INCIDENTAL PERFORMANCE
Created by present and former company dancers as well as past and new collaborators of Arts Fission, INCIDENTAL PERFORMANCE features new creations that will be performed at various sites inside the National Design Centre, a building that has been ‘made new’ with its present spatial reincarnation.
Presenting a series of simultaneous performances in the spirit of spontaneity and the incidental, the site-specific staging at the National Design Centre also throws historic reference to Art Fission’s seminal site-specific dance in 2000 at the 35th rooftop of the Centennial Tower.
PERFORMANCES
THE HOMECOMING
31 January 2015
PAST COMPANY DANCERS
Scarlet Yu
Elysa Wendi
Bobbi Chen
ARTS FISSION DANCERS
Edwin Wee (Rehearsal Director)
Tomomi Aramaki
Mimi Tavivoradilok
Yarra Ileto
Naomi Tan
Andrea Wong (apprentice)
Geraldine Phang (apprentice)
Nor Liyana (apprentice)
PERFORMERS for ANONYMOUS
LASALLE College of the Arts
Diploma in Dance Levels 1 & 2
FUTURE FEED
6 & 7 February 2015
GUEST ARTISTS
Sukarji Sriman (Indonesia)
Irene K Dance Company (Belgium)
Irene Kalbusch
Anais van Eycken
Jessica van Cauteren
Masami Sakurai
ARTS FISSION DANCERS
Edwin Wee (Rehearsal Director)
Tomomi Aramaki
Mimi Tavivoradilok
Yarra Ileto
Naomi Tan
Andrea Wong (apprentice)
Geraldine Phang (apprentice)
Nor Liyana (apprentice)
PRODUCTION CREDITS
Artistic Director / Dramaturg:
Angela Liong
Producer:
Michele Lim
Production Designers:
Gabriel Chan & Ong Kian Peng
Lighting Designer:
Gabriel Chan
Sound Designers:
Joyce Beetuan Koh & PerMagnus Lindborg
Technical Production Managers:
Stephen Kwek & Jed Lim
Exhibition Visual Designer:
Joyce Ng
Sound Engineer:
Ng Jing
Stage Manager:
Gordon Lai
Marketing Manager:
Meta Setiawan
Administrative Intern:
Teh Jing Lin
Production Support:
Banupriya d/o Ponnarasu
Sandi Tan
Nurasyiqin Binte Mohd Sedik
Angie Wong
Yew Siew Ling
Chong Jing Ru
Denise Dolendo
May Andrea Gue Yao
Ng Hui Lin
FUTURE FEED
WHAT WOULD WE FEED OUR SPIRITS AND HOW DO WE SUSTAIN OUR PHYSICAL BODY IN FUTURE DAYS?
6 - 7 February 2015
National Design Centre
9:15pm
So much of our life is connected to food besides just eating to keep ourselves alive. "We are what we eat" suddenly is no longer just a saying but has detrimental consequences that could alter entire civilizations and humanity.
Hunger and famine for want of basic sustenance, over-consumption and wastage of food produce, depletion of arable lands and climate change, these are phenomenon that drive the issues of food security. Ultimately it comes back down to the most vital questions for each individual: what to eat, and how to ensure our food source in the future.
The creative works in this performance reflect the artists' concerns and laments towards the culture of food and consumption. In Asia, rice is our soul and life force. In the West, potatoes and wheat are key sustenance.
Historically both food cultures are about human's awe to the land, and the kinship that evolves through sharing and part-take of food among each other. The sense of awe breeds mythic stories and creatures that guard the crops and the earth. The blood ties of kinship reinforces affinity through memories of food prepared with love and care.
THE POTATO FIELDS
Choreography: Irene Kalbusch
Performers: Masami Sakurai, Jessica van Cauteren, Anais van Eycken
La pomme de terre se développe et se renfle dans la terre. Elle est gonflée de substances nourricieres.
La terre elle, ancre en profondeur, est solide, compacte et dure. Elle fait courber la tête et le dos, en même
temps elle permet la pulsion et le rebond.
The potato grows and bulges in the earth. It swells from being nourished.
The land itself, a deep anchor. It is solid, dense and hard. She curves the head and back, at the same time
allowing one to drive forward and rebound.
THE RICE PADDIES
Choreography: Angela Liong
Performers: ARTS FISSION full company
The ARTS FISSION Dancers pound their feet and mark the perimeter of the invisible paddy fields at the atrium of an urban building. Human’s awe to the land is retrieved from the sodden rice paddies through solo and duet dances.
