- Views3288
- Likes0
Anggota 2: Re-Member
Five Arts Centre
GMBB Kuala Lumpur
22 Sept – 1 Oct 2023
Review by Carmen Nge
It is rare to watch a dance that defies expectations and dares to be explicitly political, not just in content but also in form. Anggota 2: Re-Member is a performance that is powerful on so many registers because it not only excavated and critically engaged with the many layers that undergird the discipline of dance, but it also expanded the possibilities of the art form through the integration of sound, text, and video. From the pedagogy of dance education to the cultural politics of movement and the politics of pain, dancer-director-choreographer Lee Ren Xin, with fellow performer and dance partner Tan Bee Hung and video artist Chloe Yap, have created a show that is as cerebral as it is visceral.
Anggota 2 is loosely divided into three interconnected segments, each demarcated by space and with interconnected themes. The first segment takes us into the space of formal school education, using a symbol familiar to most Malaysians: the school uniform. The show begins with the house lights turned on and the two dancers sitting cross-legged, their backs to us. They are neatly clad in primary school uniforms —turned inside out — and white shoes, with one dancer in socks and the other in stockings. This slight variation in attire is a metaphor for how quiet rebellion and differentiation exist even in the face of the rigidly enforced uniformity of our school system.
As audience to a dance performance, we watch expectantly for physical movement, but none materializes. Instead, we hear soft, then loud strains of breathing that morph into deep, drawn-out moaning. These guttural, almost primal sounds, build and crescendo, and are then playfully shaped and sculpted by Lee and Tan into overlapping chants, screams and hums, in a light-hearted call-and-response style of aural experimentation. This dance of sound is at once warm and light-hearted, skittish, and mirthful, and we revel in its energetic, unabashed incomprehensibility.
Once we acknowledge that sounds are the creations of our bodies, it makes absolute sense to have a dance performance begin in this unconventional manner. This highly resonant and uniquely layered humanmade soundscape is an inventive entry point into a show that challenges us to recognize it is not just our limbs that can move, but the inner parts of our bodies too. Indeed, we would not be fully human without the vibrations of our vocal cords, the incredible tensility of our diaphragm, and the smooth coordination of all our respiratory muscles that enable us to take in air and breathe.
After this dance of sounds infuses the bodies of Lee and Tan, they stand up and begin to use their limbs to gleefully participate in a discordant soundscape of their own making. It is here that we witness the limitless potential of human movement by being reminded of the carefree body language of children, vicariously experienced through the two school uniform-clad dancers. When unconstrained by decorum or school rules, children are incredibly uninhibited and creative with their bodies. Even a gesture as simple as clapping one’s hands together in applause can have a vastly different effect when clapped against the taut skirt of a pinafore, stretched by wide open legs to resemble a drumskin. Like children, Lee and Tan play using their bodies and voices, sometimes in unison, other times in overlapping, interlacing patterns of movements and sounds.
Why do teachers and parental figures suppress the vivacious and irrepressible movements of children? When do we stop jiggling, wiggling, wriggling, swinging, twisting, skipping, shaking, slapping, smacking, whacking, prancing, galloping, and stomping around to our own rhythms? How do we learn to discipline our bodies without being told?
These questions are obliquely addressed via the videoscape created by Chloe Yap, which contains pre-recorded footage — of Lee and Tan reminiscing about their schooldays and talking to each other — projected onto a wall of mirrors. The reflective properties of mirrors take on new layers of signification as we listen to the dancers reflect about their lives as schoolchildren, how their bodies were never fully theirs because the ethos of hard work championed at school values bodies at work, not at rest. Moreover, finding joy and pleasure in our bodies is never discussed.
Set against this grainy visual backdrop of their filmed bodies in contemplative, conversational repose, the live performance of the dancers’ moving bodies presents an interesting counterpoint. Are dancers also bodies at work or bodies in rapture? Are the bodies of dancers ever fully theirs? Such questions swirled in my mind as I reveled in the beautiful juxtaposition of bodies in motion and bodies in stillness, appreciating how Yap’s video provides a window into the interior lives of the dancers. For a change, we don’t just see the dance, we also get to know the persons behind the dance.
The second segment of Anggota 2 expands on this theme of how education disciplines the body by zooming in on dance education. Playing both the roles of dance educator and dance student, Lee excavates the cultural taboos she grew up with, specifically the prohibition on shaking body parts and making sounds; children learn to be still and silent from a young age, to not draw attention to themselves, to be seen and not heard. Texts projected on the wall elucidate some of Lee’s thoughts and ideas on how the body is disciplined through dance, on the kinds of training that dance students’ bodies are subjected to and the kinds of freedoms they are allowed.
Lee is a joy to watch in this segment, her body bursting with an unbridled, coltish energy that refuses to shape itself into the lissome poses or graceful steps women’s bodies are accustomed to displaying. Her movements range from the muscular and athletic to the snappy and jerky; at times her body contorts into a kind of mesmerizing awkwardness — a celebration of all the ways our bodies can come alive without needing to look aesthetically pleasing. Lee’s body spars and parries with different personas within herself, expressing both vulnerability and strength in equal measure.
This dichotomy of restraint and vigor is extended further in the third segment of the show, when Tan re-enters the dance space in a prone state, accompanied by Yap and her trusty video camera. Here we see a most inventive and richly inspired interplay between the visual, the haptic, and the physical, which brings all three collaborators together into a unique synergy.
The set up is simple yet ingenious: Yap shoots Tan as she lies slowly writhing on the floor and this moving image is live projected onto a wall on the other side of the room where Lee is positioned, slowly climbing up the wooden blocks and metal shelves in her path. Almost all the live video footage are close ups of Tan’s moving body parts — her face, her hands, her fingers — so that when projected, they appear a great deal larger than life. When superimposed onto Lee’s body from across the room, it looks as if Tan is cradling Lee in her giant-sized palms or allowing her gargantuan fingers to be used as steps for Lee to clamber upon. Although she is physically distant from Tan in the performance space, against the moving image, Lee appears to be interacting in a visually intimate way with her dance partner. The virtual image connects them even though they are haptically disconnected.
The sensation of watching this virtual-visual dance unfold is quite bewitching. As I was seated on the floor, an arm’s length away from Tan, her moving body was intensely perceptible to me. When she twisted and contorted next to me, accompanied by the sounds of a body in pain, I felt her agony viscerally. However, when Tan’s projected image interacted with Lee’s physical self from across the room, I was lulled by a sense of comfort. It was as if Lee could touch and feel Tan’s suffering, the former’s limber body a lively surrogate for the latter’s languid one. Tan’s voice also functioned as an aural bridge linking her to her friend — their bodies connecting through and dancing with sound. It was a powerful moment of solidarity and mutual affection.
Tan and Lee’s camaraderie and affinity for each other are palpable throughout the duration of the show. They do not always dance in lockstep with each other, but their movements communicate a shared disposition that is anchored by a profound awareness of their bodies’ capabilities and limitations, and a lack of shame about exploring such corporeal nuances. Anggota 2 does not only celebrate the raw power of the human body — its agility and strength — it is also unafraid to resurface the physical, emotional, and psychological scars that a body has endured through years of punishment, suffering and pain. For those of us who have survived such experiences and whose bodies still feel and retain the imprint of such memories, Lee and Tan’s performance is an unforgettably tender and stirring tribute to our collective, physical selves.
All photos by Prakash Daniel Photography, provided courtesy of Five Arts Centre.
Carmen Nge is an arts enthusiast and currently an assistant professor at the Faculty of Creative Industries, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR).