For Art’s Sake!

Here’s a suggestion. Let’s dub Noor Effendy Ibrahim the long-lost sibling of the Coen brothers.

It’s no secret that I have a preference for works that are strange, funny, dark, and generally make you uncomfortable.

And Teater Ekamatra’s Bilik Ahmad Berdaki, the complete (?) staging of Fendy’s trilogy (?) after 2008’s Bilik Ahmad, is all of the above.

The three black comedy pieces comprising BAB all follow the same idea of these creepy domestic worlds being turned upside down by the presence of an outsider. (All done by a great ensemble cast: Misha’al Syed Nasar, Saiful Amri Ahmad Elahi, Izad Omar, Anwar Hadi Ramli, Siti Zuraida Rahim and Gloria Tan.)

All are independent of each other but tangentially intersect since it happens to different households on the same street. (Think of movies like Babel or Traffic, an approach done to death in cinema, but something I would like to see more of onstage here.)

Not to repeat everything that happens onstage but the gist of the works are as follows:

In Bilik, a bunch of murderers (Fendy earlier said they’re cannibals but I think it’s an open-ended assumption on the part of the viewer) go about their daily lives boasting about their respective number of kills using their respective tools, while nonchalantly brewing coffee and discussing proper word choices (!) – until one of them does the unthinkable (bwaha!), leaves a survivor (Aisah) and brings her home! “What will the neighbours say!”

Ahmad, meanwhile, follows five dudes who all go by the same name and spend an entire day worshipping a bunch of bananas, asking for the time and deciding whether said banana is sweet or sour. Until neighbour Dahlia shows up and encourages them to eat it with sugar – in a very sexual way.

Finally, Berdaki’s household consists of these caged (and again, creepy) neat-freaks who “invite” a passerby for dinner. Said passerby is Aisah’s husband.

There was a comment during the post-show talk about how some of the characters weren’t fully fleshed out (or maybe the proper term is “spelled out”), but that’s one of the things I liked about BAB – you never fully grasp who the characters are, a lot of who they are are laid out on a purely suggestive level, and it’s all told in a wonderfully elliptical way.

So much so that even if I don’t “get it”, I “feel” it on a gut level.

I wish to see more of these works where skewed morals are enacted so nonchalantly, where stage becomes a flattened playing field where anything goes. As in anything.

Case in point are the number of straight-faced role reversals among the characters: A Chinese woman speaking in Malay, a Malay dude speaking in Hokkien, a man playing a woman, a woman playing a man. And of course the fact that every household is a deviant household.

BAB’s supposed to be a trilogy. But hey, I would love to see more of these strange families that live in this strange neighbourhood.

What say you, Noor Effendy Ibrahim Coen?

You can catch one final matinee show of Bilik Ahmad Berdaki tomorrow, Jan 24, 3pm, at the National Museum’s Gallery Theatre. Tickets (if there are still some left) are $27 from Sistic.

And that’s about it for the RAT’s online coverage of the M1 Singapore Fringe Festival. Until next year, stay safe, stay fringe!

Tags: Anwar Hadi Ramli, Bilik Ahmad Berdaki, Coen Brothers, Gloria Tan, Izad Omar, Misha'al Syed Nasar, Noor Effendy Ibrahim, Saiful Amri Ahmad Elahi, Singapore Fringe Festival, Singapore theatre, Siti Zuraida Rahim, Teater Ekamatra

The smoke machine in Jiwo Jiro now has a rival for being the most irritating device used at a show at this year’s Fringe Fest.

The “video screen”-cum-divider in Missing Statement.

I’m really not the type to nitpick a show to death and I’m cool enough to let go, but in this case, I was distracted by the flimsily made prop. Which, in my opinion, isn’t good since not only was it the only other thing you see onstage apart from the dancers, Albert Tiong and Melissa Quek, but it was, literally, a pivotal part of the entire project.

There I was thinking, “Good lord, it looks like a hospital curtain. It even squeaks like one.”

(I didn’t stay for tonight’s post-show talk so maybe it was intentional? Anybody?)

Anyways, Choreographer Susan Yeung explores the nature of duality in a number of ways. She initially juxtaposes the impact of (projected) still imagery and visceral onstage movement. E.g., images of a hand are flashed unto the hospit… erm, the video screen, Quek contemplates this and offers a hand gesture of her own. (Though not exactly original, it had its charms.)

Yeung later presents this dual-thingee as a moment of tension when we see Quek and Tiong taking turns peering across the divider (which they use to the max) for a glimpse of the other’s movements, with neither one really “breaking through” to the other side.

There is a whiff of mystery surrounding Missing Statement that I truly found intriguing. There were images of a clock and an unknown man with a suitcase, a kinda film noir-ish soundtrack, and particularly nice moment where, between flashes of light and darkness, the dancers’ movements were distilled into gestural tableaus, frozen in the act of… something.

For all the faults to be found in this rough-around-the-edges piece, I did feel a slight tinge of ache watching it, even if Missing Statement never completely convinced me.

It offered that sense of yearning and frustration at one’s inability to connect with another (whether it’s on the level of the Saussurean sign or just the sheer physicality of human contact, as was the point of the whole tug-of-war drama between the two dancers).

But I don’t think it was meant to push me to one side either.

I’m wondering if this missing emotional connection was due in part to the general lack of forceful energy from the performers, particularly Quek. (The concept’s there, the moves are there, but where’s the oomph? I want oomph!)

That doesn’t mean there weren’t any “oomph” moments, though. At one point, Tiong briefly burst into series of twitches that caught me pleasantly off guard. Like he was momentarily having seizures or something.

Hmmm, maybe those were meant to be hospital curtains after all…

Missing Statement has another show tomorrow (Jan 23), 8pm, at The Substation Theatre. Tickets at $19 from Sistic.

Tags: Albert Tiong, Melissa Quek, Missing Statement, Singapore dance, Singapore Fringe Festival, Susan Yeung

One of the nicest things about trying to follow as much of what a festival offers, especially when you get closer to the finish line, is that you occasionally see certain connections among the works.

I don’t mean this in a “Hmmm, let’s see how this work interprets the theme of Art & Law compared to that one yesterday” but in how meanings, images, themes kind of snowball and you’re like, “Whoa, dude.”

Theatre Group Gumbo’s JP at one point or another made me think of Jiwo Jiro, ____ Can Change and M.E.

Like Najib Soiman’s work, it had this big message-wrapped-in-the-surreal thing going on.

Like TNS’ play, the main characters had these 180 degree turn revelatory moments.

Like the M.E., its title consisted of two letters. Heh.

***

Early on in the show, one of the characters in JP quipped: “We have a nutcase in the forest.”

In truth (or to be more precise, in The Forest of Truth, where it all takes place), there were a total of six nutcases, him included.

It was truly an out-of-this-world experience. I was expecting something crazy from these Osaka folks, but I didn’t expect it to be that crazy. I was actually wheezing afterwards from so much laughing.

Asthmatics, you have all been warned.

JP had the hyperactive group digging into their ready cache of Japanese pop culture (their loony variety/game shows, manga/anime allusions, etc.) and classical theatre techniques (kabuki, etc) to tell an allegorical tale about human relationships.

Through it all, the characters all spoke in “Janglish” (Japanese-style English) to hilarious if at times incomprehensible effect (think: Miike Takashi’s Sukiyaki Western Django).

The story? A certain Queen of the Forest (and her three just-as-OTT henchmen) lure a Man and a Woman into their lair. Said similarly OTT couple fall in love but are later given the Biblical (or as they prefer, Disney) Apple of Truth.

In an Adam and Eve-meets-Freud moment, the dude realizes he’s a mega-narcissist who loves only himself while the woman transforms from virgin to unsatiable sex addict who turns towards the men in the audience to satisfy her lust. (Front row audience members, you have also been warned.)

There’s another show tonight (Jan 22, 8pm) at The Esplanade Theatre Studio. So if you’re up for a wacky Friday night, catch this one.

Tags: JP, Singapore Fringe Festival, Theatre Group Gumbo

At one point in Destination Trafik: Deer, the performance onstage consisted of a woman lip-synching to a male vocal `60s Italian song while shooting off with a toy pistol; another woman ferociously gnawing on her leg, which had popcorn on it; and a man wearing a kind of head mask in the shape of a deer… crocheting.

That description alone should give you an idea of what to expect from this dance-theatre piece by the Croatian group Trafik.

It’s the most “fringe” show I’ve watched so far in this festival, and looking around at fellow audience members at tonight’s performance, there were two distinct reactions.

There were those who were completely stone-faced from start to finish, and those who were constantly giggling and laughing. Needless to say, I belonged to the latter camp.

The previous show M.E., with its supposed Dadaist/Surrealist roots, have nothing on this piece which had wallpaper props “coming to life” in the form of two dancers performing slow, mesmerising poses like graceful chameleons; some very impassioned lip-synching (including the rather amusing image of a Caucasian woman acting out Cuba Gooding Jr.’s ecstatic acceptance speech for his 1996 Oscar win for Jerry Maguire); and a chair and a heater moving by themselves.

Incidentally, said heater was supposed to be the stand-in for an absentee member.

During the post-show talk, the performers said the different segments were individually conceived. The piece itself was constructed as a kind of montage, and according to Trafik was inspired by the films of Ed Wood, the photographs of Diane Arbus and a defunct boat-cum-striptease joint in Croatia that was later taken down, its metal parts turned into cannons for the Croatian civil war.

While you can definitely dig into the nitty-gritty aspects of the piece as a deconstructed form of theatrical spectacle and appropriation as performance, the visual absurdity alone should be reason enough to catch this tomorrow night.

If you want something that’s fringe-y even within the Fringe Fest’s lineup, I highly recommend this piece.

But at the same time, don’t go blaming me if your sense of humour gets stuck in… Trafik. (Cymbal crash!)

