the cosmos

Phew! My backlog will finally see the light of day - some shows so great that I have to share them with you:



I have long held a reverence for the classical Indonesian dance forms. The fine control of the limbs and the gaze, the amazing tension with which the dancers shift from one moment to the next turns the space into a tangible substance. I imagine that the air in which they move has become condensed with mythology. Dances created for epics, each phrase flows into yet another development and it seems that it would be simplistic to try and pin down a beginning and an end.

I hesitated only a little before I bought myself a ticket for Infinita, a collaboration of a traditional Javanese dance company with a Korean contemporary choreographer, set to the music of Ligeti. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, since my impression of this contemporary Austrian composer is chiefly from hearing Lux Aeterna (of Space Odyssey 2001) ten years ago - it was discordant, complicated, disturbing stuff to me. Anyway, I wasn't sure I'd be able to handle an hour of that. But I was certainly curious. The performance poster cited an Austrian newspaper critic, "as if they have always been one: Ligeti's music and Javanese dance..." Well, really?

The dance began with a classical enough setting and costumes, an ensemble of five men and one woman, formal patterns set to Ligeti's mercurial piano etudes. The natural harmony in the shifting patterns of that classical dance form, that vision of a universe in flux, does indeed sit well with the whimsical musical phrasing. And what exquisite dancers! Lithe and soundless, they took you through the evening from the traditional to brightly idiosyncratic solos, duets and trios where the classical aesthetic blended with quirky character pantomime and some rather contemporary leaps and turns. They executed with incredible control and personality. Then drawing back to a more classical idiom, three men emerged with a large gilt chair. In near suspended motion, they tumbled it across the downstage horizontal, transforming it into a hillside, a palanquin, a fort and a throne for a monkey king.

The vignettes by the javanese dancers were spliced with interludes by a tall, pale Korean lady who seemed to be a projection from another dimension. Surreal in her whiteness, remote baldness and some incredible costumes reminiscent of Queen Amygdala, she suspended time and space intensely somewhere between the Javanese classical technique, contemporary and Korean dance. In the finale, both she and the Javanese dancers appeared on stage together for the only time. It appeared she would conquer the ensemble on a downstage diagonal. Perhaps she was marking the turn of the seasons in the tropical Indonesian climate. I'm really not sure. (I found out only later that the pale lady was actually the choreographer.)

The lights came up after rapt applause; audience members, me included, surged for the door in search of answers on the programme notes.

- Infinita by Sen Hea Ha and Taman Budaya Surakarta Dance Theatre was staged at the Esplanade Theatre Studio on 31 Oct and 1 Nov 2008.

Sometimes it really pays to stick around! In what appears to be freak coincidence, I landed my first solo role, an indianised adaptation of the Diaghilev ballet l'Apres Midi d'un Faune. Fancy me, playing Pietragalla....

Dans Festival 2008: Why I dance II

I saw the Nederlands Dans Theater I last night. Sitting in the dark with 2000 people for Silent Screen by Lightfoot Leon. It was one of the moments for which I live. Not just a moment for which I dance. The curious opening of a light somewhere inside you such that when you leave the theatre, you know that you leave as a different person.

It made sense to me then that it must be the study of movement. It is movement that we recognise as life - the unfurling of a leaf, the agitations of an amoeba. I was reminded recently by my music lecturer Dr Sharpley that we humans live based on flimsy sensations of thought, communication and perception. As far as we have been able to use those flimsy senses to discover, those thoughts and perceptions of light, sound, and heat are in themselves movement: the eternal spinning and collision of particles. Movement is why we live.

Is destiny a molecule, an atom, a quark?

Today I am reading these stunning quotes from Merce Cunningham and Alwin Nikolais:

"you have to love dancing to stick to it. it gives you nothing back, no manuscripts to store away, no paintings to show on walls and maybe hang in museums, no poems to be printed and sold, nothing but that single fleeting moment when you are alive." - Merce Cunningham

"We do not have to be educated to understand the abstract language of motion, for motion is the stuff of which our every moment of life is preciously concerned." - Alwin Nikolais

And one of my old favourites from an artist who has also been a dancer. Perhaps why she understands that we start with the physical, with movement.

"Art is why I get up in the morning." - Ani diFranco

Why I dance

The two questions I have answered most frequently since I started dancing full time are "What is contemporary dance?" and "Why did you choose dance?"

The first question usually comes from people whose understanding of dance is confined to some vague ideas of the "known" quantities of ballet and social dance. Contemporary dance has many definitions, I tell them, but I like to think of it as everything that came from Isadora Duncan and onwards, efforts to express movement outside the strict vocabulary of classical ballet technique. It can have the freedom of abstract art. It can explore the imagination like the many musical compositions that do not describe a specific thing. It can also have the authenticity of a photograph or document everyday life.

