FUSE#1

Produced by Dance Nucleus 2018
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Table of
Contents
1
Foreword
65
SCOPE # 1
5
Element # 1.1 - Foreign Languages
7 Notes on Abstract (Verb) Dramaturgy by Arco Renz
11 Freeride Mountainbiking & Rhythm Sections
by Hwa Wei-an
67 Reflections on “In Plain Site”
A Conversation Between Chong Gua Khee
& Bernice Lee
71 Voice and Movement in Instant Composition
by Joao Gouveia and Petra Vossenberg
31
19 Maps of Broken Bodies by Pat Toh
Element # 1.2 - Post-Colonial Tactics
77 Should I Kill Myself or Have a Cup of Coffee?:
A co-choreographer’s work-in-progress reflection
by Chiew Peishan
33 Wrestling with the Contemporary
by Mandeep Raikhy
37 Ghosting by Bernice Lee
89
About Dance Nucleus
43 Power of softness by Chloe C. Chotrani
55 Ruminations on Asianness & Dance
by Nirmala Seshadri

Foreword
Since taking over the running of Dance Nucleus, Ezekiel
Oliveira, Dapheny Chen and I have had to push through a host
of initiatives as swiftly as we know how. As there are many
things that we need to achieve, and not a great deal of time or
resources, we’ve admittedly had to be quite kiasu*: In every
initiative that we undertake, we have had to kill not just one or
two, but several proverbial birds with each stone!
Hence within six months, I’m pleased to announce
that we have revamped our website, refurbished
our studio, set up an online booking system,
established an association of members and
projects, formed partnerships locally and regionally,
conducted residencies, mentoring programmes,
presentations, workshops and discussions, with
many more to come.
There were several moments when I felt rather
proud of what’s already beginning to happen in
Dance Nucleus. I felt a sense of significance, and
the charged atmosphere, like something special is
happening for independent dance in Singapore;
when deep, meaningful things were said by our
guests and our members alike on different
occasions. I appreciate the amount of hard work
our artists have put into their residencies, and the
seriousness many have shown towards their work.
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All these moments reveal a desire among our artists to
better themselves, as well as a general sense of
self-confidence to hold important conversations about
dance by ourselves for ourselves… like perhaps an
‘independent dance scene’ in Singapore need not be an
ersatz notion after all.
To engage with the colleagues at our doorsteps
andincrease our exposure to the region, I have
conducted a series of work visits in Kuala Lumpur,
Yogyakarta and Surakarta (Solo) this March. We have by
now, a list of partners with whom we are setting up
specific collaborations and exchange. Most noteworthy
at present would be working with the Indonesian Dance
Festival (IDF) to support Ayu Permata Sari (Yogyakarta)
and Pat Toh with residencies at Dance Nucleus and
presentations at the IDF Showcase this November.
Additionally, Dance Nucleus is now a core group member
of the newly launched Asia Network for Dance (AND+).
You can expect to hear more about the exchange
residencies we will be conducting with different partners
in the coming months.
FUSE#1 is the inaugural issue of our magazine that documents the key
projects that Dance Nucleus supports every half a year. I hope you will find
something that inspires you in the following pages. The ‘nucleus’ is the
central and essential part from which things grow. We certainly aspire to play
that role for dance in Singapore and have FUSE be the evidence of that.
Daniel Kok
Independent Artist, diskodanny.com
Artistic Director, Dance Nucleus
*Kiasu = Singaporean slang; someone who is anxious to lose out on an opportunity
3 4

