jasmine Lee Mei Ling, Lau Beh Chin, Lim Hooi Meng, Lim Siew Ling, Nancy Ng Pei Yu, Tan Shion Por, Teh Xiao Min and Yap Chee Yee.

The third performance was the 12 Girls Band, which was joyful and relaxing to watch. The creation was somewhat illusionistic tricking our eyes into believing that there was only one dancer on stage when there were four. The four dancers connected parts of their body in such a way that they manage to hide in plain sight. The show, performed by Yap Chee Yee, Lim cheng Choo, Lim Chee Wei and Hii Ing Fun garnered a lot of applause from the audience.

The final show of the evening, strings featured a collision of dance and drawing. The movements of the dancers were transformed into a series of lines drawn live by an artist. As the artists attempted to draw faster, the performers also danced faster and faster until it concluded in a climatic frenzy and ended with perfect calm. I could even hear the audience breathing when the performer finished her last turn. A unique performative process which changes every time it is performed, strings, performed by Australian visual artist Rochelle Haley and dancers of Rimbun Dahan and ASWARA, gave us insight into new ways to produce art and movement.

The evening ended with thunderous applause from the audience. It was the first of such theatre experience for me and I certainly enjoyed the show very much. For an entry fee of only RM10, the show was actually well beyond my expectations.