Asia Dance Channel

Singapore Arts Festival
14 May – 13 June 2010
Singapore
By Visithra Manikam
Photography by Visithra Manikam and Liu Chen-Hsiang

The Singapore Festival 2010 entered its 33rd year with a fresh outlook to create connections between people and art through its new theme Between You and Me. The key changes to the festival will evolve it into a Creation and People’s festival.

“We want to develop a more intimate relationship with the people, audience and art makers alike. The performances have to be relevant to Asia yet contemporary in character. Our new direction and our outreach activities will not only enable people to bond with the festival but to see it as a source of inspiration and a means for self reflection and creative expressions,” said Low Kee Hong, General Manager, Singapore Arts Festival who has been forefront on the new changes.

A year long education and outreach programme entitled com.mune was introduced as part of its efforts to attract students beyond the curriculum requirement for arts participation. The newly introduced categories are re/visit/create.image/mix; Between Tradition and Contemporary; Open Studio, Solo Projects, dance/film, Platform Campus and After Dark. Various free events were also set to take place during the festival period besides the various collaborative performances.

One such collaboration was Wind Shadow created by Lin Hwai-min, choreographer of the renowned Cloud Gate Dance Company from Taiwan and Cai Guo-Qiang, an internationally renowned visual artist. Wind Shadow was a study of motion created through monochromatic palettes of black and white with the use of light and shadows to capture the intangible quality of the wind and the variable structure of shadows.

Dancers moved gracefully in near silent movements that were occasionally interjected by the sound of flags flapping on stage. Dancers in black interplayed into sections of the performance with their shadows following them and soon these shadows rise to take control of their humans.

The lighting and creative projections such as the oval screen, which created a stunning visual of ant-like dancers were just mind blowing. While technically the performers were nothing short of amazing, at times there were too many repetitive waving of flags or elements that didn’t make sense. One dancer with sunglasses would appear in between the interjections of flag and kite wielding dancers and shadow movers, with wings flapping from his back first in white and then in black. While he may have been meant to visualise the movement of the wind, he provided more of a confused comical relief during the performance.

On the Between Tradition and Contemporary platform we had Pichet Klunchun’s performance Nijinsky Siam. Thai dancer Pichet Klunchun reconstructs Vaslav Nijinsky (1890-1953), the dance maverick of the legendary Ballet Russes, Danse Siamoise, which was performed at the Paris Opera using archival photographs of Nijinsky. His performance made its world premiere at the Singapore Arts festival and is a co-production between the Singapore Arts Festival and Theater der Welt 2010. We were very intrigued with the idea of creating dance based on images. Pichet was joined on stage together with two other performers. Some of the images of his poses had been presented into traditional huge puppets “nang yai” or known as wayang kulit here in Malaysia. The puppetry was first paraded slowly on the stage to the original score of Danse Orientale by Composer Christian Sinding, which was first conducted by Stravinsky.

The dancers moved slowly to poses that replicated images of Nijinsky on the screen to silence for the first 40 minutes of the performance. During this set the dancers were clad in new age material and costumed in black, cut in the style of Thai dance costumes yet retaining a contemporary feel. They would stop in between each pose and remain as still as the photographs. The silence of the performance was nerve wrecking and added to the sombre mood of the slow performance. Perhaps they wanted to show that they didn’t know whether western or Asian music had been played during Nijinsky’s performance.

Pichet then emerged in traditional Thai costume that mimicked Nijinsky’s version of the costume and performed a faster and non-stop piece to traditional Thai music with the puppetry art set in the background to a kaleidoscope of colours.

What was evident though, the performance was still pre-mature although the dancer’s execution seemed flawless even in the silence. It would have been more suited to be presented as a work in progress rather than a full performance.

After those two performances I was left wondering if silence was the theme for the year and perhaps dancers were trying to show that dance can be performed without music? Whatever the reason, the lack of music seemed to have dampened the performance.

Another performance under the Between Tradition and Contemporary platform was
O Sounds which was presented by Singapore’s T.H.E Dance Company which was a new interpretation of their 2008 performance Old Sound. O Sounds combined modern dance with multimedia by drawing inspirations from things of old. There was brilliant use of light, shadows and multimedia. The music, which had an eastern touch with a pop vibe interlaced with what seemed like prayer chantings by Chinese monks deserves due mention. At one point the protagonist was reciting some Chinese phrase and we were left wondering what it meant though it added intrigue to the performance.

While the lithe dancers jumped and traversed the stage, their movements always seemed abrupt perhaps to signify the loss of traditions and never-ending environmental changes. There was, however, a continuous theme of suffering and depression.

What was lacking was the continuity between the pieces throughout the 70 minutes performance. Each performance seemed to have been choreographed as a unique piece on its own and not in line with a collective theme - every time they changed into a new set the style changed drastically.

Paper was cleverly infused as a prop in the dance during one of the segments though I’m unsure what it meant in the overall execution. At one point the multimedia projection shows falling people in parts and pieces which was quite intriguing.

In collaboration with the festival, Esplanade hosted a series of talks called ConversAsians with the visiting Asian artists. We managed to listen to acclaimed director, producer, curator and playwright Danny Yung who is one of the most influential artists and dynamic cultural figures in Hong Kong and Asia.

Yung has actively been metamorphosing changes into the Chinese Opera by developing fresh ideas and interpretations to develop and sustain traditional arts. This was to me the highlight of the festival as we got to hear brilliant speakers like Danny explain his thought process in developing a new performance.

For example he explained how he has injected some freshness into the music by telling the performers to slow down the melody and immerse themselves in one line. The risk he had taken to come out of the traditional mould of Chinese Opera worked magic into the singing as the slowed down singing allowed the singer to place more emphasis on the melody instantly creating a sweeter rendition of the art.

Danny explained how he had also taken an aspect of the Chinese Opera into a one-table and two-chair scenario and worked stories around it. Always fascinated with these three objects he says the table is neutral, it’s the placement of the chairs that sets the tone for the scene and adds character. Indeed food for thought. Danny had also been exploring ways to connect the stage with the audience where he says the gap seems to big. He turns to simple ideas with inspiring outcomes.

Danny also spoke on the HKICC Lee Shau Kee School of Creativity which he founded in Hong Kong to develop creative minds since 2006. Danny strongly believes our education system needs a change especially in this knowledge-based era where we’re surrounded by a sea of information. Our young need to be allowed to experiment and develop creative and critical thinking while learning to become a responsible world citizen. More information on the school can be found at http://www.creativehk.edu.hk/

Another highlight of our visit at the festival was the Silat performance we saw at the Malay Heritage Centre’s Zapin Trail. The Zapin trail takes visitors into a cultural discovery of the elements of Malay culture and the aspects connected to the traditional Malay dance Zapin which has Middle Eastern influence. While the whole trail was an eye opener, it was the Silat performers that charmed the audience with their dance like martial art movements to the sounds of the rebana and marwas. The practitioners moved with the gaiety of dancers in rhythm to the music and it left me imagining what a performance it would be if the Silat was choreographed into a dance. It has all the elements for a dance; all it needs is a creative mind to set it on stage.

Just as Danny had injected a much needed boost into Chinese Opera perhaps we need to spend more time exploring our traditional arts and showcasing them to the world in a contemporary sense.

On my way to the airport to return home, I asked my driver what he thought about the festival. He told me he couldn’t really relate to the festival. So I asked him what would he like to see? “We have so many traditional art, would be nice to see them interpreted on stage. I know they want to create new art but why don’t they infuse old into new?”

My thoughts exactly.