Foreign languages looks at ideas and influences from forms other
than how contemporary dance is conventionally defined. Taking the
positions of ‘other' forms and practices allows us to reflect or look back on
contemporary dance itself, to gain a critical perspective on the
‘contemporary’ and how this notion relates to a cultural context.
For ELEMENT #1.1, we studied the works and movement
practices of Brussels-based choreographer, Arco Renz. In
March 2018, Arco Renz was invited to engage
artists-in-residence, Hwa Wei-An and Pat Toh, as their mentor
for their current projects.
Element# 1.1
Foreign languages
Through this residency, Hwa Wei-An explored how the sport
of freeride mountain biking - in particular, an element of it
called a “rhythm section” - may be used to influence and
develop choreography that is dynamic, dangerous and
exciting. A rhythm section, being a particularly tricky section of
a course in which a rider cannot stop nor make a mistake,
having no room to correct or recover from such, imposes
many external demands on a freerider. Can these demands
be internalised, and imposed upon a dancer in some form or
another, in the safe space of a dance studio or stage?
In Broken Bones, Pat Toh looked at the regulation of time,
space and daily practices that we go through in our
day-to-day existence. And how this is embodied in the way
we move, gesture, walk, rest, and how we position ourselves
within a network of other bodies, architecture and objects.
Based on codes of order in society and its mechanic
reproduction, bodies of different age, shapes and abilities
loop a step-by-step sequence of a physical regime. A linear
series of gestures repeats itself cyclically, forming phases.
The cycle becomes a human operation of pure physical effort.
Under such metronomic conditions, would individual bodies
gradually surrender to sameness rather than differences?
As part of this ELEMENT programme, Arco Renz presented a
lecture-performance based on the trajectory of his artistic
research. He also conducted a 2-day masterclass, through
which he elucidated his artistic approach.
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Element# 1.1
Foreign languages
Notes On AbstracT
(verb) Dramaturgy
FRAGMENT 1 :
WHO AM I IN ANOTHER LANGUAGE ?
A FOREIGN LANGUAGE
WHOSE ALPHABET IS TIME, SPACE AND AWARENESS.
AWARENESS THAT OBSERVES BREATH CONNECTING INSIDE AND OUTSIDE,
AWARENESS THAT ENACTS RELATIONSHIPS THAT CHANGE AND TRANSFORM OPPOSITES:
TIME AND SPACE
BODY AND MIND
MICRO AND MACRO
INSIDE, OUTSIDE
OTHER, SELF…
ALL EMPTY NOTIONS AS WE NEGOTIATE A CHANGE, A PROCESS INTO THE FOREIGN
FRAGMENT 2 :
FOREIGN LANGUAGE in dance is the result of a
negotiation process between form and awareness of
this form through breath and its resonances.
Decoding a familiar sign to encode an unfamiliar,
foreign sign. For if the sign is foreign, we might connect
to its resonance, as we are not restricted in the same
way by our habitual associations and understanding.
And the unexpected is about to happen while the
anticipated may never come. Changing perspective,
breathing a choreographic tool.
by Arco Renz
FRAGMENT 3 :
Abstract [verb] Dramaturgy uses the elementary parameters of dance as
actors within confining structures.
The parameters time (as in music), space (as in spatial patterns, light or
set design) and awareness (as of movement and architectural frames,
as well as of breath and resonances).
The process starts from the awareness of breathing. Then the performer
physically negotiates her freedom within constricting frames of time,
space and movement-architecture. This negotiation process generates
conflicts, dialogues, tensions, transformations …
Abstract [verb] Dramaturgy uses such poles of opposites to physically
formulate questions, concepts, ideas: dual patterns in order to
experience. The negotiation process at the core of Abstract [verb]
Dramaturgy first decodes movement into a most elementary
expression: resonance, then it experiments how to encode this
resonance into movements of foreign language.
FRAGMENT 4 :
[verb]
to abstract is a verb depicting dynamic inter-being of
body-mind-movement-space-time-awareness. the performer abstracts
or empties ”habits of i" to allow this inter-being to unfold consciously.
Abstract [verb] Dramaturgy is a flux, an evolutive, uncertain process of
dialoguing in a foreign language...
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Element# 1.1
Foreign languages
About Arco Renz
Since the establishment of Kobalt Works in 2000,
Arco Renz has developed a distinct artistic
trajectory, creating performances as well as
developing transcultural and multidisciplinary
research and exchange projects. Renz’ body of
work evolves around the central concept of
Abstract Dramaturgy: a radical, structural and
choreographic confrontation of the individual and
the body with the parameters of time and space.
Postcards of Arco’s works
With Kobalt Works, Arco Renz has been engaged
in collaborative performance projects of very
different nature in Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam,
the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Laos, Taiwan
…
Arco Renz recently curated the performing arts
program of the EUROPALIA Indonesia Art Festival.
He studied dance, theatre and literature in Berlin
and Paris before joining the first generation of
P.A.R.T.S. in Brussels. He teaches dance and
choreography worldwide.
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Element# 1.1
Foreign languages
Freeride
Mountainbiking &
Rhythm Sections
by Hwa Wei-An
Watch this video (www.bit.ly/fuseone). Then this one
(www.bit.ly/fusetwo). These are from the winning run of
the 2017 Red Bull Rampage champion, Kurt Sorge.
Watching Rampage made me cringe and fret, grimace,
plain old freak out, and then finally explode in cheers of
amazement at what the athletes, these artists with their
mountain bikes, are capable of doing while riding down a
mountain. The danger levels are incredible, the precision
mind-blowing, the speed, amplitude and sense of gravity
overwhelming; and yet in the midst of this the riders
perform acrobatics that most of us never even dream of
trying into a foam pit or a pool of water.
Rampage is a competition that celebrates a movement
practice called freeride mountain biking (MTB for short). In
Rampage, freeriders descend a mountain in the Utah
desert, while being judged on a variety of criteria including
speed, style, choice of line (the course that they take) and
tricks that they perform on the descent.
Kurt Sorge, Red Bull Rampage 2017 Champion. © BARTEK WOLINSKI / RED BULL CONTENT POOL
https://www.redbull.tv/video/AP-1Q762BND92111/finals-whistler
Rampage is but one incarnation of the spirit of freeriding.
Others would include Red Bull Joyride
(www.bit.ly/fusethree), https://www.redbull.tv/film/AP-1M7V16DXW2111/the-art-of-flight
big wave surfing
(www.bit.ly/fusefour) and freeride snowboarding
(www.bit.ly/fusefive), events often being sponsored by
companies like Red Bull, Monster Energy, Quiksilver, GoPro
and many others. Despite the massive amounts of money
flowing in, these practices were created - and are still driven
by individuals who simply wanted to do more than what
being done in their respective fields. The individuals, not the
corporations, were the first ones to break the old rules and
established a state of mind that is perpetually pushing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDKVycVfouQ
It was evident from the first few minutes of Rampage, that the riders in the event
were stretching the boundaries of what was humanly possible.
When the terms “freeride” or “free” are prefixed to a
practice, it implies that a set practice has been liberated
from past constraints and recontextualised into a form of
personal self-expression combined with a desire to push
limits. It is the pursuit of freedom, of seeking the sensation
of liberation through a movement practice.
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Element# 1.1
Foreign languages
Freeride Mountainbiking
& Rhythm Sections by Hwa Wei-An
Rhythm Sections
In the midst of the insanity of Rampage, one thing stood-out:
rhythm sections. During many of the riders’ runs down the
mountain, the event’s commentators mentioned the term
“rhythm section”, explained briefly as a sequence of jumps or
obstacles, all of which the rider must traverse flawlessly or risk
ending his run. This is because stopping or making a mistake
during such a sequence would mean falling off the track, or
losing the momentum needed to continue. Even though I was
just watching the event for fun, here was a golden nugget to
sneak into my dancing.
(For examples of rhythm sections, watch this video
(www.bit.ly/fuseone) of Rampage 2017 at the following
marks: 25:15, 32:44 and 1:44:45.)
As I began the process of translating the idea of a rhythm
section into contemporary dance, I chose to begin the
exploration with three elements of a rhythm section:
One movement necessitating the next.
The inability to stop, or the necessity of movement with a continuous flow.
The need for the audience to know when a mistake happened.
It quickly became evident that in the space of a dance studio or
a formal stage - the platforms that I chose to use in this
translation of freeride MTB to dance - made it difficult to fulfill
the condition of ‘one movement necessitating the next’.
Lacking a landscape in which momentum and gravity force a
dancer in specific directions means that a movement could
lead to virtually any other, so long as the dancer’s technical
abilities are sufficient to provide the desired outcome. Figuring
out how to deal with this task left me scratching my head.
(To gain further perspective on how much the landscape at
Rampage shapes what a rider can do, watch this video
(www.bit.ly/fuseseven) of the Red Bull Rampage 2017
https://www.redbull.com/us-en/videos/red-bull-rampage-dii-course-preview
The second condition - the need for continuous movement -
was simpler. It meant working with circles and curves,
something familiar to my contemporary practice as well as the
practice of breakin’/b-boying, instead of working with straight
lines and sharp angles which do not lend themselves so well
to the seamless flow of movement. This idea could also
manifest itself in non-literal ways. Rather than having my
whole body being in continuous movement, this condition
could be represented by a hand, finger or some other body
part circling its way through the space surrounding my body,
and the space of the studio.
The third condition, that of making mistakes obvious to an audience, is one that is
highly counter-intuitive to any performer. Who would want their audience to know
that they failed? Performers - freeriders included - practice covering up such
incidents to present themselves in the best light possible. And like the first
condition, the landscape of a dance studio or stage does not cause the same
kinds of failures that a mountain presents. A mistake in Rampage or Joyride
generally ends a run, potentially quite painfully, like what happened in this video of
Nicholi Rogatkin (www.bit.ly/fuseeight).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUtCP7MW_lE
Sure, he completed his run, but what an
interruption in the middle!
So is it possible to create movement sequences that would make it impossible for
someone to recover from a mistake without an audience knowing? Certainly. How
far it could be taken, though, had to be curbed, out of the need to avoid injury.
Dancers tend not to have the large sponsors as action sports athletes do.
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Element# 1.1
Foreign languages
Freeride Mountainbiking
& Rhythm Sections by Hwa Wei-An
Mentoring at Dance Nucleus
Arco Renz is a choreographer who specialises in taking
movement vocabularies that are new to him, breaking them
down to find their component elements, and then putting things
back together in a way that uncovers new perspectives and
possibilities. I had the privilege of working with him as part of my
Dance Nucleus residency.
After just a brief introduction to my subject matter, Arco pointed
out that one dramatically useful aspect of practices like freeride
MTB is to create interest not in the activity itself, but in the people
who perform it and the stories that they have.
This was an observation perfectly in-line with my own
experiences, of graduating from watching competitions to
curiously trying to find out how the athletes lived and trained.
This then becomes a way of crafting a performer’s mindset rather than
movements, allowing for much greater specificity and thus liberation from
questioning and doubt when performing an improvised score. For example,
getting into the state or mind that Arco and I discovered instantly meant that my
movements were dictated by that state, much like how getting onto a mountain
bike means that movements are restricted to whatever you can do on said vehicle.
So, down the mountain and on to…?
I don’t know.
The Art of Falling
Another thing that Arco emphasised was to search for the most
basic state of the existence of an idea. In the case of freeride
MTB, Arco saw this to be a spinning wheel, the thing that
enabled progress down the mountain and all the other insane
feats that take place in a competition like Red Bull Rampage. The
discovery of this state allows a choreographer to find dramatic
elements within the simplest of ideas, or to put it another way, to
find a movement mode for an idea, on top of which many layers
can be built.
During the the showing that was held at the end of the residency, someone
pointed out that rhythm sections and freeride MTB are simply one of many
possible forms available to be translated into dance, and this was merely one
manifestation of my search for a choreographic voice and style and the
crystallisation of who I am as an artist.
This was reflected in a residency that occurred right after ELEMENT. At Rimbun
Dahan in Malaysia. Instead of continuing my research into rhythm sections as
originally intended, a new piece was created around my personal practice called
The Art of Falling.
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Element# 1.1
Foreign languages
Freeride Mountainbiking
& Rhythm Sections by Hwa Wei-An
Much like freeride MTB, The Art of Falling (TAoF for short)
deals a lot with the idea of gravity and how it affects us
physically. The practice also deals with learning how to
enter and exit the floor in a range of ways, from the simple
and functional to the complicated but dynamic.
Whatever the form or inspiration, though, there is no doubt
that I am attracted to practices that many would see as
dangerous, and possibly even foolish. Some would say
these are for “adrenaline junkies”, but practitioners are in
search of the “flow state”, also known as “being in the zone”
- the physiological state of optimum human performance.
https://www.amazon.com/Flow-Psychology-Experience-Perennial-Classics/dp/0061339202
(Check out the work of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
(www.bit.ly/fusenine) or Steven Kotler
(www.bit.ly/fuseten) for more information on this.)
https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Superman-Decoding-Ultimate-Performance/dp/1477800832/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
From the piece entitled The Art of Falling, performed at Dancebox in the
Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre on May 1, 2018.
Photo by Eddie Tan.
About Hwa WEI-AN
As dancers, sometimes there is talk of being fully immersed
or embodied in our performances. In today’s culture, there
is a huge emphasis on “mindfulness” and the practice of
taking the time and energy to pay attention to the Now
instead of worrying about the Future. Flow takes all of that
and channels it into an almost superhuman ability to
perform and push our own limits to go higher, bigger, faster,
deeper and more dangerously than before. It also allows us
to become more immersed in what we are doing, as time
slows down and previously peripheral details come into
focus, thus making what we do important to our audience
because it is important to us, even if only for that moment.
In the end, the ELEMENT residency at Dance Nucleus has found its place as
part of my search for what it means to tap into the flow state as a dancer and
performer, and as part of learning to live life more fully. And the search will
continue, in various shapes and forms, though these are yet to be found.
Hwa Wei-An is a Malaysian artist based between
Penang and Singapore. He started dancing
because, as he puts it, “I’m fidgety.” And also
because he wanted to be cool, which led him to
breaking and hip-hop, and to dabble in tricking
and parkour, even while studying in the Nanyang
Academy of Fine Arts and later working in Frontier
Danceland as a full-time contemporary dancer.
Now, he seeks to bring all he has learnt to bear into
a coherent whole in his contemporary practice. In
2018, Wei-An has been commissioned by M1
Contact Contemporary Dance Festival in the Asian
Festivals Exchange platform. He will be
collaborating with Ho-yeon Kim and Jung-ha Lim,
and creating a work-in-progress in Singapore and
Seoul over 2018. He also organises Paradigm
Shift, a dance battle program that brings hip-hop
and contemporary dancers together for artistic
exchange.
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Element# 1.1
Foreign languages
MAPS OF BROKEN
bodies
by Pat Toh
My current research is based on a performance
work, A Map of Scars, Bruises and Broken Bones,
which I created as part of the Discipline exhibition at
Substation in 2017.
Map : A spatial representation of reality
Spatial :
Representation :
Reality :
Consisting of at least two dimensions and usually
referring to geographic space
Something that stands for something else
The totality of all things possessing actuality, existence,
or essence
Body : A concrete, material, animate organisation of flesh,
organs, nerves, muscles, and skeletal structure. A body is
defined, delimited, and articulated by what writes it, it
is the surface and raw material of an integrated
organisation of physical and social inscription. The body
is organically/biologically/naturally “incomplete”; it is
indeterminate, amorphous. A series of uncoordinated
potentialities which require social triggering, ordering, and
long-term “administration,” regulated in each culture and
epoch by what Foucault has called “the
micro-technologies of power.” The body, a human body,
a body which coincides with the “shape” and space of a
psyche, a body whose epidermal surface bounds a
psychical unity, a body which thereby defines the limits of
experience and subjectivity,in rule-governed social order.
(Bodies-Cities, Grosz)
I was working with the idea of mapping as an
external spatial and visual exercise. Performers of
different ages and sizes go through a cycle of placing
themselves in the space, lining themselves up
against each other before performing a collective and
individual repetitive action and sound.
Based on codes of formalised movement language
such as a sport or a dance form and its mechanic
reproduction, a step-by-step sequence of a physical
regime loops into a series of gestures forming phases
that repeat themselves cyclically. The movement was
composed from daily postures set in linear patterns
and collective repetitive actions to comment on the
discipline and control of bodies operating in a fixed
regime of space and time.
For the residency at Dance Nucleus, my research
was about designing a movement practice and
developing means of embodying the idea of
mapping.
I wanted to put the focus on the performer and started to look at creating
a process that will bringing the ideas into physical experience. In the
mentorship program with Arco Renz, I connected with his use of breath
as an expressive medium, a physical pump which can connect between
forms. I began to engage with my breath and use it as a mode to
measure the internal sense of my body. That brought the inquiry into the
body and the research gradually evolved from external languages to
internal ones.
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Element# 1.1
Foreign languages
Maps of broken bodies
by Pat Toh
I was interested to measure and represent the body as
a kinetic energetic terrain. How do I measure and
transmit internal sensations? I experimented with
measuring its sense of depth and intensity the body
through modes of measurement using joints, breath
and muscles. I looked into the body as phenomenon
as I go through a process of sensing and representing
internal spaces by going through a process of
breathing, tensing and jerking.
MOVEMENT SCORE
Basic shape:
Walk along a diagonal line across the space
Sit, squat, stand, lie down along the line
Test the length and reach of head, legs and arms
I devised the movement score as a frame.
(next page)
Pat Toh’s research reference.
Breath:
Breathe in and out through the nose
Where in the body do you send the breath to?
Work into the extremities of volume, physical
expansion and compression
Increase the speed of breath
Muscle:
Tensing-density
Tracing paths like marking coordinate of a map
Isolated muscles contraction
Nerves:
Twitch
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Element# 1.1
Foreign languages
Maps of broken Bodies
by Pat Toh
Notes from the mentoring session
Inspired by Arco Renz’s abstract approach to dramaturgy, I
did not design shapes or gestures that I feel will represent the
concept of the work.
I focused on tactility and corporeal senses as the means to
measure and test the body’s limit. I used the sensations of
numbness, tightness and soreness at different points of my
body as markers of borders and boundaries. This became
about me experiencing my body and negotiating the process
within the structure. I presented the movement score at two
different moments of studio presentation, during which
someone commented that they felt the intensity of the
performance and was physically affected by it. Most felt their
breathing changed and appreciated seeing the body in danger
of hyper ventilating. Some even became concerned for my
safety and questioned the intention of the mapping. I was
intrigued by their responses, which demonstrated that the
physicality of the performer was able to stir emotions and
trigger physiological effects.
In the further development of my movement practice into a
creative work, I see myself as performer-cartographer charting
a kinesthetics terrain. I will continue to explore the
embodiment of measurements as a means to performance
making. By taking a corporeal approach to performance, this
project expands the lens through which to view, discuss and
make performance. As a performance maker, I would like the
audience to view the body as a living event, a monument of
breath, muscularity and energy.
Session 1:
Transplanting previous score into a new space.
Placing oneself against architecture, placement
against space and the other bodies in it.
How are we making the decision to move?
What shape to take on when we stop?
Context and layout of space offers different attention
to the body
Reflection:
It has been a while since the group met up, and we
were busier negotiating the gallery space that was
already occupied by an exhibition than with what is
happening in the body. In the studio’s empty and
open space, a sharper focus is put onto the bodies.
Questions emerged in relation to shape and the types
of gesture to make. Are abstract designs enough to
convey any form of content and meaning?
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Element# 1.1
Foreign languages
Maps of broken Bodies
by Pat Toh
Session 2:
HIIT workout video
I wanted to see the body over duration of physical exertion. But what is it after
the tiredness? What is the point of focus?
Sets of 100s in eyes, shoulder, arms, bouncing and vocalization of Shh.
Is there a need for clarity in the form? What does virtuosity in form serve?
Τhe development and repetition of a gesture from a body skill. Where does it
start? The process of exploration is not clear here. Is it from a physical
sensation, a mental image?
Reflection:
I added a specific area where the
performers are visible even offstage
sitting and resting. That gaze of
fellow worker added an objective
viewpoint to how I view what is
happening on stage. Yet how do I
build tension in viewing for actions
that are repetitive and predictable? I
may be feeling the sensations of
breath and sweat in my own body,
but how do I engage with audience
into what I am doing?
Session 3:
Discussion on measurements, measuring against the environment,
other bodies and within itself.
Aside from scientific gadgets how to measure movement through
physical means, external and internal ones?
Embodying the mapping -embodied measurements.
Measuring external shapes to the internal kinetic system.
Measurement as a form of control.
Reflection:
Pat Toh’s notes from mentoring sessions
with Arco Renz.
Aside from the placement of bodies in space, today’s session was to
look into the idea of mapping in the body and to create from the body.
It was a big step forward for me to move the idea into the spatial
context of the body. But some of the movements are so internal that
it is not visible spatially, what do I need to do to draw focus to the
micro movements?
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Element# 1.1
Foreign languages
Maps of broken bodies
by Pat Toh
Session 4:
Where in the space do I place myself?
Is there a frontality towards audience?
Trying out the pumping of body parts. How does it start? The body tenses to
generate speed into twitch. Where else can it go? How does it get there? What is
going on in the other parts of the body from that isolated trigger?
Finding a pattern to the twitch. How to develop?
8 points of the body
How to work from systematic synchronicity into chaos?
Implosion versus explosion
How to not lose the performer? Am I conscious of external space when I am moving
intensely inside? How do I communicate what I am sensing inside?
In what ways does the soundscape of text serve how the viewers read the body?
Playing with the rhythm of the text
Movement should not illustrate the text
Dramaturgy of clothes/costumes
Structure-A B A, what do I want to convey?
Floor pattern-Walking along a diagonal line across the stage
Reflection:
In the previous session I looked at the idea of charting in the
body, today’s session was about the readability of what I am
composing in/through space and how simple device such
as floor pattern could communicate meaning. I started to
consider the idea of scoring specific poses in relation to the
text and pattern sequence to the twitching. I had to think
about making dramaturgical choices when composing
patterns.
Session 5:
Formulating a rough score from the basic postures into the
twitching.
Stringing sections together, walking along the line, poses along
the line, muscle tension and 8 points twitch, twitch from
standing poses going to the floor, back up to standing and
walking along the line.
Transitions, how sections fuse into or away from the part
before?
How can I move the mapping language through shapes and
postures on different levels and planes?
Reflection:
Today was the last session and it was devoted to creating a
draft movement score. In running through the score, many
questions were raised in how I move from chapter to chapter.
As I am working from physical sensations to bring me into the
next section, how do I manage the objective and my subjective
sense of time, duration and energy. How do I approach the
repetition of walking in chapter 1? The development of the
practice into a piece of work was discussed. What is the piece
about? How do I go about framing the embodiment of
measures? What constitutes a piece of work?
27 28