The Locust Wrath App sonification of meteorological data is an sound installation that enables the audience to download sound material into their iPhones and become an active part of the soundscape during The Rice Paddies performance.
THE EMPTY RICE BOWLS
Concept: Angela Liong
Performers: Mimie Tavivoradilok, Edwin Wee, Tomomi Aramaki
Fond memories of eating rice come flooding back through utterance from the heart, only to be echoed by modern iPhones attempting to capture the sound of vague remembrances. But the relentless pounding rhythm of toiling in the rice paddies carrys on. Or was it really the heaving and sighing from the wide open mouths of the empty rice bowls?
THE SHAMAN AND THE WATER BUFFALO
Choreography: Sukarji Sriman
Performers: Sukarji Sriman, Yarra Ileto, Naomi Tan, Andrea Wong, Nor Liyana, Geraldine Phang
It is a deep Asian belief that all rice fields are guarded and blessed by benevolent gods or spirits. To ensure crop harvest, offerings and rites are performed regularly in the rice fields. A mysterious figure appears throughout the performance representing the benevolent creature or the transformation of the rice gods.
But the shaman now embodies the anxiety of physical and spiritual hunger, moving out of sync with the
oppressive uniformity of modern urban tempo.
THE HOMECOMING
[an incidental dance performance by dancers -- former and present, of The ARTS FISSION Company]
30/31 Jan 2015
National Design Centre
9:15pm
The site-specific performance turns the building of the National Design Centre into a world where fragmented dance episodes collide into chance encounters. This life’s-coming-and-going is further encapsulated by the multi-layer narratives of the spiky tetrahedron installations with a complex soundscape.
Composer Joyce Beetuan Koh and sound designer PerMagnus Lindborg have created a sonic-mirroring of the tetrahedron form. The soundscape is played live (like a DJ) by the two composers in response to simultaneous performances taking place in various space and level of the atrium.
Installation designers Gabriel Chan and Bin Ong Kian Peng peppered the atrium with various sizes of razor-sharp tetrahedron frames resembling bonsai mountains. These open-framed structures carved meandering paths for the dancers to navigate in the course of their performance.
All the movement works presented have a strong sense of journeying. Dancers constantly gathered and dispersed, drawing the changing dynamics out of our everyday existence. Be it a serendipity gathering of strangers, or planned meeting of acquaintences, the ever fluid crowds assumed a larger personae who speaks to the audience of the neverending search for dreams, companions, and a place to belong.
ELYSA WENDI
[former ARTS FISSION assistant director; now independent artist/film-maker]
Anonymous - this work is loosely inspired by the text used from the Flower-Eaters series II in 1996. The short phrase “Stay if you can stay, go if you must go” gave the choreographic impetus to craft a piece with an ensemble of 19 dancers (made up of diploma 1 and 2 dance students from LASALLE College of the Arts) reflecting on the transitory flow of modern day migration, one that is full of flux and trepidation.
SCARLET YU
[former ARTS FISSION rehearsal director; now independent artist and MFA candidate at Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts]
The Act of Passing – is a work created to celebrate the intimacy and the transformations that occur during the act of passing from one to another. Scarlet invites the spectator to take part in one to one performances that will spread during the whole evening. For each performance, a spectator goes on a journey composed with questions, experiences, and practices that she collected during the time with the ARTS FISSION company, and how they have been transformed until now.
BOBBI CHEN
[former ARTS FISSION senior dancer; now independent artist and MFA candidate at Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts]
Transforming Qingyi (青衣)* – is a work about a personal artistic journey, one that evolves from a prior contrived and prescribed role into a new and even unknown altered state. Qingyi (literally means green robe) is a term conferred to the female lead who possesses mature artistry in traditional Chinese opera. The role for qingyi requires the very specific physical attributes of good voice, good looks and good height. This dance work explores the apprehensive search for artistic identity as well as individual appeasement.
HOMEWARD
Dramaturg: Angela Liong
Assistant Choreographer: Edwin Wee
Choreographic and Movement Collaborators:
Tomomi Aramaki, Mimie Tavivoradilok, Yarra Ileto, Naomi Tan, Andrea Wong, Geraldine Phang, Nor Liyana
Homeward is a group creation by the present members of the dance company.
The devised work is by seasoned professional dancers as well as aspiring young dance artists who are starting out their careers with ARTS FISSION.
