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Daniel Bear Davis

admin Arts, Dance, Workshops 13 January 2016

DANIEL BEAR DAVIS has taught composition, contact improvisation, and Axis Syllabus internationally in Estonia, Finland, Greece, Spain, Germany, Denmark and Mexico. His work prioritizes content over genre, weaving text, dance, video, music and new media without hesitation. He considers all work to be site and context-specific and is interested in mobilizing audience agency through interaction and unconventional use of space. His work has been presented at the Imagining Bodies Symposium in Tallin, Estonia, the San Francisco International Arts Festial, SoWat Now Contemporary Performance Festival, and Looking Left Festival in California, and at the SEEDS Festival and E|MERGE Residency at Earthdance Center, MA. He has performed in theaters, on submarines, desert rocks, construction scaffolding, and art galleries. He’s made pieces about dementia, gender, war, heritage, identity. He cares about image, awe, and beauty. In creating a wide and rich acceptance of what it is to be human in a more-than-human world.

Daniel has been blessed with opportunities to perform with Nita Little, Nancy Stark Smith, Live Art Installations, Felix Ruckert, Kira Kirsch, Erika Tsimbrovsky, Scott Wells, Krista DeNio and many other inspiring body/minds.

(Time)(Place)(Body): a site-specific dance workshop

Join us for a week long excavation of image and movement in time, place and body. We will engage various approaches to body-based performance in relation to site and context. We will compose, de-compose, and re-compose an ever shifting relation to self, other, and environment.

This interdisciplinary performance workshop will combine movement training based in Axis-Syllabus, contact improvisation, butoh and other somatic awareness approaches with compositional tools from Viewpoints, Moment Work, and Performance Collage to create original choreographed and improvised performances in relation to site. The beautiful artist residency center, Rimbun Dahan, offers countless natural and cultivated environments to frame, support, complicate, and shape our work.

The workshop will end with an informal public showing of solo and group material we would have created over the course of the week.

All levels are welcomed – contact dancers, contemporary dancers, performance artists or dancers interested in site-specific, interdisciplinary or installation work.

******************

DATES: 19 January to 24 January 2016
TIMES: 10 am to 6 pm daily (witth a day off on the 22nd)
VENUE: Rimbun Dahan, Kuang, Malaysia

FEES
Malaysian* participants (with accommodation): RM550
Malaysian* participants (without accommodation): RM450
Non-Malaysian participants (includes accommodation): RM850

SPECIAL OFFER FOR MYDANCE MEMBERS
The first five MyDance members who register get an RM100 discount!

* “Malaysian” refers to Malaysian citizens based in Malaysia.

To register, send an email to david.lim@mydancealliance.org.

(Time)(Place)(Body): a site-specific dance workshop is organized by David Lim and supported by MyDance Alliance and Rimbun Dahan.

Check the Facebook event page for updated info…

Dancing in Place 2016

admin Dance, Dancing in Place 8 January 201629 February 2020

A fun and informal excursion for the whole family, Dancing in Place features 12 short dance works performed outdoors in the lush tropical garden at Rimbun Dahan.

3-6:30pm
Saturday & Sunday
16-17 January 2016 [same program on both days]
FREE ENTRY

Featuring works by:

Alla Azura Abal Abas
Lim Hooi Meng
Rithaudin Abdul Kadir
Lee Ren Xin
Rathimalar Govindarajoo
Ming Low, for Balletbase
Syed Haziq Afiq
Nadhirah Razid

And special international guests:

Daniel ‘Bear’ Davis (USA)
Li Yong Wei & Seow Yi Qing (Singapore)
Jed Amihan and Airdance (Philippines)
Ong Pholchir and Spine Party Movement (Thailand)

The event will continue, rain or shine! Please bring your own picnic, as well as shoes that can get wet/muddy, umbrellas, and mosquito repellent. Refreshments will be provided.

Sorry, Rimbun Dahan is not a wheelchair-accessible venue.

For map and directions to Rimbun Dahan, see https://rimbundahan.org/?page_id=32

Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/708357295930507/

Ineza Roussille

admin Resident Artist, Southeast Asian Arts Residency 7 January 20167 January 2016filmmaker, Malaysia, Writer

Ineza Roussille is an independent documentary filmmaker from Malaysia. She’s produced videos for local NGOs on various social issues. These include videos for Yayasan Chow Kit on street children, for the Joint Action Group for Gender Equality (JAG), a coalition of local feminist civil society organisations, on the importance of women’s participation in the elections (Undi Anda, Suara Anda), a series for PT Foundation on People Living with HIV (PLHIV), and for UNICEF on children’s rights in Malaysia. Currently Ineza is working on an ongoing campaign called I Am You: Be A Trans Ally, which aims to raise awareness on the issues of the Transgender community in Malaysia, and complement the efforts regarding the recent judicial challenge against laws that infringed on the rights of the Trans* community.

Other than her documentary work, she has also worked on several creative side projects, including a short film entitled Blackbird, and a mockumentary on lesbians in KL entitled, Angmo & Amoi. Angmo & Amoi has been screened at various queer film festivals including in Manila, Philippines, Jakarta, Indonesia, and Austin, Texas in the USA. She recently won first prize for the PLHIV series at the Red Ribbon Short Film competition, organized by the Malaysian AIDS Council.

She’ll be in residency at Rimbun Dahan for January 2016 to work on a memoir project to explore the story of her father’s life, which may be turned into a graphic novel further down the line.

“As fulfilling as my journey into video activism has been, I feel like I need to step away from the camera and focus more on my writing. My father passed away in March this year, and while clearing out his apartment, I realized I was surrounded by his life story. From the primary school report cards that he kept, to the disgustingly smoke stained walls of his apartment, the visuals in that space painted a picture of him I knew so well, and yet did not understand at all. I realized I needed to write his story, from the perspective of the only person who had the experience of being his child. In writing his story, I hope to allow myself the space to personally grieve his loss, and at the same time produce a story that would make him proud.”

Priceless: Featuring works by 2015 resident artist Al-Khuzairie Ali

admin Exhibition, Resident Artist 7 January 2016

Rimbun Dahan presents Priceless, showcasing works made by ceramic artist Al-khuzairie Ali during his six-month residency from July to December 2015, where he explored the concept of human connection to the external world (an ongoing focus in his work) through the subject of animals. The external world overflows in Rimbun Dahan, a green lung home to a variety of wildlife, tucked away from the bustle of the city. Within the grounds humans, animals and plants alike live under a canopy of branches, leaves and steel beams, providing fruitful intersections of the organic and the constructed. This setting provided the perfect incubator for the artist and his explorations.

Khuzairie hails from Pahang, home of the largest portion of Taman Negara, one of the oldest rainforests in the world. This sense of place informs his connection and exploration of the natural world time and again – from his studio in Puncak Alam he began to think of what used to be lush, thick jungle disappearing under development and construction, habitat disappearing under greed. “I look at the hideous side of the human character which has an impact on other beings in the ecosystem,” says Khuzairie of his inspiration. “We know that some animals are threatened with extinction but the modern world focuses on the importance of money and this has many people losing their judgment and ignoring the nature of life.”

We invite you to visit the exhibition and experience Al-Khuzairie’s work as well as the surroundings that made the work possible.

OPENING HOURS:

Weekends 10am – 6pm, Monday to Friday by appointment
16 – 24 January 2016

Admission is FREE.

Rimbun Dahan is also hosting our annual dance event, Dancing in Place, a series of site-specific contemporary dance performances by dancers from all over Asia, on 16 and 17 January.

There will be a guided tour of Rimbun Dahan’s grounds and traditional village houses at 9am on Sunday 24 January, conducted by Angela Hijjas. For the event page on Facebook please click here.

Southeast Asian Choreolab 2016

admin Dance, SEA Choreolab 6 January 20169 December 2025

An international choreographic laboratory for emerging Southeast Asian contemporary dance choreographers, facilitated by Japanese choreographer Akiko Kitamura, at Rimbun Dahan, from 28 May to 5 June 2016.

Participants

Noun Sovitou (Cambodia)
Citra Pratiwi (Indonesia)
Sabri Gusmail (Indonesia)
Muhammad bin Samsudin (Malaysia)
Al Jabar bin Laura (Malaysia)
Chantal Primero (Philippines)
Bernice Lee (Singapore)
Norhaizad bin Adam (Singapore)
“Haste” Sompong Leartvimolkasame (Thailand)
“Much” Pakhamon Hemachandra (Thailand)
“Ben” Mai Minh Anh Khoa (Vietnam)
Lucy-Margaux Marinkovich (New Zealand, special participant-observer)

Project Overview

The 14 participants were chosen through an open call process, with applications submitted to a panel including committee members of MyDance Alliance and World Dance Alliance Asia-Pacific.

The participants lived, worked and explored together in the arts community of Rimbun Dahan for 9 days, with guidance from our international facilitator, Japanese choreographer Akiko Kitamura.

The program consisted of 7 work days in the studio, with choreographic tasks assigned by Akiko Kitamura involving working in duets. The morning sessions consisted of workshops led by the participants themselves, to introduce their own cultural backgrounds and creative practices to their peers.

The Choreolab concluded with an informal showing of the duet works that the participants had made, to a small audience in the studio at Rimbun Dahan. [Photos from the showing below by Huneid Tyeb.]

Project Aims

Like the previous Southeast Asian Choreolabs in 2014 and 2015, the project aims to support and enable emerging Southeast Asian contemporary dance choreographers to

Adopt new choreographic tools and physical, thematic and conceptual approaches to enrich their artistic practice;
Develop regional networks among their peers and with regional dance institutions, for knowledge sharing, future artistic collaboration and touring;
Experience works of art, cultures, places and histories beyond their home, to increase international understanding and to help contextualize their artistic practice.

About Akiko Kitamura, facilitator

Akiko Kitamura was born in 1970 in Tokyo. She learned ballet dance and street dance in her youth, studied dance theory at Waseda University and began to build a professional career as a choreographer in show business while still in her teens. She choreographed many pieces for commercial films, fashion shows and plays. In 1994, she founded her own company Leni-Basso. In 1995-1996, she stayed in Germany for a year as a resident artist.

In 2001 she was invited to the Bates Dance Festival and created Finks, one of her best known works, performed more than 60 times worldwide. Ghostly Round (2005), choreographed for In Transit organised by Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin), is another of her signature works which has toured internationally. Akiko Kitamura has made many works for international companies, commissions and collaborations such as for American Dance Festival, Group Motion Dance Company in Philadelphia, ACE Dance and Music of Birmingham, and avant-garde rock group Art Zoyd in France.

Akiko started to learn pencak silat in 2004 according to a strong interest in the body techniques of South East Asia, and in 2010 she came to Indonesia to research dance, music and martial arts more deeply. In 2011, she started to collaborate with Indonesian artists including choreographer/dancer Martinus Miroto, Yudi Ahmad Tajudin (Teater Garasi), dancer Rianto, musicians Kill the DJ (Jogja Hip Hop Foundation), Slamet Gundono, and Endah Laras, and a team of Japanese artists to create the To Belong Series, such as To Belong-cyclonicdream- (2013) and To Belong/Suwung (2014). The work explores how two cultures meet, and connects the old world to the contemporary using video, music and dance. It also aims to discover the new generation of the Asian Body: the repository of the traditional and the contemporary worlds.

In 2015, Akiko was an Asian Cultural Council Fellow and a Saison Foundation Fellow. Since 2001 Akiko Kitamura has taught at Shinshu University, Nagano, as associate professor of the Faculty of Arts.

http://www.akikokitamura.com/
http://www.akikokitamura.com/tobelong/english/

The Southeast Asian Choreolab 2016 was a joint project by

Supported by

Chan Aye & Phyu Mon

admin Resident Artist, Southeast Asian Arts Residency 5 January 201623 January 2016installation, Myanmar, painting, performance art

Chan Aye (b. 1954) is a sculptor, installation artist, painter, and writer from Myanmar. He was self taught before going on to study traditional Myanmar painting between 1986 and 1989. He has developed a unique pictorial language that is inventive and at the same time inherits the iconography of Myanmar cave painting and mural paintings, as found in the temples at Bagan, Sitkaing, and Po Win Taung in North Myanmar, as well as his studied interest in Western art, which the artist has studied in magazine and book reproductions through the years. His art is rooted in physicalizing the various states of life’s existence and spirituality, and engages with the dualities of material and immaterial forms: color, time, and the dimensions of human emotions, of anger, love, hate, and greed, with diverse materials such as paint, wood, marble, glass, sandstone, and paper from Myanmar Shan State, silk, motor equipment, lighting, bronze, and steel. Searching for new ways to merge traditions with the contemporary condition, he continues to create art through periods of political turmoil and change, and in the aftermath of the devastating Cyclone Nargis in 2008. Chan Aye has exhibited in Singapore, Germany, Finland, France, Hong Kong, India, Thailand, China, New York, and London.

Phyu Mon (b. 1960), writer, photographer, performance artist, and painter, grew up in an environment distinguished by strong tradition and rich culture. Since her teens she has written poetry, short stories and also painted. Now, her recent work is writing articles about art in Myanmar Magazine and Journal, as well as other international publications. Her work expanded beyond writing when she was introduced to video and film production through a program at the University of Finland, and also when she accepted a Diploma of Photography from Myanmar Photography Association. She is one of the very few women artists in Myanmar who currently works with digital photography and visual art. She is also the first female performance artist in Myanmar and has participated in several local and international exhibitions and festivals. She currently runs the Blue Wind Art project in Myanmar.

In her art, she presents the contentment and peace even of a hard life, the need for progress but at the same time the need to care for the environment. She is at present witnessing the cultural changes taking place in the urban areas through globalisation but she feels confident that the rural people, the true representatives of Myanmar, will not be overly swayed by western culture. Having struggled to break out of a restrictive and traditionalistic society, she knows how strong the culture’s values are. Her hope, presumed in her art, is that the best of these values will be kept intact for the sake of future generations. Phyu Mon has exhibited her works in Japan, Thailand, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Cambodia, Singapore, Korea, Denmark, Spain, UK, France and the US.

Chan Aye and Phyu Mon will be undergoing a two month residency at Rimbun Dahan. For more information on their work, visit Chan Aye’s website, and Blue Wind Art’s website.

Kafayat Quadri

admin Hotel Penaga, Resident Artist 2 January 201629 January 2018musician, Nigeria, Poet, Writer

Kafayat Quadri is a poet (poetographer), singer-songwriter, music producer and a certified attorney. She was the first African to speak and perform at the TEDxKLwomen, Malaysia in 2013. Her music and poetry have been performed on the stages of George Town Literary Festival, KAKISENI International Arts Festival, Generation-Y Music Festival, Lake Garden Music Festival, Coffee & Fringe Art Festival, and so on.

Her first album ‘KQ the EP’ which she co-produced with Aman Junaid, a Grammy Award Recipient and her second album ‘April 16′, instrumentals in honour of her mother can both be found on iTunes, Spotify, Apple Music & VEVO. Her prose poem was recently shortlisted by the PWDC Writers Workshop by Bernice Chauly for the End Violence Against Women Campaign & GTLF 2015. She is a recipient of the Hotel Penaga Artist Residency 2016 and her first poetry collection is due to be published by Garden Bench in the same year.

In anticipation of her first collection of poems, Kafayat is working on interpreting some of the poems from the upcoming poetry collection, Aquarius, alongside her photography as printed on canvas, which would be exhibited at the Penaga Hotel at the end of her residency. The photography exhibition would be from the 30th January until the 29th of February 2016.

Also, during her residency, she would commence work on the composition of the music to be featured in her 3rd album in collaboration some Malaysian rappers and poets (especially the Penang-based ones) for her newly found music & poetry genre – RAPCOUSTICS, which comprises mainly of a single musical instrument accompanied to a rap or poetry rendition with musical choruses at intervals which would come from a direct and on-spot musical interpretation of the poem or rap as rendered by the featured artist.

She is the founder and the Managing Editor of the Poetry Digest Magazine in Nigeria and hopes to get the world reading, writing and sharing poetry everyday.

Genus Neobalanocarpus

admin Plant Lists 16 December 20157 September 2022

A genus in the family Dipterocarpaceae.

Neobalanocarpus heimii
cengal
Endemic Malay peninsula. V. large trees, bole with short buttresses, dark bark with irregular fissures becoming scaly in older trees. Produces the primary timber of Malaya. Seeds heavy & wingless fall just beneath parent tree.

Previous images:

Images from September 2022:

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Genus Anisoptera

admin Plant Lists 16 December 20157 September 2022

A genus in the family Dipterocarpaceae.

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Anisoptera laevis
mersawa durian
Malaya, Sumatra & Borneo. Most common of genera widely distributed between 300 & 900 m. Vulnerable, due to logging & habitat loss; small smooth leaf, sparse reddish scales on lower surface. Planted 6/07.

Images from September 2022:

Anisoptera marginata
mersawa paya
E Sumatra, Malaya, Borneo. In Malaya near coastal peat swamp forest of S Perak, Selangor,
Pahang, and Johor. Critically endangered by land conversion. Smooth leaves, bright yellow under.
1 fr TH 11/09

Images from September 2022:

Anisoptera scaphula
mersawa gajah
South from Chittagong; most common in north of Malaya but found as far south as NS. Favours low altitudes and deep gorges, now endangered through range. Large thin glabrous leaf. Very large trees, up to 9m girth. Planted 6/07.

Images from September 2022:

Anisoptera sp.
mersawa
Small genus of about 14 species, 7 in Malay peninsula. Most have distinctive leaf: prominent looped marginal vein. High silica content of wood
makes sawing difficult. Large buttresses were frequently cut to make pans for tin washing.

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Genus Vatica

admin Plant Lists 16 December 201510 September 2022

A genus in the family Dipterocarpaceae.

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Vatica cinerea
resak laut
A coastal species that grows to 700m elevation, of Kedah and Perlis, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia. Small trees that are easily confused with Vatica odorata, best known as a small tree on exposed ridges, rocky headlands and limestone hills, and in the Schima-bamboo forests of Kedah and Perlis.

Vatica cuspidata (Ridl.) Sym.
resak daun runcing
Endemic to Malaya, and most common Vatica, on coastal hills. Vulnerable, due to conversion and placing logging roads on ridges. Long petioled acuminate leaf that dries dark. TH 2012.

Images from 2022:

Vatica flavida Foxw.
Resak padi
Endemic to Parit FR, Keroh & Cikus. Feared extinct. Elliptic-obovate cuspidate leaf with veins hairy on under surface. Yellow flowers in great profusion. These from Univeristi Petronas campus, 2011.

Images from 2022

Vatica havilandii Brandis [??]
resak degung
N. Borneo, Malaya: Parit FR. Prefers low forest, critically endangered, close to extinction in Malaya. Obovate-oblong leaf sharp at apex, rounded at base but variable. Dries papery dark purple. Nut globose.

Vatica lobata
resak paya
Endemic sp from Sg Paka, Trengganu. Swampy land near streams, now critically endangered if not extinct due to the conversion of habitat to estate. Obovate leaf with only 5 prs nerves. 1 fr TH 11/09.

Vatica lowii King emend. Sym.
resak pipit
From SE Thailand to Johor. Small bluntly acuminate leaf. Typical Vatica, up to 1.5m girth. From Tunas Harapan 6.12

Images from 2022

Vatica maingayi
resak lidi
A species of Pelambang, Sumatra, the peninsula and NW Borneo, particularly abundant in Melaka. Lidi refers to the slender petioles.

Vatica nitens King
resak daun panjang
Malay peninsula and NW Borneo. From Penang and s. Kedah to Panti, s. Johor. Common in northern Selangor but not abundant anywhere. Vulnerable to logging and forest conversion. Large oblong leaves, bole up to 3m girth.

Images from 2022

Vatica odorata (Griff.) Sym.
resak ranting kesat
Throughout Malaya, more common in north. Sub species, on low hills. Rusty pink tomentose young twigs (kesat: rough twigs) and semi-inferior fruits. Fr Tunas Harapan 6.12.

Vatica pauciflora (Korth.) Bl.
resak paya
Fr S Vietnam to S Sumatra, in low lying swampy habitat. Vulnerable due to fragmentation. Typical Vatica, less than 3m girth, wingless fruits adapted for water dispersal. Tunas Harapan 6.12.

Images from 2022

Vatica stapfiana (King) Sloot
resak mempening, resak laru
Malaya and Sumatra. Not uncommon in Selangor, Perak, Pahang, often in valleys, near streams. Rarely exceeds 1m girth, exudations of yellow dammar. Fruits resemble acorns of Quercus, mempening.

Images from 2022

Vatica venulosa Bl.
resak letup
Malaya, Sumatra, W Java, Borneo. Near streams in damp soil, probably endangered, but not studied. Typical small Vatica, <1m girth. Small leaves, nut concealed by 5 sepal wings 3 cm long. Lata Belatan, Trengganu. TH 6.2012.

Images from 2022

Vatica yeechongii
Endemic sp from Sg Lalang FR Selangor, first described in 2002, on slope not far from Saraca
stream. V large leaves, 40cm long, billowed between at least 28 prs nerves, short stout petiole and stout twigs. 1 fr TH 11/09.

Images from 2022

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