Element# 1.1
Foreign languages
Maps of broken Bodies
by Pat Toh
Further exploration
MOVEMENT:
Working from breath, tension and twitch all at the same time. Where does
one information start and another begin? How to manoeuvre into and
within a knot of information?
Looking at the micro movements in the form of thoughts and actions when
at the edge of consciousness.
AbouT PAT TOH
FORM AND SHAPE
Try measuring within formalised language and codes of movement such as
a sport, a dance form or a skill.
THEMES:
What can you say with a solo body? What can I say with a group of bodies?
How does each part inform to the greater idea of power and control?
PERFORMER AND AUDIENCE RELATIONSHIP:
Where is the performer’s attention, how does that direct or shape her gaze?
What about performing with an inward gaze?
What does the presence of viewers mean to the act of mapping?
Pat Toh is a performer and performance maker. A
Shell-NAC Arts Scholarship recipient, she trained at
National Institute of Dramatic Arts (Australia) and
graduated with a Bachelor of Dramatic Arts (Acting). Her
artistic interest lies in working on, with and about the
tactile body. She looks to the everyday and walks as a
practice of inquiry into human movement, physically and
socially. Pat is concerned with the corporeal sensibilities
of the contemporary body and seeks to develop a
choreographic practice that sensitises one to physical
lived experiences. Following her Dance Nucleus
residency, she will be presenting her work at the
Indonesian Dance Festival Showcase in November
2019.
www.pattoh.com
29 30

Element# 1.2
Post-colonial
tactics
It is worth making a comparison between the Indian and Singaporean contexts.
Dance in post-independence Singapore has often staked its identity in
multiculturalism and a notion of “Asianness”. The latter is ostensibly a nebulous and
problematic term that raises more questions than answers them. On the one hand,
ownership of one’s traditions is a credible response to reclaim a society’s identity in
post-colonial times, not least in advanced urban societies where cultural memories
tend to be short. On the other hand, romantic nostalgia for the past and
self-exoticisation can be construed as counter-intuitive, whereby instead of
reclaiming one’s place in the world, one remains trapped in a (self-)designated
position of the Other.
Modern and contemporary dance in India have often been
obliged to grapple with India’s history with colonialism. In
post-colonial times, India has seen a revival of its numerous
classical and traditional forms, alongside rich investigations
into contemporary practices that question notions of Indian
identity today. Notable Indian choreographers have found
choreographic strategies to navigate identifications with
the past and the present, form and content, traditions and
speculations about the future.
The Singaporean government has announced the
intention to celebrate the nation’s history by
commemorating the bicentennial of the founding of
Singapore by the British for 2019. How should
Singaporeans ‘celebrate’ these last 200 years? What
kinds of conversations do we want to have about it?
For ELEMENT Season #1, we invite Indian choreographer and dance provocateur,
Mandeep Raikhy to dialogue with the Singaporean dance community under the
theme of “Post-Colonial Tactics". Raikhy will engage with local artists, Bernice Lee
and Chloe Chotrani in a residency, through which they will unearth particular
responses to questions on post-colonialism in the local context. Their encounters
will also be publicly shared in a symposium, where the Singaporean dance
community can also learn about developments in contemporary dance in India.
31 32

Element# 1.2
Post-Colonial Tactics
Wrestling with the
contemporary
Notes from Mandeep Raikhy
What is ‘contemporary’ in dance if it is not in reference to a form(s) developed in
the West? Can the ‘contemporary’ be experienced as a process? Could it indeed
be a lens through which we are able to look at the body in relation to the world we
live in? Can this lens of criticality allow us to ask questions about the body, the way
we live, dance, perform, assert, articulate and act? Could these questions allow us
as individuals/ collectives to resist, disagree and respond to our socio-political
environment? Through these questions, can we as artists challenge our own forms
of articulation? Can dance become a means of critical engagement?
The use of the term ‘contemporary’ in the context of dance in
India comes with its own tensions and forces. At first, it carries
with itself a kind of a homogenizing effect. It has mostly been
taken for granted that everything ‘contemporary’ in dance must
correspond somehow to dance developed and practiced in
Europe and the USA. The form and aesthetic stemming from a
highly developed discourse and economy in the western
hemisphere begins to wash out any specificity that dance in other
parts of the world may aspire to nurture.
Through the work of Gati Dance Forum in initiating an artists-led ecology for
performance in India in areas as diverse as creation, advocacy, performance
infrastructure, pedagogy and research, we have often arrived at these questions.
Through my own creative practice, I continue to complicate these questions for
myself.
Dance in India, on the other hand, is embroiled
in a national identity project since the beginning
of its independence movement in the late 19th
century. Dance, more than any other discipline,
carries the burden of 4000 years of India’s
cultural history. Under the guardianship of the
state, this burden isn’t an easy one to shirk.
Dance practitioners in India particularly struggle
with binaries such as ‘contemporary’ and
‘traditional’, where one is necessarily always
pitted against the other and where the former
invariably poses a threat to the great national
identity project. Now with a right wing
government in power, these tensions and forces
make dance particularly potent in these times.
Ignite Festival of Contemporary Dance. Images from Mandeep Raikhy
33 34

Element# 1.2
Post-Colonial
Tactics
Wrestling with the
contemporary
Notes from Mandeep Raikhy
In 2015, the year that saw scores of writers and artists return their awards in protest against an increasingly intolerant right-wing
government, I realized that our dance field was fairly unresponsive to it all. Around this time, I also came across Nishit Saran’s article
‘Why my bedroom habits are your business?’ again. Written in year 2000, this article asks some sharp questions against section 377
of the Indian Penal code that criminalises homosexuality in India. Just like that, I realized that it was time indeed for me to ask some
questions of my own. Questions that could enable me to assert my identity as a queer dance-maker at a time of severe cultural
censorship. How can we respond to our socio-political context through the dance that we make? How can the body, in its articulation
of desire, choice and intimacy, make an argument against an archaic law that enters the bedroom and bans consensual love between
two adults? How can a bed become the site for a performance? How can a private space be turned public in protest? How can
intimacy be deconstructed for an audience?
In response to the prevelant environment of intolerance, triggered by
hatred-driven communal politics in the country since the BJP
government came into power in 2014, Long Nights of resistance
was a project that examined the idea of dissent in the body by
examining and upturning codes that constitute the religious and the
nationalist body. What is the physicality of deference? Where are
resistance and deference located in this body? How could we find
resistance in our experience of prayer, endurance and patriotism?
What is vulnerable and human about the act of praying? What is a
nationalist body? How do we perform patriotism? Where do we
locate the regimentation of the body in the attention position of the
national anthem? How does one protest this normalisation? How
does make departures that are anatomical, rhythmic, or simply
irreverent? And finally, what is the power of the collective, as one
negotiates one’s own weight in order to enable collective weight
shifts. How does the collective resist and express dissent? How
does it fold unto itself to form boundaries and protect? How does it
bring you into the fold and then cut you loose? What is the role of the
individual within the collective, of the citizen within the nation?
Is it possible that resistance somehow lies at the heart of all
contemporary practice?
- Mandeep Raikhy
AbouT Mandeep Raikhy
Mandeep Raikhy is a dancer and choreographer based
out of New Delhi. He pursued his BA (Hons) in Dance
Theatre at Laban, London, and worked with Shobana
Jeyasingh Dance Company for several years. He has
created 3 full-length works, Inhabited Geometry (2010)
and a male ant has straight antennae (2013) and
Queen-size (2016) and divides his time between creating
and touring his artistic work and contributing to the field
as a dance administrator. Mandeep is the managing
director of Gati Dance Forum and artistic director of
Ignite Dance Festival.
Queen Size (2016), Image from Mandeep Raikhy
35 36

Element# 1.2
Post-Colonial Tactics
Ghosting
by Bernice Lee
This document is put together with the knowledge that a large portion of what human
beings know in the 21st Century is on the internet, but that wisdom is far less common,
perhaps even outdated. This is a concerted response to the title “Postcolonial Tactics”,
from a choreographic and performative point of view — through an attempt to be both
subject and object at the same time, both coloniser and colonised at the same time.
As a person who might have some Genghis genetic material, it might literally be written
into my body.
“Ghosting”
What does the word evoke for you?
What images come to mind?
Create a task, an activity, that you think of as “ghosting”.
You would be exactly right.
Some ideas:
1) Become a pile of gooey ectoplasm on the floor
2) Laugh really hard until you forget yourself
3) Explode into 1000 pieces and then reappear
somewhere else
4) Build a relationship and suddenly break it
5)
6)
7)
Ghosting might be a way of travelling through life. As an
artistic practice, it is the emancipating and exhausting
effort of being fully present and attentive to the invisible
things happening outside your skin and inside your skin.
Ghosting is to make the invisible visible. We can talk
about the gaze, the poetics of space, leaving traces, the
gap between immanence and transcendence, the politics
of invisibility and silence. Or we choose silence, observe
it. We might be more powerful this way. Unless Audre
Lorde is right?
We can move through multiple positions and points in space. At no given moment
is my body an entity simply dealing with time, space and energy — those are
“neutral” elements for choreography and improvisation.
What happens to history, memory, and place? What
happens to daily micro-events, emotional journeys,
human relationships? What happens to ideas thrown
away for not fitting in? What about the worlds that live
inside bodies, both human and non-human?
What are the consequences of ghosting, while also working choreographically?
A single woman ghost appears and sees you. Her gaze
makes the space palpably thick with meaning. Her eyes
disappear into her body, throws her off balance. In this
haunting, she attempts to exorcise all her memories,
including those of her ancestors. She slices the room in
half. She penetrates your space.
37 38