The dance work is intentionally cut into segments in order to gather chaotic tension arising from repeated gathering and dispersing. The dance is full of embedded motifs, looping directional paths, and pent up energy that are symbolic of yearnings in a quest searching for the unknown.
The concluding performance of the evening at the metal fire-escape staircase outside of the National Design Centre building brings the audience back to a momentary calm at a familiar place of the everyday, thus restoring for the time being a sense of regularity from the most ordinary space.
INCIDENTAL PERFORMANCE is part of ARTS FISSION’s 20th Anniversary celebration: MAKE IT NEW.
MAKE IT NEW marks and celebrates 20 years of ARTS FISSION’s presence in Singapore’s contemporary dance scene since its inaugural performance at the Asian Performing Arts Festival in 1995. It is forward-looking in spirit: instead of simply reminiscing about ARTS FISSION’s past works, it uses the themes, ideas, concepts and staging ideas in these existing works as inspiration for new dance performances, to initiate stimulating dialogue, to reconnect with past collaborators and to engage with new audiences.
MAKE IT NEW is a 10-day event featuring diverse programmes at different locations. This concept enables ARTS FISSION to share their range of works with the public; allowing you to experience multi-faceted contemporary dance through ARTS FISSION’s 20 years of dance-making.
MAKE IT NEW
Collaborators and Creative team
PAST COMPANY DANCERS
GUEST ARTISTS
ARTS FISSION DANCERS
YARRA
ILETO
CREATIVE TEAM
ARTS FISSION would especially like to thank the following individuals for their generous support of Incidental Performance:
Michelle Zee, Rynn Chua, Zeth Fu and all the technicians at the National Design Centre, LASALLE College of the Arts (Dance, Acting, Arts Management, Technical Production Management departments), kapok cafe, Luvenia Kalia, Chan Hsin Yee, the Media, Derick Pang, The Printing Post, Jacquie Tan, and the crew and volunteers of Incidental Performance, media, families and friends.
ARTS FISSION is grateful to the following sponsors for their generous support:
Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple, Lee Foundation
Hong Kong Arts Development Council (for Scarlet Yu’s performance)
PAST COMPANY DANCERS
Scarlet Yu
Scarlet Yu is a dancer and choreographer studying at The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts under the Master in Dance program. Previously, she was the Rehearsal Director for ARTS FISSION (2000-2010); during this time, she performed many memorable roles as a soloist, and also toured internationally with the company.
She has worked with various international companies and artists in Asia, Europe and North America to create performances such as Scarlet is mumbling (in collaboration with Aaron Khek), and 13 knots to Home. She has also done work in dance films; her dance video collaboration with Hong Kong-based dance filmmaker, Maurice Lai, Rite of City, was selected for the 2013 Cannes short film corner.
Elysa Wendi
Elysa is a Singaporean dance artist who has been working in a diverse range of artistic forms from contemporary choreography to filmmaking and set design since 1999. She has served as the Assistant Artistic Director for ARTS FISSION from 2002 to 2008.
Her dance films have been screened in several film festivals across Hong Kong, Macau, Guangzhou and Beijing since 2010; her short dance video Mountain and a Flower (2013) was screened as part of the Sacre/liege(s)-R by Body Cinema in France and Europe.
Currently, Wendi works across Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan on her dance film projects.
Bobbi Chen
Bobbi Chen graduated from the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) in Singapore, and has worked as a senior dancer in ARTS FISSION (2004-2011). She has performed in several short films and dance films; one of her feature films was selected for the Cannes Film Festival (2011), and was also nominated for Best Film and Best Director in the Vietnam International Film Festival (2011).
As a performing artist, Bobbi has collaborated with various filmmakers, visual artists, architects, composers, scientists and media artists to create works such as Sky of Nepal and Du.
Bobbi is currently studying in the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, in the Master in Dance Program.
FEATURED ARTISTS
Sukarji Sriman
Born in Kediri, East Java, Indonesia, Sukarji Sriman studied dance begin at Vocational School of Performing Arts in Surakarta, Central Java. He graduating, he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) degree at the Jakarta Institute of the Arts in Jakarta; he completed his Masters of Fine Arts in Dance from Smith College, USA in 2001. As a leading contemporary Indonesian dancer and choreographer, he was invited to the International Choreographer Commissioning Program for the American Dance Festival in 1990, where he performed The Circle of Bliss, and was invited back in 2000, where he performed A Time of Darkness. He was the Head of the Dance Program at Malaya University for six years.
