Smogarsbord. You get into a mood after each piece. The Artistic Director Mr Janek Schergen emphasised that these are works in the making – they were made after the choreographers had completed the workshop but are not ‘complete’.
1. You Ate My Guest
Etienne says, he sent a text to someone about last year’s Made in Singapore, intending to write ‘You are my guest”, but it came out as “You ate my guest”, and thus this brought to mind issues of communication and misunderstandings. Etienne also hand-made the skirts and jackets, and he hand-dyed them to achieve the colours he wanted. Gorgeous soft cottony blues, light lemons and limes, and berry hues; macaron shades. That’s really impressive, because making clothes to measure and dying them is an arduous task and no mean feat.
Piquant is the word. Sharp, tart, utterly refreshing. Drifting Circles sees everyone in a brightly-coloured opening act, with symmetry and pattern-work reminiscent of Etienne’s piece last year; and this fast-paced bit goes down very well. It ends with Stephanie Joe as a Madonna (the one onstage with the dancers) reclining upon the ground, anticipating lavish attention, the purveyor of which is Agetsuma Satoru, who covers his ears as he yells inaudibly in rage at her, but plasters a large smile on his face when she looks up at him, as a king may look at a cat. And so everyone in the background whispers and gossips and gawks as Stephanie, the Queen Bee, goes by. Great juicy steps, pick-pick-picking her way across the stage, each foot a perfect little stab of an invisible Louboutin heel. She is the cat with the cream and the bird in hand that is worth the proverbial two, reveling in her charm, and relishing every moment. This is juicy – the gossip, the oozing thrill of the queen enjoying her moment; and the crowd at the back falls away and every one of your eyes is on her. As with last year, Etienne brings us an interesting new insight into the dancers – the dancer you always wanted to see, with a new voice you never knew you would get to hear.
Thusly, we see Jasper Arran in a brief but heartbreaking and deeply empathetic moment in a red jacket in More Love Less Hate (I think) – struggling with the voice in his head, his hands tearing at himself and pushing himself backwards in an internal struggle – I wish I could love myself more but I can’t love myself at all – and his longing eye draws us to the very opposite of emotions – the couple confidently in love entering the stage from our right, Minigeshi Kana and Takeaki Miura in a beautiful pas de deux specially crafted for them, showcasing all the allure of Kana and steadfast dedication of Takeaki (The Orangery). We have Watanabe Tamana in a chic bob, chipper as ever, deservedly in the limelight with a summery energy, and a spring and elasticity in her step, owning her stage and her moment.
This is a cast that knows the joke that they are sharing with us. The two lines of dancers facing off in a flashy disco (Real Life) are enjoying themselves tremendously and have drunk the glitter soda of Pow Wow Drum Electric. We finally get to see Kevin Zong, who, like the rest of the cast, is fully aware what this is about and rolls with it. There’s a zing of humour and a subtle nudge and wink in his dancing. Nobody takes themselves overly-seriously here. But we don’t forget that this is a dance, one with a ferocious joy of life and a little psycho touch of dark humour (the girls with their imaginary machine guns and large smiles jiving to the rat-a-tat-tat on the music).
While watching, I thought: this is something the kids and teenagers would understand and enjoy it thoroughly, I think, and they can be quite the harshest critics. They would love it. It appeals to a universal set of emotions in the human because by the time we are teens, we have all observed or felt the moments in this piece. And somehow the thought of it being shown in schools and kids enjoying it, just made me almost tear up. I bet I’ll forget to say this so I won’t store it away: on Jasper Arran, I feel like what we see in his dancing is an unabashed spirit and voice that speaks, through his dancing, to the audience.
The AD Mr Schergen said he had told Etienne that it needed one more scene, perhaps. We would be quite excited to see the final work with that one more scene, then.
After this comes After and we ask ourselves, what kind of piece would and could possibly follow You Ate My Guest?
The staff bring in a long table and a little vase with a white flower. Here we are, after.
2. After
I wonder who died? asks the quiet little rational voice in the head; will we know who died?
It opens with Yeo Chan Yee alone behind the table, entirely in black, after the funeral. And after the funeral, alone to her self, she proceeds to undergo the long and terrible process of guilt and self-flagellation, repeated with increasing anguish and painful eloquence. Have hands that grasped one’s own throat in an agony, or arms that slithered across the table, or fists that rent across the back like lashings of a thorned whip, or beseeching hands, ever articulated so much pain? Even remembering it makes the hair stand on end. Chan Yee is frighteningly, heartrendingly convincing, and the choreography is incredible.