Element# 1.2
Post-Colonial Tactics
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lbv7xMEhQ6iaq_eaR9MTV0NcLO6h3QEj/view
This is a recording of a spontaneous performance at Make It Share It Open Stage,
spontaneously recorded by my friend Shahrin Johry. Shared with permission.
A loose score: eyes, skinholes , abhinaya, opening and closing doors, the afterlife,
death and mourning. Remembering dances. Crying and recovery.
Sometimes my body paints its shadows on landforms, like this video
(www.bit.ly/fuseeleven) of Mount Arapiles, and this video
(www.bit.ly/fusetwelve) of a Pink Lake (Western Victoria, Australia).
Medium: Unseen Body and iPhone Camera.
Ghosting by Bernice Lee
Directives developed for “Ghosting”, an approach to performance.
“Ghosting” is a performance approach that allows for any kinds of movement
histories and movement forms to reveal itself through the body and being of the
performer. Additional (spatial, temporal etc.) rules will determine the specific score.
1) Remember your future
2) Allow your past to haunt you
3) Take in all the bodily senses of time in the space, including your own
4) When you blink, it is a chance to look in.
5) When your skinholes reveal your eyes, tell the outside world something.
6) There is no beginning and no end that we can fully comprehend.
7) Finish your dance in a physical form that satisfies your flesh.
Possible Parameters for “Ghosting”,
based on some learnt movement forms
1
Rotate your wrists, inward and outward
Step lightly and rhythmically, bouncing
Keep a pleasant face
1
“Skinholes”: Think of your eyes as the holes in your skin that opens the barrier between your body and the outside
world. Your skinholes need to exist so that your eyes can actually see. I’d like to redirect the sense of the gaze not just
to the ocular, but to the tactile.
Bernice’s notes.
Give yourself intense internal imagery
Connect up and down as a clear vertical channel
Become earth
Undulate your spine
Move your head independently from your body but always stay connected
Repeat and transform your movements
Draw circles with your limbs
Reach into infinity from opposite ends of your body
Keep your feet dainty, but your legs strong
39 40

Element# 1.2
Post-Colonial Tactics
Ghosting by Bernice Lee
(Selected notes after a public sharing in March. Upheaval and change.)
Sunday March 25, a presentation at SCOPE in which I knew I was chucking in way
too much content into a showing. I decided it didn’t matter, because I was more
interested in testing out an odd trajectory (risky, delicate, and definitely going
against the norms of theatrical logic) and seeing how it felt to do it, than in trying
one thing out with a group of people who can encourage me. I’d much rather
explode/implode an idea to see what kinds of questions arise - I’d rather exorcise
the multiple ideas in my mind, than keep them to myself, and allow it to weigh on
me. I was trying to create “a web of relationships” - Faye described it as delicate
and slightly messy like Queen Anne’s Lace. I love the image, and it’s certainly true
that I saw myself as author of the experience, but also subject matter - the “other”
whom others come in to encounter. I collected some writings from people who
share the things that bother them about someone else. I did nothing with what they
shared, except to say that I might use it at a future time. I feel responsible for other
people’s private sharing - I want it to matter - but I want it to matter in the context
of all the other things that matter in the world. Kai pointed out that the show felt like
a parody, but not really a parody, and referred to a youtube video where it was
trailers of advertising for all sorts of different causes that exist in the world. I cannot
find the video and have to ask for it. This is the video: www.bit.ly/fusethirteen
I have the video from the showing, which I called a showing of “a sequence of
events”. It felt really intense because of the amount of unsorted information I
decided to try. I was absorbing so many different energies and senses of time, and
paying attention to how I was impacting (and not-impacting) people. I enjoyed the
fact that it was probably a disorienting and annoying experience. Perhaps it is
passive-aggressive, but at the end when people shared their reflections and some
of their wonderment - what I realised was that no matter what happens there will
be a huge gap in audience reception. Some things that stood out: vulnerability, let
me in, bizarro, brave, news, neutrality… what’s the point?
I have collected those people’s sharing about what bothers them. I don’t know
what to do with those things, except that they matter. I want it to come in to use at
each show. I think practicing ghosting is practicing being able to transfer what
matters between different times. What are the performative logistics to getting
people to write down what bothers them, and how do I share that with other
people at “the next show”?
One of the people, an 11-year-old child, wrote about being bullied. I wrote to her
mom to make sure she is aware.
Do we care also about adults in this same way?
(We tend to think that the absurd is distant from the truth. The fact is that the truth
is often more absurd and nonsensical than what our minds can comprehend. That
is what absurdity is - more true than what I can make sense of.)
AbouT Bernice Lee
Bernice Lee is a Singaporean dance artist who
performs, creates and shares dance. She often devises
performances collaboratively and those pieces have
been presented at ArchiFest, ArtScience Museum, Arts
House, The Substation, and TheatreWorks. Her works
have also shown in international art festivals in Vientiane,
Solo, Jogjakarta, Bangkok and New York. Her creations
deal with performance states, experiment with creating
visceral and rarefied atmospheres, and embrace
double-edged humour. She thinks of time as her most
important material.
41 42

Element# 1.2
Post-Colonial Tactics
Power of
softness
by Chloe C. Chotrani
In the simplest form—a horizontal line represents an
aversion to the vertical, hierarchical and dictatorial. Where,
we can find ways to achieve making decisions, on an
egalitarian playing field.
Softness as a tactic to confront hybridity, ambiguity, and
nativity of the post-colonial present.
On an individual level, I look at myself, slightly detached.
Bluntly, as a Singaporean, I hold a place of privilege within the
region, and globally. I would not be able to sustain myself in
the arts as I do now, if it weren’t for the wealth that resides in
this island. Being in a highly visible position, I bring awareness
to the unseen. How do I listen to what is not being said?
Within the softness of our bodies exists a cultural memory that
holds power in what society may see as weak. In my personal
and professional embodied research on the power of softness, I
direct my awareness to the forgotten, the silent and untold stories
of women as the central life-giving force of society. It is masked
by the conditioning to be silent, obedient, and shameful.
Here is an image of myself, looking at
our guest mentor Mandeep Raikhy,
looking at me. During one of our
mentorship sessions in the residency,
while we were devising improvisation
scores.
Element mentorship session. Image from Chloe C. Chotrani.
I am actively seeking from an inner land, the ancestral knowledge
that is passed down through the womb. I do this by acting on the
choice to move from the body, listening to what it has to say,
rather than to dictate answers. I constantly ask
questions—Where is softness in the body? If you were to draw
softness—What would it look like?
43 44

Element# 1.2 Power of softness
Post-Colonial Tactics
by Chloe C. Chotrani
Chloe’s notes.
On a collective level, I invited three movement artists based in Singapore; Eng Kai
Er (SG), Ted Nudgent Tac-An (PH) and Tang Sook Kuan (ML) to explore softness
on a horizontal plane in the studio with me.
Horizontal, meaning to say, without a specific goal, and
without a single leader. We all had the tasks of collectively
making decisions that would attempt to satisfy us all. We
spent every Tuesday evening from March – April 2018.
Within these sessions, we surprisingly devised a working
performative method, which we will continue to explore
after this residency entitled w.r.i.s.t.
w.r.i.s.t. stands for: witness, repeater, interpreter, source, and
transformation. We can think of this as a performative game.
Each movement artist is assigned a role and a task that is
movement, text and performance based. The chosen source
responds to a question that confronts softness, the repeater
repeats the information, the interpreter performs what was not
being said, and it culminates in a collective transformation where
everyone improvises based on the shared information. Each
phase is two minutes, the transformation is eight minutes.
It is a practice that teaches one to be empathetic by sharpening our listening skills
and pushing boundaries of communication.
w.r.i.s.t. is an ongoing process that tackles a soft horizontal structure of
listening and perceiving each other. In w.r.i.s.t., we confront the ambiguity
of truth, and how ideas are repeated, interpreted or transformed.
In my research, I have given attention towards idea’s surrounding the relationship
between the urban and the indigenous or the urban-indio. Which have brought me
to question the body in relationship to the land. What is your relationship to the land
you are on? What is your relationship to land?
45 46

Element# 1.2 Power of softness
Post-Colonial Tactics
by Chloe C. Chotrani
The body and land are deeply interwoven, particularly for
the female body because of our menstruation cycles. We
periodically renew, we are asked to rest as we release,
cleanse and prepare for the cycle ahead that weaves with
the rhythms of the earth. However, until today bleeding is
deemed as impure.
One of many sources of empowerment within the cultural
context of Southeast Asia is the Babaylan. Today, there is a
strong reclamation within the urban-indio communities of
the Filipino people. The Babaylan are the pre-colonial
spiritual practices deeply rooted in the feminine in the
Philippines. Where the untold stories of the matriarch are
coming into the forefront, as we see today through the
revolutionary voices that chose to radically respond.
Chloe’s notes.
This sense of shame as a woman brings me to ask questions about
the erotic. Where we have to live up to the illusion of beauty standards
that force us to be ashamed of the natural body or when we stay quiet
and suppress our voices when we are in pain, because of mere,
convenience.
While in this residency, when warming the body to prepare for
movement or to create mental space. A speech by Audre Lorde would
often play in the background, which I find to be extremely relevant to
the shift towards femininity at present. An excerpt from Uses of The
Erotic by Audre Lorde:
For once we begin to feel deeply
We begin to demand from ourselves the joy which we know ourselves to be
capable of
In other words, our erotic knowledge empowers us
This is a grave responsibility
Not to settle
Not to settle for what is convenient, or shoddy, or the conventionally expected
Nor what is merely safe
We have been raised to fear the yes in ourselves, our deepest cravings
And, the fear of our deepest cravings will always keep them suspect
And will also keep us docile, loyal, and obedient
And lead us to settle for so many facts of our oppression, as women
Ideas surrounding obedience within the Singaporean context deeply
suppress sensations and desires. Which cause a ripple effect of
chasing after structures of safety, which I feel can be dangerous to be
too clean. Thus, this piece by Audre Lorde, articulates that pleasure in
the effort and struggle for depth and rigor in all action—whether it be
dancing, gardening, writing, loving or cleaning. The erotic, not to be
confused with erotica, rather, the embodiment of Eros.
47 48