I am appreciating the second question more and more. It's made me think again about my glib convictions. At first I said simply, "because nothing else feels as incredible as this." But why incredible? The majority of regular folks claim to be stumped or bored by dance performances and dance is supposed to be the hardest art to sell. So why does this form of communication and expression move me like no other, and why would I be so convinced that this is the best way to touch other people?

Above all, dance is an art. There is something in art (as well as philosophy and the pure sciences) of the search to understand humanity and our world. It may be wonderful for people to spend their lives making widgets, stacking up investment dollars (or crying over them as it were today), getting their breasts enlarged or blindly parroting the tenets of some belief. But I know that's not enough. To be awake, to really live, we need to observe, engage and understand.

While I dabble in creative writing and theatre and enjoy those forms very much, there's nothing else like dance. Dance, along with music, is one of the art forms that crosses all boundaries of language or culture. Anyone able to perceive dance should be able to associate with it directly, because physicality is the most important medium through which we experience our world. The body is our instrument for living. Walking, running, jumping, sitting, the feeling of contact with another human or with objects, sensations of warmth or emptiness, the physical manifestations of emotion. Someone listening to music may appreciate the sound but might not relate to its creation because he has never played the piano or guitar. But someone watching dance can relate to jumping, balancing, or the powerful physical expression of joy or grief - much in the way that we are fascinated with the feats of Olympic athletes because we can understand those superhuman exertions in the context of our own, ordinary, bodies.

I am learning each day that dance is an art that requires immense discipline, conviction and pain. So as of 17 September 2008, this is why I still dance.

Dans Festival 2008

Pocketbuster #2 of the year has arrived for me.

If you are a dance fan, head for SISTIC if you haven't already done so! Do NOT miss Nederlands Dans Theater I.

http://www.dansfestival.com

Pinch yourself

It's true? Three weeks: I have given away my alberto rinaldi suit, moved to the far industrial reaches of this island, corrected my vision of the last 20 years, and disguised myself as a student-card carrying 18 year-old. (Disillusioning my classmates about my age is the best fun. The China posse even screamed in disbelief and seized my IC.) And best of all, DANCING every day. And talking and writing and thinking about dance not on the bus or the loo, but in my focused time.

After my first week at NAFA, my groaning ankles and back are glad to remind me that it's real. Change is good. Change is possible! I'll save my miserable moments for later. Nothing else feels like this.

my new address on Bencoolen Street.
irrelevantly, also one of the worst designed school buildings and logos ever

the little company that could

This contemporary triple bill was a pleasant surprise from SDT. They are perking up and saying "I can" by breaking out of the tried and tested repeat telecasts of Coppelia, Maninyas and Lambarena. Instead, they plucked some ambitious pieces from the repertory of top ballet companies of the world - ABT and Dutch company Introdans. And another neoclassical gem, which is my first introduction to the work of the Dutch National Ballet.

The company emerged luminous in A million kisses to my skin by David Dawson and Glow-stop by Jorma Elo, who is apparently the new enfant terrible of neo-classical ballet. Elo is from Finland, of all random non-ballet-powerhouse places. (A nice interview with Elo by SDT. I hope they do indeed commission a work from him!)

What was most challenging about these group pieces is that they are typically set on companies with an outstanding ballet corps. You need more than just a couple of star ballerinas for these - kisses has a cast of 9 and glow-stop of 6, equally demanding roles. SDT delivered. Leaping, exuberant trios and duos in blue flitted across a glowing white stage in kisses. The star of the night was Chihiro Uchida. She took on her solo and duets in kisses with a charming zest and an iridescent presence. Glow-stop was a mysterious aviary in sensuous red, revealed in a series of cold spot lights. Elo's choreography was a joy, echoing the snap-bang of Ratmansky's Middle Duet, and the playful freedom of a boxful of wind-up toys.

SDT did a great job in this show. But at times the rough edges showed. Certain sections looked a little under rehearsed, and at moments some dancers struggled to keep up with the athletic choreography. The heavy and contemplative Evening by Graham Lustig piece proved too challenging; the lifts were stilted and the dancers just couldn't seem to drum up the required dramatic lyricism. The poet's collapse at the end of the piece appeared to be one of boredom.

Okay, who are we kidding. This isn't ABT. But they're ambitious and I think it will take them far. I was proud that evening to be able to say that this is our national ballet company.

-Continuum by Singapore Dance Theatre on 13 June 2008, The Esplanade Theatre