New Vision 2016 brings a selection of intimate performances at T.H.E Dance Company studio. Choreographers yearning collaboration, drama and spoken word in a vibrant and versatile evening of dance.
Starting the night, Billy Keohavong presents ‘The Break.’
Singing along like ghosts ‘we break too easily’ the dancers move like panthers searching for prey, set against a mountain of chairs alluding a surrealistic sculpture. The dance material expands just within one’s periphery through very tight unisons adjacent to an amalgamation of chairs. In here, three of the dancers become one sensual, gigantic, and slowly rolling slug suffering from hyperactive eyesight. The landscape is surreal and bizarre, yet the staccato movement is precise and sharp reiterating the clear presumption of a recurring dream.
Following up, Evelyn Toh with ‘And the trend of the day is…’
‘red light green light’ is a mantra to the gods, perhaps the gods of old school disco or the gods in churches – this isn’t a religious piece. Instead, a work of devotion from a group that preys a song to themselves as modus operandi – moving to conquer a runaway of dreams, slicing through the audience space. The dance is sexy, and the spoken word or singing along allows the dancers to play and modify the repetitive sequence as they progress through a video projection. The choreography is structured to offer new points of view, of the studio space as well as the dance material – in here the ideas seem to be all realised, and the audience is entertain.
‘Atishoo, Atishoo, who falls down? ( to be continued)’ by Chia Poh Hian
Provocative but childlike this dance piece is sexy, the game of blowing a sheet of toilet paper amongst three dancers, suspending it in the air setting off this piece to a beautiful start with adult innocence at its heart.
The game spreads into a larger piece of dance set against a sea of toilet paper, providing the cosy playground area for children. However, this scene is juxtaposed with a squatting monologue from Billy Keohavong deliberating on the ins outs of crouching in the toilet. The speech later becomes detailed choreography on a sperate duet reinforcing the idea of innocence, curiosity and disposable frenetic thoughts.
But…fly by Wu Mi.
A romantic duet, wrapped in a chrysalis-like installation suspended from the ceiling – it’s embedded with beautiful and long extensions of the limbs, alluding to the very start of the life of butterflies.
The piece unwraps itself into a delicate ‘pas de deux.’ Conquering the space of the stage, while introducing grounded and precise movement from Wu Mi, against the aerial maneuver steps of Cui Chen.
Looking into the history of the building, Anthea Seah proposes a piece of choreography without new dance material in ‘Practice’. The choreographer produces a situation for memories to arise – the proposition is witty, sentimental and it takes the hearts of the audiences, as everyone is invited to revisit important pieces of dance history from this venue through a collage of dances from previous performances, rehearsals and general hanging out in the studio. Forwarding the past into the performance, withdrawing the affections of an exhibition of old costumes and important messages written on the walls accompanied by video interviews.