Element# 1.2 Power of softness
Post-Colonial Tactics
by Chloe C. Chotrani
My place in the post-colonial present is hybrid, ambiguous and native.
Hybrid—identity is complex, especially when we try to define it based
on nation-state borders. The term “third culture children” has come into
mainstream, a generation of children with multiple rooting, which give
us ancestry that is never linear. As a Singaporean, Filipina and Indian –
at the end of the day, I feel it is irrelevant. However, in the constructs
that we live in today, race matters. The color of your skin or the tone of
your voice dictates a level of privilege. As much as it would be
convenient to ignore race, or see faces in neutrality or worse, accept
fair beauty standards. The only way to confront it is to have a soft
strength, that can handle the brutality of racism. Thus, hybridity is a
way of not-defining my cultural context.
Ambiguous—Openness requires one to sometimes, straddle the
in-between. Some people impose, dominate, and control. The power
dynamics have to now shift to bring a sense of balance to the
eco-system, a more horizontal approach. Thus, being open to
diversifying, to a plurality of perspectives is essential to my practice, not
only as an artist, but as a person.
There is a term that is becoming quite trendy among artists that is
called radical softness. I find that important at the moment, as a
quality that takes material philosophy into an idea of politics. Where
you think about a different way of acquiring power, sharing power,
averting power positions… I saw something in your piece that is
energetic without being speedy, it was powerful without being
aggressive, it was a lot of in-between things that keeps me really
hooked, but I am never sure what I am looking at.” – Daniel Kok,
Independent Artist
“What I loved was the use of dirt… I saw a grounded-ness and
rootedness reflected but at the same time I saw something
extraordinarily modern… using your voice feels much like a child at
play, rather than something you would expect from something so
evocative and ritualistic. That together within being held in a space,
creating a space for us, it was mesmerizing in itself.” – Anlin Loh,
Producer, Pink Gajah Theatre
Chloe’s movement notes.
Native—Rather, nativity, is slightly indulgent. I feel a spiritual connection
to my Motherland, the Philippines. The abundant resources have been
and still are abused by war, capitalism and colonial powers. As so, the
rest of what is defined as the “third” world. Having lived in Manila for
over twelve years and constantly returning, having a third world
perspective has truly shaped my daily routines and it has brought me
into an ever-grounded approach to both my practice in work and life.
More voices and spaces need to be created from this perspective of
the third.
The solo piece that I worked on during this residency is entitled, Talking
Third Circle, which is a work-in-progress shared during SCOPE #1.
Responses from the sharing, as follows:
49 50

Element# 1.2 Power of softness
Post-Colonial Tactics
by Chloe C. Chotrani
It needs to be brought to attention that “Postcolonialism: A Short Introduction” is
written by a white male, Robert J.C Young. Just as how the history of female
sexuality was written by men. Thus, validates the significance of writing and
research, as an individual, as an artist, as a woman, today. A short excerpt by
Robert J.C Young:
Do you ever feel that wherever you speak, you have already on some
sense been spoken for? Or that when you hear others speaking, that
you are only ever going to be the object of their speech? The you live
in a world of others, a world that exists for others?
The woman was there, but she was always an object, never a subject.
Postcolonial theory involves a conceptual reorientation towards the
perspectives of knowledge and needs, developed outside the West. A
lot of people don’t like the term Postcolonial. It disturbs the order of the
world. It threatens privileged power. It refuses to acknowledge he
superiority of Western cultures.
What is the role that we, the explored people of the world, must play?
Curatorial Statement || Softness
These bodies draw from a post-colonial present that
radiates the soft, fluid and the erotic as our creative
power force. Embodied living is radically called for as
we continue to dance within the global crisis. Diaspora
discourse of the matriarch with Rina Casero Espiritu,
Jana Lynn (JL) Umipig along with the queer vista of
Zavé Martohardjono.
Through this on-going research, I am exploring
questions surrounding the triad relationship between:
body, land, and the erotic. By constantly working with
my hands and the body; as a professional movement
artist, as a permaculture apprentice (gardener) and as
a dance writer.
softness: artist of color council curation
with Movement Research, Feb to– May 2018
Movement Research invited me to be a curator for the Artist of Color Council
Curation at Judson Church Spring 2018 Season, while being based in Singapore.
Coincidentally, in conjunction with the ELEMENT residency at Dance Nucleus.
Thus, I decided to utilize the exploration of softness within a diasporic space.
Artists of Color Council Curation Spring 2018
Each season the AoCC invites a member of the community to curate artists to
participate in Movement Research at the Judson Church. The Spring 2018 curator
is Chloe C. Chotrani.
Touching the soil directly and developing a relationship
with it, transforming the way I eat and the flora in my
gut, and perceiving land as a living entity rather than as
property or possession. Working in the studio with the
body, being porous, pushing boundaries, and learning
about space logic through physicality. I find a soft
strength and a sensuous pleasure within the effort and
struggle in each embodied task.
The work continues, towards studies on softness, as
embodied research, as a way of life, as a shared
responsibility, with wider and wider circles.
51 52

AbouT Chloe C. Chotrani
Chloe is a movement artist based in Singapore. Currently, she is
a project based dancer for Odissi dance company Chowk, and
Malay dance company P7:1SMA in Singapore. She was a dance
artist-scholar with Romançon Dance Company of De La
Salle–Benilde in Manila and holds a Postgraduate Diploma in
Asian Art from the School of Oriental and African Studies in
London. Working with a deep curiosity, she has traveled and
learned different forms of dance to West Africa, New York, and
within Southeast Asia. As a performer, she has worked
internationally with Legit Status Philippines, B Supreme London,
Omi International Dance Collective, Evidence Dance Community
and Movement Research. Her embodied artistic practice and
research is centered on the power of softness, which she
explores as a way of life. When she's not dancing or writing, she
is tending to plants in the garden.
www.chloechotrani.com
53 54

Element# 1.2
Post-Colonial Tactics
This essay is Nirmala’s Seshadri’s responses to the provocation questions.
Ruminations on
AsiaNness & DANCE
I STILL see myself, in the wider framework of Dance as that token brown person
engaging with a token ethnic dance form - be it in educational settings,
performance or other spaces. At the core of these settings are the western forms
- ballet, modern dance or contemporary dance. I must admit that for the brown
person, dance (strictly defined in ethnic terms) is the ticket to travel as a tourist in
a Chinese world in Singapore. But it is also a way to assert brown presence. So
1
we can neither give into the ethnic silos nor completely do away with them!
by Nirmala Seshadri
In Daniel Kok’s note inviting me to join the panel discussion on the
topic “Postcolonial Tactics” at Dance Nucleus, he inserted the
following provocations:
How do we continue to speak about Asian-ness in dance today?
In claiming an Asian identity, what is at stake and which agendas
are we validating? What are some choreographic strategies to
circumnavigate the landscapes of aesthetics, politics and/or the
arts market, which remains significantly dominated by the West?
Kok’s questions set me thinking and I shared my reflections
verbally then, in written form now:
1. How do we continue to speak about Asian-ness in dance today?
Classical Indian dance. Image credit: Rutgers Natya, 2010
2
I became aware of the concept of Asianness with regard to Dance in the 1970s as
a Primary school student. The school at which I studied promoted Dance very
actively. And by Dance, I mean Ballet that was performed mainly by Chinese girls
usually dressed in tutus and dancing to western classical music. While the dancers
who performed Ballet were featured on prominent platforms, where relevant I was
invited to present my solo 5 minutes of my classical Indian dance form
Bharatanatyam. At the age of 12 and 13, it felt good, I felt exclusive in my
Bharatanatyam attire, dancing differently from the other girls.
Now, 40 years later and viewing my past through various lenses, I see my Chinese
friends of Primary School as having performed aspirational whiteness. I, on the
other hand, played the role of the token brown person who performed the token
‘ethnic’ dance form.
To quote dance anthropologist Andrée Grau on race and multiculturalism in the UK
: “white artists, often see their oeuvre examined in artistic terms and their work
understood as somewhat ‘universal’ and ‘acultural’. In contrast, … artists whose
families originated outside Europe… often see their work receive a ‘cultural
treatment’, linking it to narrow notions of heritage and tradition, and thereby
excluding them from the broader world” (2008, 239).
1
In Singapore, the state manages cultural diversity in reductionist terms. The CMIO [Chinese-Malay-Indian-Others]
model cognitively streamlines society into four ethnic groups . . . While the CMIO model is in tune with the demands of
mass society and global consumerism, it influences ethnic stereotyping in Singapore.’ See Laurence Wai-Teng Leong
(1997) ‘Commodifying Ethnicity: State and Ethnic Tourism in Singapore’, in Picard, Michel and Robert Everett Wood,
eds. Tourism, Ethnicity, and the State in Asian and Pacific Societies, Honolulu, Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press, 92–3
55 56

Element# 1.2
Post-Colonial
Tactics
Ruminations on
asiaNness & Dance
by Nirmala Seshadri
2. In claiming an Asian identity, what is at stake and which
agendas are we validating?
I looked at the Esplanade’s 2017 Dance Festival
programme line-up where “Asian” forms were mostly
non-ticketed and relegated to performances at the
Concourse, Outdoor spaces and as workshops and talks.
The website also highlights the separate arts festivals that
are organised by the Esplanade to feature the various
communities - Kala Utsavam, Pesta Raya and Hua Yi
platforms. But it needs to be kept in mind that in the
performance space, we speak of ‘Asian-ness’ as the
‘Other’ that exists in silos, on the margins, as cultural
heritage and cultural representation. How the different
ethnicities are situated on the margins would be an
interesting area of study.
Asian-ness is the tag that is needed to justify the presence
of the dancing body that is not trained in the western dance
idiom.
On the other side of it, there tends to be a sidelining by the
specific ‘ethnic’ community, of the dancer who is seen to
veer away from what is considered acceptable
2
representation . Not only have I experienced this personally,
but I also understand from conversations with younger
dancers who are keen to push the boundaries of thought
and form, that it can be challenging to negotiate the
structures. The marginalisation on both sides of the fence
(ie within the ethnic silo and in the mainstream) carries
implications in terms of recognition, opportunities and
ultimately - the ability to exist. In other words - Erasure.
When talking of claiming the Asian identity, let me first hold up
the lenses of history and nostalgia.
The late pioneering dance teacher Mr. K.P. Bhaskar stated in an
interview with me, that in the 1960s there were multiracial
performances organised by political parties featuring Chinese,
Malay, Indian and Western dance (in Seshadri, 2013). Ballet
choreographer and dance scholar Francis Yeoh highlights that
when the National Dance Company (NDC) was formed later,
ballet existed alongside the other forms (2006). The promotion of
a ballet dancer/choreographer to the important position of
artistic director, as opposed to someone from the other dance
forms, points to the privileging of ballet as occupying a distinct
class from the other forms. By the time the Singapore Multi
Ethnic Dance Ensemble was formed a few years later under the
umbrella of the People’s Association, ballet was separated from
the “traditional” dance forms. The ballet wing of the NDC went
on to become the Singapore Dance Theatre (SDT) in 1988 which
went on to receive strong support from the government and has
been featured prominently right from its inception. In discussing
the attention received by SDT, sociologist Gan Hui Cheng
highlights the marginalised position of ethnic dance forms, which
is in stark contrast to their role, visibility and status in the 1950s
(2002).
These past events reveal that by claiming the Asian identity in
Singapore especially in the 1980s, we have subscribed to the
western evolutionary model of classification of dance forms that
has been discussed by anthropologist Joann Keali’ihonomoku
who underscores the point that ‘ethnic’ (unchanging traditions)
is relegated to the margins and ballet viewed as superior (1970).
2
My recent essay on this issue of marginalisation is: Seshadri, Nirmala (2017) ‘The Problematic Danseuse: Reclaiming
Space to Dance the Lived Feminine’, in Diotima’s: A Journal of New Readings, Kozhikode, Kerala: Providence
Women’s College, 54-79
57 58