Destination Trafik: Deer’s last show is tonight (Jan 20), 8pm, at the Esplanade Theatre Studio. Tickets at $27 from Sistic.

Tags: dance, Destination Trafik: Deer, Singapore Fringe Festival, theatre, Trafik

Like The Necessary Stage’s talk of the town production ___ Can Change, here’s another Fringe offering that’s just as much of a mindf**k.

Phillip Toledano, the dude who made me turn all sappy during the previous Fringe Fest with his Days With My Father exhibition, makes a complete 180 degree turn with what some may see as a humorous but cold-blooded exhibition.

America The Gift Shop at ION Art Gallery is his take on ex-US prez George W Bush’s foreign policy, which has been, by all accounts, completely defined by the Iraq War and indeed the entire War on Terror.

As the title says, it’s basically a “souvenir shop” with a twist. While most people buy mementos of a museum exhibit or a musical show experience, here you have souvenirs of the Bush war.

So you have bobble-head figures of hooded Abu Ghraib prisoners, “Wish you were here” postcards from Guantanamo Bay, cutesy wool dolls with guts spilling out or blood spurting from the shoulders of someone beheaded (from The Injured Iraqi Civilian series), a snow globe of Dick Cheney shredding some documents.

It sounds gimmicky but it’s also quite disturbing.

While there are relatively lighter har-har moments like the Choc and Awe chocolate products (geddit?), there are also extreme works that unavoidably make you wince at the heightened contrast of what’s fun and what’s contemptible, like an inflatable Guantanamo Bay prison cell. Complete with a toilet.

One work that puts you in direct collusion with the act, in fact directly mimicking the dastardly deeds is a fairground cut-out of that infamous photo of US army reservist Lynndie England striking a pose with a naked, hapless detainee.

There’s even a sign on the floor instructing/taunting you to “Please take your pictures here.”

My first thought while walking around the show was that of the French philosopher Jean Baudrillard.

It was unavoidable considering his infamous essay series on how “The Gulf War Did Not Happen” and his ideas on simulacra and the hyperreal, how our perception of that first Gulf War was mediated and constructed more by images we saw on TV and in the papers – and here in Toledano’s own take on Bush Junior’s own Gulf War, it’s taken further into the land of consumption and consumerism.

My only comment however is that the exhibit’s own “shock and awe” tactics for our viewing experience could have been pushed further if the items on sale were cheaper than they are. The postcards are at US$2 but it goes up to US$3,000. As it is, it seems mostly catered towards collectors, leaving most of them beyond the reach of the casual observer, lessening somewhat the impact.

America The Gift Shop is a fun and despicable look at the commodification of human terror. In contrast, Belgian artist Hans Op de Beeck’s video Border is a haunting look at the terror of human commodification.

It begins with an image of shadowy figures huddled in the centre of a screen, which is later revealed via x-ray to be just a small section of a large lorry. You hear faint sounds of vehicles and snippets of dialogue in Arabic (“I’d really like to see a landscape again…”)

That Border is set in an endless loop adds even more poignancy to the socio-political issues of human trafficking and illegal refugees that it highlights.

That said, I wonder (and also for the benefit of the impatient, casual Singapore viewer who’ll probably go “That’s it?” after seeing10 minutes of the same thing in the out-of-the way Chapel Gallery at Sculpture Square) if it would have been better if the organisers had put Htein Lin’s The Scale of Justice here as well.

Jails, claustrophobia, cramped condition, “illegal” stuff – it might have created a nicer dialogue.

Both exhibitions are up until Jan 24. America The Gift Shop is at ION Art Gallery, Level 4, ION Orchard, while Border is at The Chapel Gallery, Scuplture Square (this one closes at 6pm).

Tags: Abu Ghraib, America The Gift Shop, Border, Dick Cheney, George W Bush, Guantanamo Bay, Hans Op de Beeck, Iraq War, Lynndie England, Phillip Toledano, Singapore Fringe Festival, War on Terror

12.41pm

Tim Etchells’ on. Everyone was waiting for him, it seemed. He read poetry (or at least did performance poetry).

First: a celebrity run-down list poetry reading.

(mashed up together, by moi, brain not working, apologies to tim for messing up his lines)

Random sample: “Lindsay Lohan nude. Arnold Schwarzenegger in a room that is slowly filling up with human shit. Neve Campbell on the telephone. Celine Dion in a strange state of limbo between life and death. Jennifer Lopez suffering from jetlag. Bridget Fonda covered in blood. Emma Thomson in a bulky spacesuit. David Hasselhoff bludgeoned with a stick. Al Pacino dead….” (and basically everyone randomly f**king someone else in Hollywood).

Next one was a story about facts and metaphors, involving someone named Frankie who gets mistaken for an “infidel” and was blown up, and within that story one involving Jesus, Hell’s Angels bikers and a laundromat.

Alright, I think that’s about it for me. I’ll probably hang around for a while (there are still two more left), but 14 hours of full-on art is enough for now, even for this RAT.

