FUSE#1

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.
81 82