Only the white flower stands witness to this, and in one swipe, it drops out of the vase and onto the ground.
Timothy Ng enters and stops her in the middle of her self-flagellation, but he cannot bring her peace. No one can bring her peace. The other mourners try, but as locked as she was in her earlier agony, she remains trapped in a daze. We grip our arms, because we are about to cry openly; because we are frightened to know that the answer to our question is that a child has died. The other female mourners join her in their own mourning – Henriette Garcia scoops up the flower and the women echo her movements, but there is an essence of there but for the grace of God go I – whatever genuine blind grief she is feeling, they can sympathise with, but will never fully comprehend.
Yorozu Kensuke is involved in a taut, tense, difficult partnership of a dance with Chan Yee, as if trying, and failing, to bring her to her senses; we have a moment of quiet appreciation for Kensuke – if anyone can pull off some of these impossible-looking partnering moves, it must be him.
Let her draw her little circles in the sand wandering in her grief. Now comes the anger, shocking in its suddenness and brutality. May Yen Cheah draws dividing lines on the table. So it is not a child who has died, but a parent, perhaps. With these lines, the family is sundered. Everyone was a mourner supporting the frailest, but now there is a rich graceful anger: John De Dios is a bundle of resolute certainty against Yorozu Kensuke, who is intimidating but human – his expression and body language carries not mere anger but also the force of reason. May Yen and Henriette (sure-footed, feline grace) up against a suddenly hapless Kensuke. People lean into each other’s personal spaces and their arms cross and hands slide across the table; they occupy the spaces around them with the weight of their argument. John De Dios’ dancing is always graceful, tight and controlled; not controlled in the sense of being rigid, but in the sense of knowing how much force to exert to create a sharp impact, rather than a loose reckless shape.
Timothy and John are up on the table – occasionally, surprisingly, dignified in anger. Just as you think you can consider taking sides because John and Kensuke have joined bullying forces to overcome May Yen, appallingly, May Yen turns against Chan Yee, and Timothy must step in to defend her. The physicality of the dancers’ moves and the use of the weight and height of their bodies and the changing angles as they battle against each other without exactly throwing one another across the floor magnifies the bile and toxicity of their arguments.
Finally, Chan Yee crawls under the table and wraps herself tight into a bundle with her head bowed and her hands over her ears so that she can hear, speak, and see no evil. At the end, she remains isolated under the crushing weight of the table. It’s an amazing and horrifying visual that you have to unlock: she ends this as it begins, isolated and alone in her misery; and above the table, she has harangued herself ceaselessly and below the table, the weight of suffering remains on her shoulders.
The AD said before the show that the choreographer Naomi Tan (whom he had taught dance and watched dancing in NAFA) had come to him to ask for who to cast. She shared that she had had the men in mind, but did not know the women to pair with them, and he had suggested them, and this was the perfect cast with exactly what she had in mind. And yes. I thought – oh, okay, when she said it. But it was.
When I saw the names in this cast, I was glad and curious. Glad, because a small cast means we get to focus on everyone and see them in a different spotlight, and also see the experienced dancers whom we have missed seeing in such solo-esque roles – May Yen and Kensuke can tell entire stories in their movements; curious, because I had not seen some of them in such a challenging type of role before. And when the full set of mourners appeared, I realised that the dancers connected with the audience, and that brought a ring of truth to the entire performance. Special mention: Henriette Garcia, because we wanted especially to see her dancing in this; watching her in the mourner’s portion, it became apparent that she displays emotion that is immediate and genuine, and shares a connection with the audience that feels very direct and real.
Offhand, this piece reminded me, in a good way, of that other piece with the table that we saw (NDT’s The Statement by Crystal Pite) and another piece we watched by students here, I think, in 2015 (involving computers). But it is its own piece, with its own unique flavour. Body language tells more than half the story. Just look at the pictures below. Look at that third one.
3. Gravitation
The pictures tell the thousand words. Effortlessly seamlessly slickly professional – quick, clean; little moves for the beats and suddenly large surprises like everyone clambering up on chairs. The dancers’ energy and the choreography build a mood and atmosphere that draws you in.