Currently, he is Head of the Dance Committee for the Jakarta Arts Council (2013-2015), and is Head of the Dance Department in the Faculty of Performing Arts at Jakarta Institute of the Arts.
Irene K Dance Company
Compagnie Irene K. is a contemporary dance company founded in 1978 in Eupen (Belgium) by its art director Irène Borguet-Kalbusch. From the very beginning, Kalbusch has valued working with professional dancers of many different nationalities. Consequently, the Company has developed its own contemporary dance style similar to Tanztheater, a contemporary dance theatre form.
Aside from stage performances, the Company offers performances in urban and alternative landscapes that feature interesting architectural spaces; it also organised the festival, Dance in the City, in 2013. The Company also develops educational, creative and interdisciplinary projects regularly.
ARTS FISSION DANCERS
Edwin Wee
Edwin joined ARTS FISSION as an apprentice, was offered the position of full- time dancer in 2009, and was appointed the company’s Rehearsal Director in January 2012. He graduated from Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) with a Diploma in Dance, majoring in contemporary dance. Upon graduation, he was invited by NAFA to present his graduating choreography, The Shaman’s Cat, at the da:ns Festival (2008) at the Esplanade.
He has also performed in Blk 33 (2008) choreographed by Aaron Khek Ah Hock; Generations Spotlight: Moscow (2008) directed by Ivan Heng, where he performed for the President of Russia, Dmitriy Medvedev, and Singapore’s Senior Minister, Goh Chok Tong. He later performed for His Excellency President of Singapore SR Nathan at the Singapore Design Awards (2008).
Tomomi Aramaki
Tomomi joined ARTS FISSION as an associate artist in December 2011. Trained in classical ballet since 1986, she began her contemporary dance study under Shinji Nakamura and Mako Kawano. She joined their dance company, Natural Dance Theatre, in 1998 and toured with the company to Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival and the American Dance Festival in the United States in 2008. She also performed in the company’s Germany tour in major cities like Frankfurt, Dusseldolf, Munster, and Potsdam.
Yarra Ileto
Born in Australia, Yarra Ileto began her dance training in ballet completing her RAD grade and major examinations. In 1999, she joined Quantum Leap Youth Dance Company under the direction of Ruth Osbourne and in 2000, she performed at the Dance Excellence convention in Los Angeles with the Canberra Youth Ballet School. Ileto graduated with a BA First Class Honours Degree in Performing Arts (Dance) at LASALLE College of the Arts in Singapore.
She joined ARTS FISSION in Janurary 2015 after performing as a senior dancer with the T.H.E. Dance Company (2008-2014).
Mimi Tavivoradilok
Mimi joined ARTS FISSION as a full-time company dancer in December 2011. In 2004, she performed with renowned ballerina Marcia Haydee in The Tempest, held in Bangkok. In 2005, she collaborated with artists from the UNESCO-Aschberg program in The Travelling Artists under the auspices of the Guangdong Modern Dance Festival.
Naomi Tan
Naomi joined ARTS FISSION as a full-time company dancer in November 2013. She graduated from Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) with a Diploma in Dance, majoring in contemporary dance. Upon graduating, she participated in “The Locust Wrath” performance as an apprentice and ARTS FISSION’s annual children’s dance performance, “Things with Wings” as a full-time dancer.
Andrea Wong
Andrea joined ARTS FISSION as an apprentice in February 2013. She graduated from The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Hon) Degree, majoring in contemporary dance. Upon graduating, she participated in the ARTS FISSION’s annual children’s dance performance, “Things with Wings” as an apprentice.
Nor Liyana
Nor Liyana joined ARTS FISSION as an apprentice in June 2014. She enrolled in LASALLE in the year 2011 and is now a graduate with a Diploma Certificate in Dance. While in LASALLE, she has been taught genres such as Contemporary, Ballet, Hiphop, Salsa, Asian Dance and Improvisation. She has also worked with Dance Artists such as Albert Tiong, Foo Yun Ying, Chiew Pei Shan, Dapheny Tan and Yarra Ileto. She also performed in productions in and out of school such as "Awakenings", "Continuum dance exchange" and "Sprouts 2013".
Geraldine Phang
Geraldine joined ARTS FISSION as an apprentice in June 2014. Born and raised in Sydney, Australia, Geraldine started dancing at the age of six. In 2009, she left before her senior year in high school to pursue her passion as a fulltime ballet dancer at Tanya Pearsons Classical Coach Academy, Sydney. During these two years she was given the opportunity to dance in classical ballet pieces such as The Nutcracker, Polar Express and a soloist role as an ugly stepsister in Cinderella.