Element# 1.2
Post-Colonial
Tactics
Ruminations on
asiaNness & Dance
by Nirmala Seshadri
What is at stake? I would say (from my observations and experiences in the field):
equality
funding
Inclusion, visibility
professionalisation
freedom from cultural custodianship, and from cultural essentialism
Granted that at this point in time, traditional arts are being given a boost in funding
and support. But we still need to ask ‘what is at stake here?’ The use of the term
‘traditional art’ carries in it notions of ‘the unchanging’, ‘reproduction’,
‘perpetuation’ rather than questioning of status quo and pushing of boundaries.
The freedom to create and express oneself authentically - these are at stake.
In Singapore the classical Indian dancer (whether aware of it or not) exists at the
intersection of multiple agendas - cultural essentialism, collective nostalgia for an
imagined homeland, exoticism, multiculturalism, overt emphasis on religiosity, as
well as Indian nationalism that is increasingly mobile.
Anthropologist Sitara Thobani highlights that “It is in the transnational context that
essentialized constructions of India are further cemented, leading to the
strengthening of ideas regarding coherence, uniformity and impermeability of Indian
culture” (2017, 105).
In my opinion, the current categorisation of the Asian hinders authentic expression
and true inclusivity. However, questioning and rejecting the way in which the
category is now occupied might unleash its emancipatory potential.
3 What are some choreographic strategies to circumnavigate the
landscapes of aesthetics, politics and/or the arts market, which
remains significantly dominated by the West?
As historian Prasenjit Duara points out, there is a need to view Asian-ness not as
a constant/fixed region but instead as a process of regionalisation, thus
“distinguishing between the relatively unplanned or evolutionary emergence of an
area of interaction and interdependence as a region and the more active, often
ideologically driven political process of creating a region, or regionalization” (2010,
963). Dance as it is employed today buys into the imaginary construction of
Asian-ness. Dance is one site on which the negotiation of Asian-ness takes place.
Viewing it as a process means that it can be done differently - it can be reshaped
actively and consciously.
Choreographic strategies would include:
1.
Choreographing Asian within the framework of cultural heritage and in
solidarity with the networks that support this strategy. My own
choreographic journey began with this strategy but I gradually found it
more and more difficult to subscribe to the power structures of
Bharatanatyam that is governed by rules of purity and appropriateness.
The lack of right to choice in the personal and artistic spheres became an area I
needed to address - after all, both belonged to the same patriarchal cultural
paradigm. Equating a male lover with God became problematic for me as a
dancer as it implied the superiority and deification of the human male. This created
a conflict within me both in art and in my life, which I sought to examine through
my choreographic process. I needed to address the gender imbalances in my
socio-cultural context and search for more empowering images of womanhood,
both in dance and in life. The questions and unrest in my mind were expressed in
my choreographic works. The fact that I faced these conflicts woke me up to the
restrictions of the silos. There was a need for Indian dance to grow to reflect lived
realities of women. But it could not grow as long as imposed, essentialised
Asian-ness required it to look a particular way.
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Element# 1.2
Post-Colonial
Tactics
Ruminations on
asiaNness & Dance
by Nirmala Seshadri
2. I began to work through intercultural and interdisciplinary collaborative
processes. While I am aware that collaborative processes are often
positioned on the Asia-West axis, I belong to that group that tended to
replace the Asia-Western binary with intra-Asian collaborations.
I want to add here that the collaborative choreographic space can be a complex
one. If Asian-ness has emerged out of a history of imperialism and anti-imperialism,
then history has also shown us that new forms of imperialism later emerged within
Asia (Duara, 2010). Power dynamics come into play in any environment in which
there is an imbalance, therefore in this context it could end up merely substituting
Western domination with another form of domination.
3.
Through a feminist choreographic approach, I contradicted the
prescriptive framework of Bharatanatyam to create works that
expressed the lived feminine through the portrayal of eroticism,
critiquing of gender norms, and expression of personal lived
3
experience . This focus on lived reality leads me to think that liberation
from imposed categories of Asian-ness cannot ONLY take place
through new collaborations (whether intra-Asian or trans-Asian with the
Global South). It also needs - simultaneously - to take place through
reclaiming the individual body. My current space of work thus reflects
feminist writer and activist Audre Lorde’s defense of self-care in a
context where CERTAIN bodies are erased - that sort of self-care is “not
self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political
warfare” (1988).
4. In my current approach I focus inward on the individual body, its inner
wisdom, its relationship to Nature, its connection to other bodies in
space and its potential to free itself from the hegemonic paradigms.
Drawing inspiration from Lorde’s defense of self-care (ibid), I have come
to believe that to THRIVE as a dancer (and not just exist) in the
patriarchal and capitalist framework that our dance forms are situated,
requires this sort of attention to the self. But when we also look to these
other connections that I suggest, there is perhaps the potential for a
more radical sort of collaboration that resists a hegemonic Asian-ness
for a more organic and emancipatory form.
3
These works have been described in my essays:
Seshadri, Nirmala (2011) ‘Challenging Patriarchy through Dance’, in Caldwell, Linda ed. In Time Together [online],
Denton: Texas Woman’s University, available from:
https://www.scribd.com/document/338711894/Challenging-Patriarchy-Zru-Dance [accessed on 12 June 2018]
Seshadri, Nirmala (2017) ‘Bharatanatyam and Butoh: An Emerging Gendered Conversation through Site-Specific
Dance in Chennai and Singapore”, in Munsi, Urmimala Sarkar and Aishika Chakraborty eds. The Moving Space:
Women in Dance, New Delhi: Primus Books, 182-197
Seshadri, Nirmala (2017) ‘The Problematic Danseuse: Reclaiming Space to Dance the Lived Feminine’, in Diotima’s: A
Journal of New Readings, Kozhikode, Kerala: Providence Women’s College, 54-79
In conclusion, I feel inclined to revisit Kok’s first question: “How do we continue to
speak about Asian-ness in dance today?” In this response I have provided my
observations, experiences and negotiations in the field of dance in Singapore,
where the concept of Asian tends to not only define but also hem in the practitioner
of a non-western dance form such as Bharatanatyam. I have highlighted the
convergence of multiple agendas that emphasise cultural reproduction rather than
encourage authentic expression.
61 62

Element# 1.2
Post-Colonial
Tactics
Ruminations on
asiaNness & Dance
by Nirmala Seshadri
However, in examining unfolding choreographic
strategies, I suggest the possibility of speaking about
Asian-ness not in hierarchical or hegemonic terms
but in a liberating sense - as a space that is in
continuous metamorphosis through active and
radical interventions.
Many thanks to Daniel Kok and Shobha Avadhani for your valuable provocations
and inputs.
Reference List
PRINT SOURCES:
AbouT Nirmala Seshadri
Duara, Prasenjit (2010) ‘Asia Redux: Conceptualizing a Region for Our Times’, in The Journal of Asian Studies, 69,
963-983
Gan, Hui Cheng (2002) ‘Dancing Bodies: Culture and Modernity’, in Kwok, Kian Woon, Mahizhnan, Arun and T.
Sasitharan, eds. Selves – The State of the Arts in Singapore, Singapore: National Arts Council
Grau, Andrée (2008) ‘Dance and the Shifting Sands of Multiculturalism’, in Munsi, Urmimala Sarkar, ed. Dance:
Transcending Borders, New Delhi: Tulika Books
Keali’ihonomoku, Joann (1970) ‘An Anthropologist Looks at Ballet as a form of Ethnic Dance’, in Copeland, Roger and
Marshall Cohen, eds. What is Dance? : Readings in Theory and Criticism, Oxford: Oxford University Press
Lorde, Audre (1988) A burst of light: essays, Michigan: Firebrand Books
Yeoh, Francis (2006) ‘Nationalism in Dance: The Singapore Perspective’, in Foley, Catherine, ed. Dance Research
Forum Ireland, “At the Crossroads? Dance and Irish Culture”, Ireland: University of Limerick
Seshadri, Nirmala (2013) ‘Mr. K.P. Bhaskar: 60 years of Bhaskar’s Arts Academy’, in Seshadri, N., ed. Aesthetics,
Singapore: Nrityalaya Aesthetics Society
Thobani, Sitara (2017) Indian Classical Dance and the Making of Postcolonial National Identities: Dancing on Empire's
Stage, Routledge
INTERNET SOURCES:
Nirmala Seshadri is a dancer, choreographer and
researcher who seeks to recontextualise her classical
dance form, Bharatanatyam. Her social justice
perspective leads her to use the body and performance
space to interrogate existing inequalities, problematizing
boundaries of time, place, gender, and caste, among
other social constructs. Her quest for autonomy and
sensorial perception led her to Butoh. Bridging dance
practice with theory, her research interests include
kinesthesia and corporeality, gender, tradition and
transition, site specificity, cultural hybridisation and the
politics of identity. She graduated with a Masters degree
in Dance Anthropology (with distinction) from the
University of Roehampton, London.
Esplanade theatres on the bay (2017), ’dans festival 2017 programmes’ [online], Singapore, available from:
https://www.esplanade.com/festivals-and-series/sites/dans-festival/2017/programmes#all [accessed on 5 June 2018]
63 64

SCOPE # 1
ABOUT
SCOPE is Dance Nucleus’ open platform for artists'
presentations. Associate members of Dance Nucleus as
well as non-members conduct discussions, workshops,
jams, readings, screenings, open studio and
work-in-progress showings.
FUSE #1 features three of the current projects by our
associate members. Chong Gua Khee & Bernice Lee,
Joao Gouveia & Petra Vossenberg, Chiew Peishan &
Liu Wen-Chun share their reflections on the development
of their current collaborative projects.
65 66

Scope #1
Reflections on
“In plain Site”
A Conversation Between Chong Gua Khee & Bernice Lee
In 2017, Chong Gua Khee and Bernice Lee completed an initial exploration of
the possibilities of sound and movement running in parallel instead of in direct
relation/response to each other. In 2018, they are pushing this exploration
further by excavating the possibilities of parallel connections/resonances
amongst sound, movement, space, and story. At Dance Nucleus. the artists
have been exploring questions such as what constitutes a performance
score. Gua Khee and Bernice presented their initial developments at
SCOPE#1 (MAR 2018) and will continue with their collaborative explorations
for the rest of the year.
Gua Khee: As a practitioner, I am deeply interested in the
idea of ‘conversations’, and this has been a key driver
behind why I often reach out to work with practitioners from
other disciplines – I enjoy these cross-disciplinary
conversations, and find it exhilarating for my
preconceptions and/or beliefs to be challenged. Equally
exciting (although frustrating as well!) is the process of
working through these challenges to arrive at a deeper
understanding of each other’s practice. However, it is very
important to me that the conversations do not remain as
purely verbal ones, but that we converse through the
making of a work as well. In Plain Site thus came about as
part of the process of Bernice and I having conversations
and making work together.
Bernice: What are the ingredients in making a performance?
Why do we care so much about making performance, and
why do we care about making it together? We were running
around in circles, trying to find a common language and
common ground. Eventually we arrived at the understanding
that we were asking similar questions about performance
scores, and that the practice of having conversations helps us
make sense of scores. Some other questions that we asked
ourselves: How is it that human beings learn how to have a
conversation? How are human beings conditioned into
learning this specific skill? We decide that a conversation is a
form of everyday theatre, and there are scores which
underpin it.
GK: In a typical working session for In Plain Site, we talk a lot, and not necessarily
about the project, just letting ourselves meander around. But we also do a lot, and
I think this dynamic emerges in the piece in a certain way.
B: Within this process, we came up with different scores, and
tested them out with each other. We defined a "score" as
rules and frameworks which structure an event. We came to
recognise that what we wanted to do was, to highlight the
conversational form and the score itself, to point to the things
often taken for granted, things that seem obvious, until it
becomes clear that what seemed obvious need not have
been so. At any given moment, when we as human beings
point our attention to something, there are always other
conversations we are not having.
GK: So In Plain Site wound up being about a whimsical invitation to the audience
to pay attention to aspects of the environment around them, be it other audience’s
bodies, the performer’s body, or the sounds and textures of the space and objects
in the space.
67 68

