FUSE#1

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