1. Q&A

A Singapore Arts Festival 09 Commission

Forward Moves

6th - 7th June, 8pm

Esplanade Theatre studio

Q&A is a process-based research that explores the economics of performance - the social contract and politics of desire between artist and audience in a consumerist context.

The Performer begins by asking the audience: What would you like to see?

This question seeks to, on the outset, replace the assumption that the spectator should be a passive member in a performance; one whose role is to accept and go along with whatever the performer instigates. In its place, our movement research restructures the choreographic process and grant the spectator greater authority: the viewer will clarify why he is in the theatre and what he expects of the performer.

Surely it is the audience’s prerogative to demand? In our world governed by economic logic, the consumer’s desires are usually prioritized. Would the relationship between the artist and the audience come up differently if studied through the lenses of economics?

The evaluation of the power dynamics between artist and viewer(s), subject and object, is a key concern in my work. Usually, I undertake such evaluation via an pseudo-poetic approach by fashioning the performer-viewer context as one about love and desire. Yet it is timely to re-look this relationship on socio-economic terms.

The project hence commences its process with the audience, examining this key stakeholder of a performance firstly as individuals with varied socio-economic status, secondly attempts to decipher their different expectations for a contemporary dance production, before finally using that evaluation as a resource for creating dance material. The resultant product goes by the hypothesis that a ‘perfect’ dance work that tries to satisfy different (even if, contradictory) demands using economical strategies is possible.

By partly relinquishing the choreographer’s authority, this cart-before-horse method echoes democratic principles and tries to reassess the success of its functions.

The Premise of such a Performance:

The heart of the dance describes an encounter between a subject and the love-object. It remains indefinite (or inconsequential) who the subject or what the love-object essentially is. In the case of the dancer and the dance, the subject and the love-object are interchangeable. The audience should be also implicated and must be led to consider this ambiguity at some point. The performance is then a process of substitution, almost always about desire and the expression of it.

A dance journey  

“Keep going north,” he told himself, for want of a better

objective. And he would keep on photographing. Perhaps he might chance upon a revelation, a resolution. He might find out why he came after all.

Cataloging an overland journey across the snow-covered landscapes of Hokkaido with thousands of high-resolution still images, this dance work tries to overcome the limitations of a camera in capturing the breath and immensity of time and space. The resultant montage uncovers a dance that connects figure and ground, recalling a relationship between love lost and love found.

HOKKAIDO is the title for a 2-part performance project that I will be undertaking in 2009. The first part is a short dance-for-camera work that involves my collaboration with video artist, Charles Lim (Singapore). The second is a performance spectacle that integrates video, light and dance as a choreographic strategy.