Scope #1
Reflections on “In Plain Site”
A Conversation Between Chong Gua Khee & Bernice Lee
B: In building In Plain Site though, we are constantly shifting the rules and
frameworks of our performance score. Some of the things we played with:
1. When we enter a theatrical environment, the
expectation is that the performance is in control
of itself. The audience's role is primarily to receive
input.
2. What are the things that are already built into
the score of a performance? The things that exist
in a theatre, which are now norms.
3. The always-existent sounds, thanks to the
work of John Cage and Merce Cunningham, are
clearly also players in the performance.
4. The "liveness" of the audience - how do the
people who have come to see the performance,
become part of the score? Are they invited? How
do we work their unpredictable presences into
the score?
GK: At the trial we did at SCOPE#1, what really surprised me was
how open-ended our draft of the score at that point was in
performance as well. Without giving away too many details, I think
In Plain Site evoked more curiosity and exploration amongst the
trial audience members than we had expected, resulting in the
performance developing beyond our imagined ‘ending’ in the
score. This was quite comfortably accommodated by the
parameters of the score, which for me speaks to how much space
and generosity there is within the score for both the performer and
the audience to just play. But what and how do we make of that as
creators and makers?
B: The fifth question is something we are still
grappling with. The work of participatory theatre,
community-activated theatre, proposes some
possibilities. In our work we want to return to the
starting point of a conversation. How does one know
when a conversation has ended? Who takes charge
in a situation where the performance score has been
proposed by the performance makers, the audience
has received it, and now we don't know what to do
with this exchange?
GK: This and many other questions remain to be
unpacked and explored, and moving forward from
SCOPE#1 and the rich feedback we received from the
audience, we intend to dig deeper and explore more
nuances and (p)layers within the score!
AbouT CHONG GUA KHEE
Chong Gua Khee graduated from the University of British
Columbia, Canada, with a Psychology (Honours) and
Theatre (Major) degree. A freelance theatre practitioner, she
mainly works as a director/creator, facilitator, and translator.
Her practice is situated in the exploration of different worlds
encountering each other, either in the final piece
with/amongst audience as in HOT POT TALK: Theatre & the
Arts, or in the process with artists of different disciplines. For
the latter strand, Gua Khee has been collaborating more
with dancers/choreographers, given her background in
dance and movement work. She is also co-convening a
Somatics working group for 2018.
For Bernice Lee’s bio, refer to her notes for ELEMENT #1.2.
69 70

Scope #1
Voice and Movement
Preparation
in instant
composition
by Joao Gouveia and
Petra Vossenberg
Connecting breath and movement leading to sustained
movement with a continuous trajectory from one movement to
the other. We see and experience full presence in the
movement.
Breathing deeply into the body. It opened movement to flow and
dynamic maneuvering. Body movement and breathing became
strong stimuli for experience.
Although somatic dance and improvisation are broad
fields of investigation, Joao Gouveia and Petra
Vossenberg have been trained in a specific way and would
like to share their knowledge, as well as to develop their
own practice in Dance Nucleus. For these ends, Joao and
Petra have been devising a series of workshops, one of
which took place on 19th and 20th May 2018. The
following are some notes that they made in their research
explorations at Dance Nucleus.
From breath to audible breath to sound. Letting the sound
come as freely as possible. Filling up the body with the sound.
Moving the sound to the pelvic floor, to the back of the body,
relaxing the throat and mouth, engaging the diaphragm.
The sound sustains the movement. It calls for movement to
develop further. Sound leads to more body awareness. It gives
volume to the body. It causes a rooting, connecting to oneself.
In this workshop, we will look at the dialogue between voice and movement.
Finding your voice
Relating your voice to your own movement
Relating your voice to the movement of others
Bringing your voice into space
Where/when movement become voice and
where/when voice is channeled back into
movement
Sound invites us into space. It opens space. We can see space.
The movement is housed in space. Bodies meeting in space
through sound. Sound calls for giving, a generosity, a sharing.
Sound has longevity. Even after it has been fully released into
space, it lingers for a while in dissipation.
Sound is supported through our core muscles. Movement is
supported through our core muscles. Movement and sound are
interconnected. Sound and movement gathering in the core to
extend out.
Instant composition: develop and respond to what the other
gives to space. Do not let the excitement of all the possibilities
take over. Keep listening, digesting and developing.
Clarity in sound and movement.
Image credit: Raul Anderson
71 72

Scope #1
Voice and movement in instant
composition
Approach
by Joao Gouveia and Petra Vossenberg
Sharing our practice. Guidance and facilitation in exercises.
Doing. Then breaking it down. Time and space for reflection.
Repeating (with different partners). Watching.
Working in pairs on connecting breath and movement. One
mover. One toucher, placing the hands on different parts of the
body. Connecting to each other’s breath. The mover using the
touch to breathe into, expanding the volume in between the two
hands, connecting the two hands with the breath, using the
point of contact as the initiation for the movement path.
The exercise expands the volume of the body. The touch helps
to find the natural paths of the body. Different paths. You are not
alone. Someone is continuously supporting you and you are
supporting yourself with your breath. It gives importance to the
movement.
Sound bringing awareness to the back of the body, the
space around the body.
Voicing the movement of the other. How close can you
stay to the movement itself? Or do you sound the image
you have of movement? The mover should be aware of
the sounder. Take them along in your movement. Be clear
in your trajectory. The partners are mirrors to each other.
Is the movement readable, clear and given to space? Can
you commit yourself to the other? Be there with them,
otherwise your sound is continuously too late.
Voicing the movement of the other with the permission to
go beyond the body. The spaces around the body.
Sounding the wider context. From the body, into space,
back to the body. A figure ‘8.’ Voicing the space instead
of the body can be very powerful. Giving the body more
space to move and tap into the imagination. The partners
meeting in space and riding the different images that
appear.
Observations
Through sound people start to see space, different spaces.
Both as a mover and watcher.
More clarity in movement
Dialogue between the dancers
Less ‘people’, more bodies
Movement and sound travelling through the dancers like a
wave and continuously transforming
Developing a theme
Playing with the placement and meaning of sound phrases.
Sounding our own movement. Different lengths of movement
phrases. Articulation and rhythmicality. What is first? The
sound or movement? Playing with this dialogue. Sound and
movement affecting each other in the doing.
Listening to sound in space. Receiving. Giving sound to
space. Making the sound available for others to use. Giving
direction to the sound. Creating structures with sound in
space. With sound being able to focus the attention on an
object or body in space. With sound being able to dissipate
away the focus.
The sound quality and depth in space relating to the quality
and depth of the glare and focus of the eyes.
Do different roles, i.e. sounder and mover, give clarity? How
much do you play in the box? Finding your freedom within.
From careful listening with the ears to a complete listening of
the body in instant composition. Listening to sounds and
movement. Quietness within. Listening to what is given to
space, receive, and give to space yourself. Building together.
73 74

About Joao and Petra
Researchers, dancers and performers based in Singapore,
students of Marisa Grande and dancers of InMotion dance
traces, Petra and Joao have danced in instantly composed
and site-specific works by different artistic directors (e.g.:
Marisa Grande, Iris van Peppen and Katie Duck) and
collaborated with live musicians, poets and different dance
artists. For Petra, somatic dance and instant composition is
about studying the wonders of the body, being fully present,
finding new pathways, release, surprising encounters and
playfulness. For Joao, the practice centers around exploring
and discovering the different corners of body with movement in
space and time. One particular focus of his is the experience
of sensing how physical space can be an extension of the
physical body.
75 76