Once or twice, like a sneeze on a warm morning, you remembered that the choreographer is a professional dancer and not a choreographer usually in the 9-to-5 day. For this, especially in parts with the entire group dancing or the remarkable engaging Agetsuma Satoru-Jasper Arran duo dance, the choreography felt like a natural use of the music – “but of course” this is what the music would translate into.
This is the process of getting through the day to get through the day – into the chairs, out of the chairs, atop the chairs – in and out of the mind, clamber in, back away, men crawling at the back, a row of women taking the dagger and stabbing it in the flesh of the gut – today starts the day that does not end. But there are also moments that offer respite; the women in a quiet domino-effect chain – a little human touch on the arm, the cheek, hands linked in comfort, and this repeats like the figurines on a music box spinning; Jessica Garside in a meditative state, giving the restive mind some solace.
A little like After, I think it would be fun to see this with lighting choices (i.e. not just the light of the studio), and I also had a bit of a surprise when it ended, I don’t know why – perhaps because I had already logged in and was startled when I had to log my brain out.
It was good to see dancers like Jessica Garside, Leane Lim, Tanaka Nanase, Yatsushiro Marina, John De Dios, who were not in some of the new recent works (I dug back into the archives to be very sure). I love how you can see the emotions of the dance in their faces and their dancing; dependably clean, solid dancers who are interesting to watch because they have their own style and voice. Wanted to mention Justin Zee – one minute, drenched in the hilarious times in You Ate My Guest and in another blink, exuding the intense grim energy of Gravitation; always nice to see different dimensions to a dancer in different roles.
4. Flamboyance
What is this? A loving spoof of classical dance, in parts; a chance to see the dancers in the craziest of things that bring a smile on the face; a chance for the dancers to be madcap and be cast in the nuttiest (we mean this well) wonderful dance; men decidedly not in hot pink tights but in fuchsia; flamingo wing arms and beak hands. Ladies, arms round each other, mincing familiarly (now which dance was this again) and preening in the background; the gentlemen strutting about and forming a court centred around Jason Carter, the Prince Flamingo who soars through the air with panache, pleased as punch. Everyone knows what they signed up for and it is one reel of fun – but it is all good solid dance, and it loves its cast. It’s good to see Mizuno Reo get a chance to showcase his rapier-sharp dancing.
Shades of Swan Lake and other romances. We have Uchida Chihiro and Nakamura Kenya in a familiar pas de deux, an almost overwrought romance – you can tell they know they are hamming it up in their own way, but do you know what else? – it is a seriously good pas de deux and seriously good dancing. Kwok Min Yi and Jason Carter also have a lovely pas de deux that looks incredibly fluffy in a romantic and fashion sense and yet also truly blissful. The girls dance bits that look suspiciously like snippets of the black swan pas de deux, all with knowing smiles. Trust Shan Del Vecchio of last year’s unforgettable Shan Pop Theatre to bring us a work that makes our cheeks ache from smiling.
This is an entire body of work that celebrates the dancers as much as the dances it fleetingly reminds us of. It’s tongue-in-cheek, but the choreography is serious, and I love how the music has been translated into these dances. I was pinching my arms trying so hard not to cry and wet my mask during After, and then during Flamboyance, I was trying so hard not to laugh out loud so many times. Fortunately, I attended with a very supportive and appreciative audience.
They also run all together, but not so tightly, flapping their wings – my favourite line of the night, and a punchline in its own way.
Here’s a trailer that shows you what the workshop was like. Intriguing. Note that these were not actually shown that night, I think. It’s incredibly creative and looks fun – Jeremie Gan fake-tied to a chair while captors (?) dance on cheerfully, Stephanie Joe as the goddess in the centre of a flower bud of worshippers, girls with bags and cups as props.
I enjoyed this round of Made in Singapore. It was good to see the dancers perform, and if I have gotten any names wrong, whoops and I am very sorry.
.. every single one of these works was so good that I wished I could have brought friends (particularly those who enjoy contemporary works) to see them.
balletbelatedetcetera 
Quite some groundbreaking, Lady
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Yes – a spellbinding show. I wondered how each piece could top the next, but they each were as brilliant as the last and yet completely different. I would love to see every single one of them again in the near future.
Do take care. Thank you for taking the time to comment. Wishing you a speedy recovery! ❤
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