Adios!

PS, the “Live Forever” ice cube video projection, apparently it’s Tim’s.

***

MIDNIGHT

Woohoo, it’s midnight! And we got a taste of the “circus” part of the Flying Circus Project with two pieces by dancer/choreographer Hafis Dhaou from Tunis, who presented two nice pieces, eliciting some chuckles.

The first, a solo one done live, had hand puppets and a mash-up choreography that had whirling dervishes, belly dancers, contemporary dance and some popular American music moves.

The second, a video piece, had a bunch of people wearing motorcycle helmets who kept falling asleep, three dudes trying to outdo each other with their football moves – before all hell breaks loose with some hilarious kung fu fighting.

I’m practically a zombie now so from here on, it’s just going to be descriptions.

***

11pm

Awright. The first WTF moment at Superintense.

Hungarian choreographer Eszter Salamon (who for some reason came out as her male alter-ego Lucas Minkus, according to Yi Sheng) did a movement-based piece based on John Cage’s Lecture on Nothing.

And to quote her quoting Cage (yes?), “That is all I have to say about structure.”

I’ll quote her again.

“If you are irritated, it is not a pleasure.” Again and again. Which made it even more irritating, and hence, not pleasurable. And at some point – around 10 minutes to 11pm – with her whirling her hands while mumbling while running around, just damn plain silly.

Okay lah, when she stops mumbling, it gets engaging. Oh, at roughly the end of almost one hour.

***

9.44pm

After around 10 hours of art lectures and performances, fatigue is setting in, and I’m spacing out.

What was Indian artist Ashok Sukumaran’s shipping project all about?

There were slides of the shipping port and receipts. Talk of state archives, state this, state that, free trade, piracy, Somalia, radio, lists of goods that pass through Somalia’s port (which was a constant presence in the story of Somalian statehood – at least I got that part).

Also, something about “ships going off into the warzone” and a “form of commerce that was the complete anti-thesis of global capital.”

I think I missed a turn somewhere.

***

8.45pm

Romanian dancer and choreographer Manuel Pelmus is preoccupied with, yes, you guessed it, the body and its presence.

So he decided to dance in the dark.

Found it pretty interesting – he describes his movements (or his non-movement) and you have no choice but to imagine it, with only sound (the squeaks his sneakers make, the words he uses to describe what he’s doing) to guide you.

I think it may be fatigue setting in, but I thought that in the end, he described a set of movements and proceeded do something different. Or maybe I just heard him wrong. But either way, I thought that particular (imagined?) part was cool.

What’s dance if you can’t see it?

***

7.38pm

Here’s how you kick off the second leg of an arts marathon – you drive a bike inside the white box then park it right in front and use it as another of your musical instruments.

That’s what Zulkifle Mahmod did.

A bit hard to describe the throbbing, bass-infused rhythmic soundscapes (with the occasional metallic squeaks and hisses and pops) this sound artist has created using his Macbook, home-made gadgets and er, that bike.

Will saying that the walls shook help? Or that I could feel my body turning into an amplifier?

It’s true, I looked down and start looking for the volume button on my chest.

Beats Butter Factory or Zouk, man. I didn’t even have to stand up to feel the music.

Hey Zul, have you ever thought of doing this over Fritz Lang’s Metropolis?

***

6.34pm

Burp. Nice quick lunch. Yeah I know, six hours late. Missed the two-hour presentation by Janez Jansa/Janez Jansa, two artists who’ve taken on the name of Slovenia’s prime minister. Check out Ng Yi Sheng’s documentation at the official Flying Circus Project. He’s also blogging real-time. In fact, he’s been at it since last year!

***

4.41pm

Booyah. Jecko Siompo in da house. The hippest choreographer at last year’s Singapore Arts Fest (read: Terima Kost) livens up the mid-afternoon ennui – basically presenting his previous works (plus Terima Kost) and also a teaser to his newest piece, From Betamax to DVD.

He also did an impromptu performance, interrogating this silly photo of him nekkid in the dead of winter by way of dance set to the tribal/hiphop hybrid soundtrack he created, which included his interviews with fellow Cirus-heads in Cambodia. Yep, Jecko showed us his moves. I’ll put up the video soon.

***

3.24pm

Aha, a new segment.

A random Q&A between among artists or whoever’s in the audience in-between presentations, starting with Eszter Salamon and Keng Sen, about their Cambodian experience.

Next up was NY-based visual artist Vlatka Horvat who described her creative process as basically about a “human protagonist” against a “set of objects” staged as a series of encounters.

Configuration is Horvat’s MO – the body, objects, body and objects, etc.

Body parts are re-organised into different configurations (“A formal game of discombobulating the body”), sometimes to the point of abstraction.

I quite like one of her pieces, an eight-hour performance where she organizes 50 chairs in a pool of water, again different organistaions ranging from the conventional to the “enigmatic”.

She also rearranges, this time in her imagination and with the use of blueprints, a gallery space into something else: a bus station, prison, a church, a boxing ring, a refugee camp. A process of “What if”, she said.