Scope #1
Should I kill
myself or have a
cup of coffee?:
A co-choreographer’s work-in-progress reflection by Chiew Peishan
The conceptualization of our creation began in October
2017, and the first phase of exploration spanned from
mid-January to mid-May 2018. The next phase of
exploration will begin from end-June 2018 till the
performance of the work in the DiverCity platform of M1
CONTACT Contemporary Dance Festival on 19 and 20
July 2018. We intend to continue to develop the work.
A common interest in the philosophy of the Absurd by Albert Camus motivated this
co-creation with Liu.
Should I kill myself or have a cup of coffee? is a personal musing
on the absurdity of living.. It is co-choreographed and performed
by Wen-Chun Liu and I, in collaboration with film artist Yan-Hong
Chen, dramaturge Kim Seng Neo, and performers Kenneth Tan
and Supatchai Lappakornkul.
“A stranger to myself and to the world, armed solely with
a thought that negates itself as soon as it asserts, what is
this condition in which I can have peace only by refusing to
know and to live, in which the appetite for conquest
bumps into walls that defy its assaults? To will is to stir up
paradoxes” (Camus 20).
Still from film by Yan-Hong Chen
In Camus’ The Myth of Sisyphus, he presented a
philosophy that challenged itself, and posited that a
disharmony exists between one’s innate impulse to search
for meaning and the meaninglessness of life. If the option
of suicide that escape existence is not taken up in
response to the absurdity of life, then one will turn to
acknowledge and embrace the absurd so as to find worth
in living.
Prior to Should I kill myself or have a cup of coffee?, both
Liu and I shared choreographic responses that drew
influences from the Absurd. We had explored within
different contexts and presented work-in-progress
creations on separate platforms. Liu’s An Absurd
Reasoning explored the futile routine and absurd
encounters in daily life, and was presented as part of
International Choreographers Residency Programme
Concert in American Dance Festival 2017.
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Scope #1
Should I kill myself Or have a
cup of coffee?:
A co-choreographer’s work-in-progress reflection by Chiew Peishan
I was investigating the manifestation of the aftermath of conflict and its
psychological influence on the body in re moved: Sisyphus is Smiling, presented as
part of Dance Nucleus’ HATCH in July 2017. It was a period in my life where I was
reeling from the effects of a conflict that left me feeling paralyzed by people’s
behaviour and the surrounding environment. I recall pondering on Tor
Nørretranders’ idea of social relativity that somewhere else in this world, there may
be someone in a worse plight, and I should stop drowning in my own sorrow. I
attempted to rationalize the circumstances of the conflict and it took me some time
to realize my futile efforts to reason, as Camus shared, “What is absurd is the
confrontation of this irrational and the wild longing for clarity whose call echoes in
the human heart” (Camus 21).
Should I kill myself or have a cup of coffee? extends Liu’s and my earlier research
on the Absurd. We are mulling over the primary question of ‘Are we all living to
die?’ which Camus accorded that “Living is keeping the absurd alive. Keeping it
alive is, above all, contemplating it” (54). At the conceptualization stage, we shared
reflections on the Absurd, as well as thoughts, encounters and personal
associations of death. Some topics included the deaths (not limiting to lives, for
instance the death of innocence and wonder) we faced thus far in our lives, the
different ways of dying, our daily trivial encounters of absurdity, bucket lists, poems
by Lixin Tan and Tania De Rozario, sculptures by Alberto Giacometti, Rohingya
refugee crisis, Saffron Revolution and the criminal offence of attempted suicide in
Singapore. The conversations accumulated in a visual score of five elements that
had most resonance for us, namely the hand, a graphic representation of
Sisyphus’ mountain and his rock, images of a lone dead bird, the sculpture of The
Nose (1947) by Giacometti and the colour red from Saffron Revolution, to inform
our movement research.
I was conscious that the thought of killing myself had not once crossed my mind,
and learning about the Absurd provided psychological support in negotiating my
being:
Still from film by Yan-Hong Chen
“In its way, suicide settles the absurd. It engulfs the
absurd in the same death. But I know that in order
to keep alive, the absurd cannot be settled. It
escapes suicide to the extent that it is
simultaneously awareness and rejection of death. It
is, at the extreme limit of the condemned man’s last
thought, that shoelace that despite everything he
sees a few yards away, on the very brink of his
dizzying fall. The contrary of suicide, in fact, is the
man condemned to death” (Camus 54-55).
To facilitate a rethinking of purpose in the aftermath
of conflict, I researched manifestos, including
Yvonne Rainer’s No Manifesto (1965) and A
Manifesto Reconsidered (2008), Matte Ingvartsen’s
Yes Manifesto (2005), Bruno Freire’s Maybe
Manifesto (2011), and Marina Abramović’s An
Artist’s Life Manifesto (2011). The latter felt most
relevant.
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Scope #1
Should I kill myself OR have a
cup of coffee?:
A co-choreographer’s work-in-progress reflection by Chiew Peishan
Liu’s interest in the cyclical nature of revolutions and protests also
led to a video sharing on Arab Spring protests and Catalonia’s
independence movement. There was a sense of the people
being caught in a situation and the accompanying wait for
something to happen. Lappakornkul and Tan translated this idea
through the physical stranding of different parts of the body,
where Liu worked with the former to create a ‘stranded solo’. It
was interesting for me to observe the different qualities of
musculature engagement when Lappakornkul worked with an
actual external stranding force as compared to an imagined one,
which led me to ponder on the potential facilitation of
embodiment of different nature.
In response to the visual score, Liu and I had different interests for
movement exploration. Liu collected four images of the Rohingya
refugees that connected her to visual score’s element of the hand,
and facilitated the exploration of reaching within a duet and trio
relationship. We carried out some improvisation exercises, took
turns to observe and participate, and engaged in discussions to
share reflections.
From the performer perspective, I am drawn to question the intention
of the reaching hand; if reaching is the act of performance or it is a
performance of reaching. Within an improvisation framework, I often
ended up caught in a futile struggle in my search for freedom within
the constrained relationship of tangled bodies. The possibility for
greater calibration of energy to allow for varied shifts in dynamics
opened up when there is clarity in the relationship between the
bodies. The exploration led to the creation of the ‘reaching duet’ and
‘reaching trio’.
Still from film by Yan-Hong Chen
One part of my movement exploration drew inspiration from the visual score’s
element of the hand and the Absurd. I was working with the association of a falling
hand with death. The accompanying idea of a loss of will developed into a
paradoxical conscious will of a loss of will. Like a trust fall, one actively initiates to
go off balance and consciously takes in every moment of losing control before the
fall is caught. I connected with Camus’ idea of tragic consciousness, where
“Sisyphus, proletarian of the gods, powerless and rebellious, knows the whole
extent of his wretched condition: it is what he thinks of during his descent. The
lucidity that was to constitute his torture at the same time crowns his victory” (121).
We began experimenting with the degree of muscular engagement and release of
the arm and extended the play through to the entire body. We explored different
ways of falling and developed various strategies for catching falls. In the ‘falling
trio’, the faller and catchers who alternate between the roles are to give conscious
thought on when and how to fall and catch, and to allow for sensitive play and
risk-taking in the initiation and recovery of falls. Personally, the process between
the initiation and recovery of falls where one wills and embraces the loss of bodily
control, as well as the occasional failures to catch fall, are the most authentic
moments.
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Scope #1
Should I kill myself OR have a
cup of coffee?:
A co-choreographer’s work-in-progress reflection by Chiew Peishan
Another part of my movement exploration drew inspiration from
personal experiences and the Absurd. I read a final letter written by
Korean pop celebrity, Jong-Hyun Kim, who committed suicide in
December 2017. The use of ‘you’ and ‘I’ to refer to himself and the
clarity of expression in his parting words left deep impressions. I
thought of Camus’ “Happiness and the absurd are two sons of the
same earth” (122), and wondered about the non-accessibility of
happiness from the absurd that led to the suicide.
Lappakornkul, Tan and I wrote and shared our personal absurd
encounters, which I later reorganized Tan’s and my text into the
perspectives of ‘you’ and ‘I’ for Liu and Tan to generate movement
responses. I tapped on the idea of a flipping coin of two sides as a
motif for the duet relationship. Personally, this ‘flipping duet’ has been
ineffective due to my attachment to the text content that informed the
abstract movement responses. The compositional guidelines I came
up with to manipulate the movement materials fell short of motivating
Liu and Tan. The limited amount of time committed to this exploration
had correspondingly led to low clarity in translation. It leads me to
consider exploring different contexts to facilitate a greater sense of
purpose for the duet.
Film is a medium of interest to Liu and I, which leads us to
explore its integration with live performance. We met Chen in
December 2017 to share the concepts behind our creation.
This informed Chen’s proposal of a film narrative with a
central character, Miss S. Through discussions, the initial
theme of ‘Miss S’s final day before she kills herself’ evolved
into ‘A day in the life of Miss S’. The thematic shift allowed for
a better alignment of the creation’s exploration of the
absurdity of living, over an excessive focus on suicide. Liu
and I each came up with different scenarios that couple the
practical daily living to the imaginative way of dying. Edward
Gorey’s A Very Gorey Alphabet Book (1963) provided a
delightful read then. Chen shared his preference of injecting
black humour to heighten a sense of absurdity and lighten up
the potentially dark tone that the creation can incline towards,
and finalized a storyboard for filming.
Still from film by Yan-Hong Chen
The entire team got together for a ten-day residency from end April to early
May. After watching the movement explorations in person, Chen shared
his lack of motivation to capture any on film, as he prefers them to be
performed live. We took on that decision to keep the film content to Miss
S’s narrative, and worked on the integration of the different filmic scenarios
and live performance segments when structuring the creation. We shared
an initial draft of the creation in early May, and is currently at the
developmental stage of deconstruction. We have been working with Neo
throughout rehearsals and the structuring process to widen our
perspectives, which has been especially insightful as Liu and I are also
performing in the creation. Working on the feedback received, we are
rethinking decisions that have been ineffective in translation, reshaping the
context for some parts of the creation, and exploring possibilities to
strengthen the relationship between the live performance and film.
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Scope #1
Should I kill myself or have a
cup of coffee?:
A co-choreographer’s work-in-progress reflection by Chiew Peishan
The themes of repetition, futility and rebellion from Camus
continue to inform our creative process to juxtapose both
real and imagined daily situations from our lives. In my
opinion, the Absurd is far from morbid. Rather than to
venerate suffering or advocate suicide, it encourages a
conscious acknowledgement and resilience towards
despair in life. “By the mere activity of consciousness I
transform into a rule of life what was an invitation to death
- and I refuse suicide. I know, to be sure, the dull resonance
that vibrates throughout these days. Yet I have but a word
to say: that is it necessary” (Camus 64). Each of us can be
an absurd hero like Sisyphus in our own way. There is
much positivity to take away when “The struggle itself
toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must
imagine Sisyphus happy” (Camus 123). Through the work,
I seek to share a trivial lens to perceive little joys from the
absurdity of our everyday being, as well as a reflective lens
for us to be thoughtful observers of our own lives.
Rehearsal of initial draft of work. Image from Chiew Peishan
Bibliography
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https://hirshhorn.si.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/An-Artists-Life-Manifesto.pdf.
Aid Workers Say Many of Those on the Border Are in a Desperate Condition. BBC, 31 Aug. 2017,
www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-41105292.
Aronson, Ronald. “Albert Camus.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford University, 10 Apr. 2017,
plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2017/entries/camus/.
Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus. Vintage Books, 1991.
Giacometti, Alberto. Seeing, Feeling, Being: Alberto Giacometti. Singapore Art Museum, 2008.
Giacometti, Fondation. “Fondation Giacometti.” Fondation Alberto & Annette Giacometti, www.fondation-giacometti.fr/en.
“How The Arab Spring Changed Europe Forever.” YouTube, YouTube, 31 Oct. 2015,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGGDfmhKoyk&t=1s.
jun2yng. “Jonghyun's Dear Friend Nine9 Reveals His Final Letter.” Soompi, Soompi, 19 Dec. 2017,
www.soompi.com/2017/12/18/jonghyuns-dear-friend-nine9-reveals-final-letter/2/.
Lepecki, André. Dance. MIT Press, 2012.
Popova, Maria. “The Gashlycrumb Tinies: A Very Gorey Alphabet Book.” Brain Pickings, 15 Apr. 2017,
www.brainpickings.org/2011/01/19/edward-gorey-the-gashlycrumb-tinies/.
Nørretranders, Tor. “2006 : What Is Your Dangerous Idea? - Social Relativity.” Edge.org, 1 Jan. 2006,
www.edge.org/response-detail/10864.
Rohingya Migrants Rescued from a Fishing Boat Collect Rain Water at a Temporary Shelter. BBC, 10 June 2015,
www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-33007536.
Rohingya Refugees Flee Myanmar. CNN, 17 Nov. 2017,
edition.cnn.com/2017/09/13/asia/gallery/rohingya-refugee-crisis/index.html.
Rozario, Tania De. Tender Delirium. Math Paper Press, 2015.
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TEDxTalks. “The Dark Side of Happiness | Meik Wiking | TEDxCopenhagen.” YouTube, YouTube, 10 May 2016,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbtzY-8IFTQ.
The Unrecognized Rohingya Children. VOA, 16 Sept. 2017, www.voabangla.com/a/rohingya-children-mrc/4031764.html.
voxdotcom. “Catalonia's Independence Movement, Explained.” YouTube, YouTube, 3 Nov. 2017,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=__mZkioPp3E&t=1s.
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About ChIew Peishan
Chiew Peishan graduated with a Master of Arts in
Contemporary Dance (Distinction) from the London
Contemporary Dance School, supported by the National
Arts Council Arts Scholarship (Overseas). She was an
artist with Frontier Danceland (2007-2011), and
manager, associate artistic director and artist with RAW
Moves (2013-2016). She has also created works for Re:
Dance Theatre, T.H.E Second Company, Esplanade
da:ns Festival (2013), and M1 Contact Contemporary
Dance Festival (2014, 2015).
About Liu Wen-Chun
Taiwan-born Liu Wen-Chun received her Master of Fine
Arts in Dance from SUNY Purchase College, New York
with the coveted MFA Performance Award. As a
choreographer, her work has been featured in American
Dance Festival ICR Concert (2017), M1 Contact
Contemporary Dance Festival (2014), and Johor Bahru
Contemporary Dance Festival. She has choreographed
for Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Dance Horizon
Troupe (Singapore), and Lee Wushu Arts (Malaysia). Her
choreography, Tensegrity was awarded ‘The Most
Promising Work’ in Sprouts’ 6th Edition (Singapore).
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About
Dance Nucleus
Dance Nucleus is a space for practice-based research, creative
development and knowledge production for independent dance.
Dance Nucleus fosters a culture of critical discourse,
self-education, artistic exchange and practical support. Our
programmes are designed to respond to the needs of our
members in a comprehensive way. We build partnerships
in Singapore, Southeast Asia, Asia & Australia, and
internationally.
Dance Nucleus is an initiative of the National Arts Council of Singapore.
Associates
Aaron Khek & Ix Wong / Adam Lau /
Bernice Lee / Chen Jiexiao / Chiew
Peishan & Liu Wen-Chun / Chong
Gua Khee & Bernice Lee / Chloe
Chotrani / Daniel Kok & Luke George
/ Dapheny Chen / Elizabeth Chen, Li
Ruimin, Zheng Long / Ezekiel Oliveira
& Christina Chan / Felicia Lim, Faye
Lim, Eng Kai Er, Chan Sze Wei (QQ) /
Hong Guofeng & Chan Woon Chiok /
Hwa Wei-An / Jean Toh / Jereh
Leong / Joao Gouveia & Petra
Vossenberg / Goh Shou Yi (Open
Stage) / Nirmala Seshadri / Pat Toh /
Sabrina Sng / Shanice Stanislaus /
Sigma Dance Company / Shermaine
Heng / Wiing Liu / Xie Shangbin
Team
Artistic Director
General Manager
Studio Manager
General Assistants
Publication Designer
Daniel Kok
Ezekiel Oliveira
Dapheny Chen
Chan Hsin Yee, Denise Dolendo
Rae Chuang
Address
90 Goodman Road, Goodman Arts Centre, Block M,
#02-53, Singapore 439053
Website
www.dancenucleus.com
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