Singapore

Whoosh...late October into November has been a whirlwind of activity, full of new sights, sounds, and stresses! Here is a re-cap of the highlights:

SINGAPORE
mdw had the amazing opportunity to visit Singapore as part of a professional development initiative, sponsored by Dance Advance from October 16-22nd. For those who want the full report, read below. It was an important trip for me. Otherwise, enjoy the pictures below and brief highlights below.

Honors to Buddha, getting ready for the Deepavali Festival in Little India in Singapore.

Local children on a field trip looking at a huge banana leaf in the market. Don't the kids look like little easter eggs in their beanies?

Some of the gorgeous flora/fauna at the Singapore Botanical Garden.

A mosque at call to prayer in Little Arab. I sat outside, listening to the chants and cried for the fullness I felt at that moment.

The participating American artists warming-up before an exchange with local artists at TTRP, a theater training program in Singapore.

mdw's "final report" on the professional development trip to Singapore:

I participated in the 2007 DANS Festival/Singapore trip from October 16-22, 2007, supported by Dance Advance. The very nature of the trip allowed me to both envision and re-vision my own approach to dance and dance-making within a larger context of dance makers, dance styles, and dance communities. As an independent artist, I have rarely had the occasion for an experience that provides the space, time, stimulation, and encouragement to saturate oneself in questions of creative process and creative self. I felt I could simply “be” an artist having had the obstacles of finances, planning, travel, interactions, appointments, meals, lodging, etc. removed through Dance Advance’s support. For the first time in a very long while, I felt unburdened as an artist, reorienting to dance as a significant and valued part of society. This experience has carried into my current creative decisions, prompting me to make more space for my art-making. Shortly after returning from the trip, I applied for and was granted a leave-of-absence next spring from my teaching duties in order to focus more fully on my artistic/choreographic development.

From the outset of the trip, the four other participants provided a forum in which we could consider artistic, aesthetic, and administrative concerns relevant to those who make and support art. Prior to takeoff, we had been provided with background reading on the Singapore artists and art venues we would be visiting, as well as critical readings for the international artists we would be viewing. Through these written words, I felt accountable to my responsibility as an artist as well as inquisitive about my role within a local, regional, national, and international constellation of art-making. I was invigorated to observe how (as Peter Sellars’ article probes) art focuses, draws focus, and re-focuses in a global society.

The initial orientation to Singapore itself provided a cultural backdrop in which to place the meaning of my experiences there. I saw an incredibly clean and vital city, one whose society and government mandate the preservation and tolerance of three main cultures: Indian, Malay, and Chinese. Still, there is almost a minimization of these cultural identities by an overwhelming emulation of Western capitalism. This is a unique environment in which to consider cultural difference as well as artistic development (for instance, the business of dance that I perceived at the core of Odyssey, one of the local dance companies we encountered). In my perception, the social programs of Singapore provide well for its citizen, yet place much of its ideology in the government-as-parent model. So much of what I learned about their implementation of health care, social services, education, employment, etc. seemed wonderfully compassionate and utopian. However, in looking at the nascent, almost non-existent independent dance scene, I sensed a loss of questioning, challenging, and disrupting the dominant power structure that often leads to honest, raw, and insightful inquiries of truth. I felt this “absence” in the discussion with Audrey Wong of the Substation – whose vision seems limited by the society in which it exists. It made me view the CEC, Parlor, Painted Bride, Drake, ArtsBank, Mascher, Philadanco studio, Performance Garage, and others with new eyes – grateful that so many places exist and invite formats for independent investigation – allowing artists to pursue their process whether banal or brilliant, benign or bare-naked. I felt grateful for options, and for my right to speak for or against any given set of ideals or norms.

The tour and discussion at the Esplanade with programming director Faith Tan was multilayered. The most obvious comment about that meeting is to acknowledge the splendid facility for performance they have created. The multi-use space fueled my longing for a dance-dedicated space in Philadelphia. A destination building where we might come to rehearse, perform, discuss, eat, share ideas, hang out, read, write grants, and interact with each other, perhaps crossing paths with someone we might not ever seek out on our own. I was also particularly struck by Faith Tan’s answer to my question about the absence of American dance companies in the DANS Festival – that dance from America is perceived as “tired” or “classic” and not as pushing boundaries and asking new questions of audiences and artists. She also mentioned only Graham, Paul Taylor, Limon, and Ailey when asked for examples. These companies do not necessarily reflect “contemporary” dance in my opinion and I am curious about what constitutes “contemporary” and why this distinction is important at this particular “contemporary” moment in art-making.