In 2011, she came to Singapore and was accepted into the Dance department at Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. She was selected and given the opportunity to work with choreographers from Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, England and America during her time in NAFA. In 2014, she successfully completed and graduated from the three-diploma course under their dance performance major.
CREATIVE TEAM
Shane Thio
Shane had his early music education in Singapore and was subsequently awarded an Associated Board Scholarship to study at the Royal Academy of Music in London. He was the recipient of the 1992 National Arts Council Young Artists Award, which enabled him to pursue further studies at the Royal College of Music. As a multitalented musician, he has an extensive portfolio of collaborative work with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Singapore Dance Theatre, Theatreworks and other local and international creative bodies.
He has performed in the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra’s Contemporary Music Series; for the Singapore Arts Festival, he performed E-Man-cipation with the Singapore Dance Theatre based on Joyce Koh’s IX Lives of a Cat.
Joyce Beetuan Koh
Award winning composer Dr Joyce Beetuan Koh, creates works for concert music, dance collaborations, text-sound to sound installations. Her works are performed widely in Europe and Asia; two of her piano works have also been published by the Associated Board Royal Schools of Music UK. The International Piano Quarterly has described her sound world as one that “engages the intellect and requires a different approach”. Her works have been widely performed at international festivals and concert series such as The Proms, ISCM World Music Days, Biennale Musiques France, Melbourne Arts Festival, and Singapore Arts Festival by musicians and orchestras. Her works has also been performed by notable groups such as Ensemble Contemporaine de Montreal, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Hungarian Radio Orchestra, Stavanger SO, and East Anglia Chamber Orchestra, just to name a few.
Dr Koh holds a Ph.D in Composition (York, UK) and Postgraduate Diploma in Music Computing (IRCAM, Paris). She worked as independent composer in London and Paris for 20 years. Currently, she is Vice Dean (Interdisciplinary Studies) at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (Singapore).
PerMagnus Lindborg
Composer, performer and researcher, Lindborg has been a member of the Norwegian Society of Composers since 1996 and Assistant Professor since 2007 at the School of Art|Design|Media at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Lindborg studied piano, trombone, mathematics, languages, classical music and jazz improvisation in his native Sweden before concentrating on comp`osition. He obtained degrees from Oslo (State Academy of Music 1995) and Paris (Ircam 1999 and Sorbonne 2003), and is currently pursuing a PhD at TMH, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm.
His compositions include the sound design for "On the String" and “TreeTorika” for saxophone and chamber orchestra at Ultima Festival 2006. Lindborg’s music has been released on ECM, Daphne and his own label, as well as with the sound artist group freq_out, on Ash International.
Joyce Ng
An award winning designer, Joyce Ng was trained in fine art, majoring in painting at LASALLE-SIA College of the Arts; she has since been in the professional art scene for more than 10 years. Her works have been exhibited locally and internationally.
Her professional art career spanned from 1998 to 2001; after which, she joined MG Digital in 2001 optimising print samples for Hewlett-Packard. In 2003, she became a design member with MadAboutDesign, the agency well known for its ability to combine Asian and Western, traditional and modern designs for B-to-B and B-to-C. In 2007, she joined Meta Fusion PL.
Gabriel Chan
A recipient of the NAC Overseas Bursary award and Strand Lighting scholarship, Gabriel graduated from the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts with First Class Honours in lighting design, and has completed an observer-ship at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.
Designing regularly for The Theatre Practice, Singapore Repertory Theatre, Toy Factory Productions, amongst others, notable credits include I Love A-Ai, Venus in Fur, The Jade Bangle, and Lord of the Flies. A painter of light and a sculptor of shadows, his signature design,OCBC Garden Rhapsody, a light and sound show, runs daily at Gardens by the Bay, Supertree Grove.
Ong Kian Peng
Kian Peng graduated from UCLA in 2013 with a Masters in Media Arts, and will participate in the Substation’s Associate Artist Research Programme from April 2015 to 2017. He is currently an Interaction Design lecturer at Nanyang Polytechnic.
Aside from his solo exhibitions, such as The Face Daily for the M1 Fringe Festival (2014), he has also recently begun his foray into multimedia design in theatre with Fluid (2014), a production The Theatre Practice for the M1 Chinese Theatre Festival.