Chan Kar Kah undertook a 3-month residency at Rimbun Dahan from January to April 2022.
During the residency, Kar Kah was developing her full-length work Prajñā Revisited, a multidisciplinary performance with composer Yii Kah Hoe, visual artist Sim Hoi Ling and lighting designer Tan Eng Heng. The work explores local Chinese identities, traditional and contemporary rituals, group memories of the Chinese community, and how these factors affect the Malaysian Chinese dance contexts.
Kar Kah returned to Rimbun Dahan for a short visit in June 2022 to capture video material for a digital video work, as part of the show SERENITY: A Glimpse Through the Traditional Lenses at George Town Festival 2022, in collaboration with cinematographer Joie Koo, dancers Yee Teng and Winnie Xuan, composer Yii Kah Hoe, lighting designer Tan Eng Heng, and visual artist Hoi Ling. The digital work captures still images and subtle movements of the dancers, in contrast with traditional houses at Rimbun Dahan.
About the Artist
Chan Kar Kah (b.1997) is a Malaysian interdisciplinary artist, choreographer, educator, and director of Marrow Collective. Kar Kah was trained in Chinese classical dance, Chinese ethnic folk dance, and contemporary dance at Beijing Normal University. In 2018, she founded Marrow Collective which explores the interstices of dance and visual arts. Kar Kah’s research on local Chinese dance surrounds the ancestral traditions and somatic memories of the Malaysian Chinese community, and their influence on Chinese dance in Malaysia. With later involvement in Chinese opera and Chinese martial arts (Nan Quan), she seeks the commonality between the body movements of these arts and the integration between them in Tanah Melayu. Her works also focus on Chinese philosophy, oriental body movements, and their integrations between the cultural exchanges in Southeast Asia.