The artists’ exchange with TTRP was truly significant and relevant for me, as it provided the artistic dialogue, exposure, sharing, and shaping that I long for as an independent artist. To be in a space with peers who don’t want to make my work for me, fund my work, review my work, or ignore my work was incredible. I learned so much from this brief exchange, inviting new possibilities about how tradition/classicism can inform contemporary work, and how collaboration can change the course of creative process. It also sharpened my own artistic questions right now: How is the body used symbolically (social constructs, biological metaphor), and what contributes to the physical life of an idea? A professional outcome for me from this experience was to remove myself from current granting cycles and performing opportunities for a period to create space to really dive deep into my process. I want to make a philosophical shift from “making” work to “being” a working artist. This is a brand new approach for me – one in which I hope to cultivate discovery rather than desperation (due to timelines, granting streams, teaching duties, production schedules) in finding a work.

As a teaching artist, I was intrigued by the interactions with NAFA and the Dance Ensemble Singapore. I sense a readiness for growth as these institutions continue to train dancers and present them to the community. I wonder about the cultivation of an independent dance scene as these dancers graduate and create a community of dancers. I compared it with the flurry of independent dance activity that happens in Philadelphia - perhaps it requires an extensive “supply” before “supply and demand” becomes relevant. I am curious to follow the growth of this scene in Singapore over the next decade. My other observation of dance education was the incredible compassion and care of integrating and exposing students with traditional forms. I hope this does not become minimized in the training (as it is in the States, and even in the presenting format at the Esplanade). I applauded the TTRP model as one that finds equal voice for these forms, embodying history, culture, identity, and tolerance more so than a government mandate for multiculturalism.

The artistic nourishment I received from the performances we attended at the DANS Festival will carry me through many months ahead. The pure physicality and appetite for movement of Batsheva inspired me as a dancer and a choreographer. I want to be able to access that depth in my own dancing and to learn how to cultivate that in my dancers. Lucy Guerin’s “Aether” modeled an understanding and utilization of the craft of choreography without being pedantic. She made my question my own use of form that has led me down a query about movement image and meaning. I still think about the dancer I made prolonged eye contact with in Jerome Bel’s “The show must go on.” I care deeply about him and the journey we shared that night. I want to care about my audience as a dancer, and I want my audiences to care about me and the work I offer to them. I also want to create a brilliant piece one day that simultaneously builds and deconstructs choreography and theatrical artifice. “About Khon” with Pichet Klunchen and Jerome Bel has left me to question my own minimizing of traditional forms in my training and aesthetic. For the fist time in my dance training, I hold a professional/artistic goal to find an artist working deeply in a traditional form and to share dialogue and studio space for a period of time, rather than just a taste through the master classes and performances I have experienced to this point. Finally, the “Waves of Love” by the Whirling Dervishes reminded me that questioning and questing (whether spiritual, creative, emotional, etc.) is at the core of dance and that the starting place for the dancer is in the body, in physicality and corporeality. I am reminded of T.S. Eliot’s words from “Little Gidding.” The poem reads:
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

The DANS Festival/Singapore trip allowed me to arrive (literally) where I started, but to see it in an entirely new way, as if for the first time. Two ideas that I hope to implement from this trip in my “new” Philly surroundings follow below:

1. Philadelphia dance artist exchange – idea of a “dance pal” who is very different from me in experience and aesthetic, and with whom I regularly exchange artistic dialogue (perhaps once a month). I hope we can create an artistic accountability and a sounding board from a fresh perspective in these discussions.
2. Explore “multiculturalism” and diverse cultural training – perhaps creating a class that requires a “modern” and a “traditional” dancer to collaborate in preparing and co-teaching a class to dancers.
3. Reject (for a 6 month period) constraints of (“day-job”) teaching duties, grant deadlines, performance venues and scheduling conflicts to re-center myself as an artist and choreographer and to cultivate my individual physicality.