Another series sees a female protagonist “merging” with her surroundings, her head inside a wall, a hole on the ground, etc.

Not quite sure of another of her series dealing with furniture that seem to have merged into walls or with other objects. They look like something Ai Wei Wei does.

By now the crowd seems to have gotten the hang of it. Looks like Superintense is moving along just fine.

***

2.37pm

The first performance(s) of the day were courtesy of Mustafa Kaplan and Filiz Sizanli of the Taldans Company in Turkey, which they founded in 2003.

Their MO: video and live presentation, conversation, harmonised singing..

I’ll upload videos of their live performances soon. In the meantime, here are some pictures.

Oh and also, at some point in this particular piece, they start singing. With toothpicks lodged in their mouths, keeping it open. The toothpicks were there while they were dancing too. Ouch.

They’re quite brutal to their bodies physically, one video of a piece called Solum sees Mustafa wrapping rope all over his face, so much so that he looked like a pineapple.

A lot of thudding on the floor during the live demonstrations too. Even, in the last demo, the act of hugging is forceful as the slam into each other, even as they’re locked in a delicate embrace.

Oh, and first loud applause of the event too.

PS, that “Live Forever” ice cube thing, confirmed, not part of Superintense. Hehe.

***

1.37pm

Hmmm, I guess I spoke too soon. Turns out the bulk of folks who were here since 11am were students from Republic Polytechnic. They left around 1pm. Still, catching two talks by festival artistic directors from Austria and Turkey isn’t bad. Kudos to the teacher who brought them here.

Oh wait, nope they’re back. They’re also catching Heman Chong’s talk. Wah.

Wow that was quick. The talk ended at 1.30pm.

He began with the image of the MIT Science Fiction Society library and talks about its importance, which projecting various images of sci-fi books. Go sci-fi lovah!

And then he goes on to talk about his other works, such as his postcard project, his piece for last year’s Dancing Museum at TheatreWorks, and also, a sci-fi book he’s written as a collective effort, which you can download here.

You can also buy a copy in book-form from him.

What is it about? In a nutshell, he said, it’s about “How the Left wing and Right wing both just became made and decided to kill each other.” Heh.

And of course, his book cover designs, a personal favourite – and proof that you can go and judge Heman Chong by a book cover.

Since 2006, he’s designed over 300 covers (of various geometric variations) of famous science fiction books. (Dude, no plans of doing fantasy? Come on man, JRR Tolkien!)

First quotable quote of the day: making art for him “is almost like a bad habit.”

***

12.45pm

Spent the first few minutes looking at ice cubes that spell “Live Forever” melt. Was that part of a show or a screen saver?

Due to some technical difficulties, they opened up the floor for a Q&A with Arian. Film-maker Tan Pin Pin enquired about the parameters of Linz’s own performing arts festival adn what do you know, it sounds the same as here!

Arian said that when he first met their own tourism board, he was asked if they’ll be bringing in Cirque du Soleil and Bolshoi Ballet. Hee.

Guru Ertem began at 12:18. She’s the artistic director of iDANS in Instanbul. She gave a lecture titled Dance on Time, where she very interestingly discusses the six kinds/variations of time in one singular dance performance.

Arrgh again, i mis-heard her and spent valuable minutes looking for the paper online. Now I have no idea what she’s talking about. Me wants her paper! I can’t hear her, she mumbes… Which is a signal for me to… take my first smoke break of the day!

***

NOON

Arrgh! Spent most of my time deciding whether to do this via my phone or find a corner to set-up laptop camp. Settled for the latter — and missed a great part of what Airan Berg, artistic director of the Performing Arts of Linz Cultural Capital 2009. Basically was a show and tell session of what they’ve done. The photos of public shows look quite impressive.

He did mention something about Ong Keng Sen’s production The Good Person of Sichuan, which is still continuing its run at the Austrian city. There was also something about a piece called I Like To Move It Move It. A seahorse like image projected on the screen. And animals puppets parading down the streets. He showed a video of the street performance/parade — to the tune of that irritating Madagascar song.

Audiences have trickled in from the initial 50-ish when it began.

Apparently, it’ll be lecture-heavy sessions in the day, with presentations becoming more performative as Superintense continues.

***

11AM

The last time I decided to join a marathon, I hurt my back right after my first “training session.”

Thankfully, this one doesn’t involve running.

Because I don’t tweet, this post will be dedicated to giving you guys hourly on-the-ground ramblings on the (cross fingers) entire Superintense arts marathon here at TheatreWorks’ 72-13, as part of their Flying Circus Project.

Yes, because I love all four of you guys, I’ll be posting observations on each of the artist’s presentations from now till 3am (again, cross fingers) – so that you can vicariously “attend” the marathon art event even as you party at Zouk or have a nice steak somewhere posh or watch the Star Wars movie marathon on Channel 5… hmm I don’t like you guys anymore.

On your mark, get set…

Here’s the first joke to come out of the Fringe Festival.

Q: How many idiots does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: Two. The third one thinks he’s a female sex doll.

Okay, I need to work on the delivery, but there really was an actual lightbulb scene in Jiwo Jiro.

Okay, how about this.

Q: How many people does it take for a RAT to have a lightbulb epiphany?

A: A worrywart director and a bunch of Poly students.

Theatre actor and director Najib Soiman’s societal anxieties and well-meaning efforts to introduce younger people to theatre have resulted in this other must-watch production on my list, which I must admit falls slightly below my expectations.

But I guess it’s because I was expecting it to be a mind-blowing experience instead of the unpolished, heartwarming event it was.

Jiwo Jiro (Javanese for “Zero Soul”) is a rowdy, exhilarating mess of a grand statement about our f**ked-up society-at-large that finds its physical manifestation in a wheelchair-bound Tairu (?) who suffers from Osteogenesis Imperfecta (or Brittle Bone Disease).

As a result, the ostracized, bitter young man retreats into his dreamworld as an inventor of three automatons, including said sex doll (Norisman Mustafa, Rizman Putra, Faizal Abdullah).

By way of lots of song and dance, the occasional melodrama, some Javanese theatre forms, a pseudo-gamelan-ish live band, and adlib stand-up banter, Najib scrutinises technology as a soul-sucking device that permeates everything we do, from sex to cooking.

If I were to be recklessly offhand about it, I’d say Jiwo Jiro borders on a very sophisticated, complex school production meant to transmit Najib’s big statements about the world, which you can’t really get a handle on. And because it’s cited as a work-in-progress, there’s no resolution, leaving you hanging (and a bit irritated).

But I can’t. The very “weakness” of the production was, in fact, the source of its greatest strength. The students’ energy (they come from Ngee Ann and Temasek Polytechnics) is just unrelentingly infectious. They’re so full of life that you can’t help but be won over.

Plus, the actor who played the lead character Tairu (I didn’t catch your name there… Sam?) just gave me my first Goosebump Moment of the festival. Particularly that scene where he screams out to a mocking world with such fury: “Look at me!”

Yes, I’m looking forward to a more focused re-staging of Jiwo Jiro (or whatever sequel follows).

But before that, a word of advice to Najib for tomorrow night’s show.

Can you please tell the guy controlling the smoke machine not to be so excitable?

Half the time I couldn’t see the surtitles.

Catch Jiwo Jiro tomorrow night, Saturday, 8pm, Esplanade Recital Studio. Tickets at $19 from Sistic. English and Malay with English subtitles.

Tags: Jiwo Jiro, Najib Soiman, Singapore Fringe Festival, Singapore theatre

UPDATE:
Here’s a more detailed description of what’s happening tomorrow.

1100 hrs – 1200 hrs
Airan Berg
Artistic director for the Performing Arts of Linz Cultural Capital 2009, Airan shares with us his curatorial concepts and the programmes he curated for Linz Cultural Capital 2009.

1200 hrs – 1300 hrs
Gurur Ertem
Artistic Director of iDANS in Istanbul, specialist and writer on contemporary dance culture, Gurur will speak on temporarlity in current choreographic practices drawing from her festival, iDANS 02 and her latest publication project, Dance on Time!

1300 hrs – 1400 hrs
Heman Chong
Artist and curator from Singapore, Heman will give a lecture on 5 of his art projects.

1400 hrs – 1500 hrs
Mustafa Kaplan + Filiz Sizanli
Founders of the TALDANS Company in Turkey, Mustafa and Filiz will present their choreographic concepts in a sequence of movements, videos and conversation.

1500 hrs – 1600 hrs
Vlatka Horvat
A New York-based artist, Vlatka will be presenting a performance lecture comprising her current and past works.

1600 hrs – 1700 hrs
Jecko Siompo
One of Indonesia’s leading contemporary choreographers, Jecko will be talking about his past and present works, along with a new work that he is currently developing.

1700 hrs – 1900 hrs
Janez Jansa + Janez Jansa
They will be sharing their concept and idea behind their decision to change their names to Slovenia’s economical-liberal, conservative prime minister, Janez Jansa; and how this became one of the most impactful artworks.

1900 hrs – 2000 hrs
Zulkifle Mahmod
Sound-media artist from Singapore, Zul will present a sound performance based on the sound scapes which he has collected from his recent trip to Cambodia.

2000 hrs – 2100 hrs
Manuel Pelmus
Romanian dancer and choreographer, Manuel will present an intriguing solo piece. More will be unveiled at the presentation.

2100 hrs – 2200 hrs
Ashok Sukumaran
Contemporary artist from Mumbai, Ashok will present a work on ships and the Indian ocean; an art project that he did in the port of Sharjah.

2200 hrs – 2300 hrs
Eszter Salamon
Hungarian Choreographer based in Berlin, Eszter will present a solo piece based on John Cage’s Lecture On Nothing.

2300 hrs – 0000 hrs
Hafiz Dhaou
Contemporary dancer/ choreographer from Tunis, Hafiz will present a solo piece based on 2 dance projects which he presented in France; he will explore the exchange of ideas and thoughts with the audience.

0000hrs – 0100 hrs
Tim Etchells
Artist and writer based in London, Tim will present a text-based performance piece.

0100 hrs – 0200 hrs
Nelisiwe Xaba
Choreographer from Soweto, South Africa, Nelisiwe will present a solo performance of her latest work, Plasticization, and will also present video extracts of her other works.

0200 hrs – 0300 hrs
Tarek Atoui
An electro-acoustic musician from Lebanon, Tarek will present a full on sound performance.

***

Get some sleep tonight dudes. Tomorrow (January 16, Saturday) will be a crazy, hectic day, if you’re planning to attend Superintense, the next event under TheatreWorks’ Flying Circus Project series.

The artists are given an hour each to pretty much do anything – talk, perform, talk, perform… no Indonesians dancing on slabs of butter this year though.

Here’s the (more or less final) schedule. I’ll put in the updates if there are any.

11am to noon — Airan Berg

Noon to 1pm — Gurur Ertem

1pm to 2pm — Heman Chong

2pm to 3pm — Mustafa Kaplan + Filiz Sizanli

3pm to 4pm — Vlatka Horvat

4pm to 5pm — Jecko Siompo

5pm to 7pm — Janez Jansa + Janez Jansa (eh, how come got two hours?)

7pm to 8pm — Zulkifle Mahmod

8pm to 9pm — Tim Etchells

9pm to 10pm — Ashok Sukumaran

10pm to 11pm — Eszter Salamon

11pm to midnight — Hafiz Dhaou

Midnight to 1am — Manuel Pelmus

1am to 2am — Nelisiwe Xaba

2am to 3am — Tarek Atoui

It’s all happening at 72-13 Mohamed Sultan Road. Admission is free but register your attendance at 6737 7213 or tworks@singnet.com.sg. For more information on the artists, etc. click here or here. If you need a bit of background on what’s been happening so far, go here.

Tags: contemporary art, Flying Circus Project, Singapore artist, Superintense, TheatreWorks

My tech and info colleague Hedirman, who’s also tracking down the number of hits this blog has been getting, recently informed me that one of this blog’s most popular posts in terms of hits was the one with “nude women” in its the title.

Let’s see if this one gets a bunch of hits as well. Of course, it’s all factual – there were topless women in the Fringe dance piece M.E.

 But I’m getting ahead of myself.

M.E., by Belgium’s Compagnie Irene K, is a look at visual arts by way of dance, in particular the works of Max Ernst.

The images, motifs, movements, indeed, its entire sensibility, were inspired or taken directly from the various works of the German Dada and Surrealist artist.

The programme notes describe the choreography as a “collage”, a process pioneered employed by Ernst.

True enough, there’s no arc whatsoever in M.E. Just a series of choreographies strung together ranging from the whimsical to the sensuous, abstract segments to short narrative snippets. The complementary soundtrack is also schizo: sweet piano one minute, tweeting birds the next; the crackling of a record looped, followed by icky `80s synth effects.

As in surrealism, the “entire picture” seems fragmented, disjointed, making little sense as a whole but setting off mini-bombs that hit you in that particular moment – before you move on to the next.

An obese bloke danced around, hungrily gathering strang-looking gummi bear-like thingees strewn on the floor.

An impossibly tall lady suddenly transforms into a man and a woman who do the tango.

Naked women with their backs turned to the audience. Or a butt, an arm, appearing briefly within an irregularly shaped frame, occasionally creating a Mummenschanz moment.

Dancers in foetal positions rolling around on stage like little blobs of organisms or hunched and skittering about like those tiny creatures you occasionally see in a Hayao Miyazaki film.

Finally, a direct nod to one of Ernst’s preoccupations — lot of the bird-like movements.

Plus, there was a huge white egg on the stage. Just… there.

Here are some of Ernst’s birdie paintings.

One charge against surrealism is its failure to provide a coherent counter-argument to the problems of modern society – aside from its momentary disruption and liberation of one’s perceptions and senses.

It just flits merrily about, and flirts with your subconscious. Which was translated quite well in M.E.

But nothing more. 

That said, it made me think how nice it would be to have more of these interpretations of paintings, a static art form, into something more kinetic, like dance. Imagine a series of Dalis come to life. Or a bunch of Magrittes.

Tonight I’m catching Najib Soiman’s Jiwo Jiro, which seems like a crazy show as well. Let’s see if it has that same Dada thing going on. Or will it be, er, tak (d)ada?

Guffaw.

Tags: Compagnie Irene K, contemporary dance, Dada, M.E., Max Ernst, Singapore Fringe Festival, surrealism

Wah, who knew conservative thought could be so provocative on stage?

The Necessary Stage’s ____ Can Change was at the top of my list of must-watch shows at the Fringe ever since they had a quick preview at last year’s press conference.

It was touted as a non-ironic, non-parodic theatre piece that adopted the ideological position of Singapore’s conservative mainstream society.

They weren’t kidding.

From the beginning’s chaos (upturned furniture strewn around), came strict order, as we were treated to a lecture-type performance comprising three short pieces, each of which was kicked off with a deadpan introduction into the subject matter.

We follow three dramatic local narratives, in their somewhat techni-colour glory that seemed like a throwback to Cold War America, dramatizing the proposition that singles, homosexuals and Marxists, in that particular order, can change.

And by golly, they do.

A fiery, independent-minded woman for whom marriage and having kids were farthest from her mind eventually marries and sires two kids, thanks to an insistent aunt and a dating service.

A gay man leaves his boyfriend and first love and gets married, thanks to a therapist, a (female?!) pastor and his loving mother.

Finally, there was the Marxist bit, which was basically a crash course on the history of the theatre company, whose founders founder director Alvin Tan and playwright Haresh Sharma, were accused of being Marxists back in the 1990s. When things got slightly out of hand, they started doing “mainstream” stuff and were, er, “reformed” — an act that was, to everyone’s amusement, likened to inmates given a second lease on civil life via The Yellow Ribbon Project. (I found that third bit a little out of place. But it was also my favourite. I like history.)

It was different. So different that some audience members described it as un-TNS.

Here was a company known for being very garang in tackling provocative topics such as race, politics, drugs; for mastering the art of doing the tango with authorities. And they were presenting something that conservative members of Singapore society would drool over!

A friend of mine asked me afterwards if I thought it was good or not. And to be honest, I wasn’t really thinking of its production merits too much (before I forget, the cast included Chua Enlai, Nora Samosir, Siti Khalijah and Rodney Oliveiro all playing multiple roles).

The company had completely pulled out the rug from under my feet and I was disoriented. Coming out, I didn’t know what to make of it. And I suspect, a lot of people didn’t as well.

On one hand, it made for a very fresh experience inside the theatre space. You were watching it intently, but at the same time, second-guessing and questioning your reactions. (Is this for real? It is! Really? Nah… But… it is! I’m moved!)

Yes, it felt alive. You were both mentally and emotively having a constant dialogue with the unfolding sequence of events. Audience reactions also figured greatly in making this a unique experience. There were no set moments that elicited a clear-cut kind of reaction. At some point, someone would be going “Awww…” Five minutes later, someone would laugh loudly at another scene.

But at the same time, and here’s why I strongly recommend that all four of you who read this blog watch this play and chip in to the conversation, I was thinking: when all’s said and done, what purpose does it serve to highlight such a mainstream, ideological position?

I found it amusing that a part of me was going “Wow, you guys really pulled it off!” while another part was screaming “Why in the world are you wasting your exceptional talents reinforcing the status quo?!”

I can only guess that it was to:

A)    Underscore that you can artistically succeed in taking a contradictory point to a well, contradictory point. (It was, admittedly, a very radical endeavour for Haresh and Alvin. During the post-show talk, Alvin said he was bored with irony, which I thought was a cool thing to say, even if I do think parody and irony haven’t lost their efficacy just yet.)

B)    To jolt an already enlightened kind of audience (I’m again assuming that most of the members in tonight’s opening show were well aware of what TNS is capable of doing) from its complacent theatre watching/reading ways.

C)    Point out that these so-called mainstream, conservative (right wing?) sensibilities isn’t as monolithic as we liberals and progressives always portray it to be. That there’s such a thing as nuance. Or human agency.  

But don’t we all know that bigots have feelings too?

I am definitely not one who thinks a person deserves to go mad on account of his/her homophobia (this comes from a real-life anecdote brought up by Alvin during the post-show that, from what I understood, was one the inspirations for the homosexual segment).

But I do think that the institutional structures that created such an unbendable and brittle mind should be acknowledged more than I thought they were in the plays that comprise ____ Can Change. No irony remember?

Which was why I felt uncomfortable when Nora Samosir brought up, again during the talkback session, the idea of giving a voice to a “silent majority” (a term popularized by Richard Nixon).

There’s a reason why they’re silent. They don’t need to speak up because, among other things, they don’t need to.

(UPDATE: Nora has clarified that she does not subscribe to Nixon’s ideas nor is she a fan of the Republican dude. Check the comments section.)

I thought it was telling that, again during the post-show, someone pointed out in very elementary terms why is it that the people are always the ones who have to change to conform to the dictates of these monolithic political and social structures, and not the other way around. To which everyone, including myself, could only manage to, well, laugh.

A great show to officially kick off the Fringe. Bring it on guys! 

____ Can Change runs until Jan 16, 8pm, Gallery Theatre, National Museum of Singapore. With 3pm matinees on Jan 16 and 17. Tickets at $27 from Sistic.

Tags: Alvin Tan, Chua Enlai, Haresh Sharma, homosexual, Marxist, Nora Samosir, Rodney Oliveiro, Singapore Fringe Festival, Singapore theatre, Siti Khalijah, The Necessary Stage, ___ Can Change