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Southeast Asian Choreolab 2025

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Southeast Asian Choreolab 2025

About the SEA Choreolab 2025

Emerging contemporary dance choreographers from Southeast Asia were selected to attend a facilitated international choreographic laboratory at the private arts centre of Rimbun Dahan from 4 to 13 July 2025.

The 14 chosen choreographers lived, worked and explored together, with guidance from our facilitator, Malaysian choreographer and artistic director Prof. Joseph Gonzales.

The program consisted of 7 work days with 2 days of excursions to arts spaces or recreational spaces in Kuala Lumpur. Work days in the Dance Studio at Rimbun Dahan consisted of sessions exploring choreographic methods, analysis and movement techniques led by Prof. Gonzales and by the participants themselves.

Other activities included live performance viewing, informal socializing and discussions, and networking events. The program concluded on Sunday 13 July, with a studio showing to share the creative process and artistic development from the Choreolab with the Malaysian dance community and the wider public.

The participants are selected through an open call application process. Selected participants must support their own travel costs/airfare to Kuala Lumpur. The project provides local transport, meals, accommodation and access to all activities during the Choreolab.

SEA Choreolab 2025 Participants

++ Wong Shan Tie (Malaysia)
++ Tai Chun Wai (Malaysia)
++ Nadhirah Rahmat (Malaysia)
++ Ronieth Dayao (Philippines)
++ Jared Jonathan Luna (Philippines)
++ Robert ‘Giveway’ Diosanta (Philippines)
++ Sekar Tri Kusuma (Indonesia)
++ Laila Putri Wartawati (Indonesia)
++ Mekratingrum Hapsari (Indonesia)
++ Krisna Satya (Indonesia)
++ ‘Golf’ Thanupon Yindee (Thailand)
++ ‘Neo’ Nguyen Huyn Nhu (Vietnam)
++ Chew Shaw En (Singapore)
++ Neo Ke Xin (Singapore

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.
  • Work closely with an established choreographer and educator (Prof. Joseph Gonzales), to delve deeper into the choreographic process, and to benefit from his insights, advice and experience.

We hope the participants will have a positive and enjoyable experience at the SEA Choreolab, which will reenergize them and help reaffirm their commitment to their artistic practice. We would like the SEA Choreolab and the networks established here to be an ongoing resource to which the participants may return for inspiration, refreshment, respite and a sense of continual community.

About Prof. Joseph Gonzales, facilitator

Joseph is Director of ASK Dance Company, based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. His career began in 1982, as a performer with Kuala Lumpur Dance Theatre, St. Moritz Gold Band and The King & I, UK National
Tour.

He holds a PhD in Dance and a Bachelor of Science (University Malaya), Master of Arts Choreography (Middlesex University), Master of Buddhist Studies (HKU), Master of Arts Cultural Management (CUHK), and diplomas in Ballet, Modern Dance and Performing Arts from London, England.

Joseph served as the Head of Academic Studies/MFA at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts (HKAPA) from 2016 to 2024, and as Dean of Dance, National Academy for Arts, Culture and Heritage (ASWARA) in Malaysia from 1998 to 2015.

He has created 50 works, 4 musicals, and 3 full-length contemporary dances for the stage, notably
including Crossing Borders, Tabula Rasa, 3 Faces, Seru and Becoming King. He was awarded the Kakiseni BOH Cameronian Arts Awards for Best Production 2010, Best Choreographer 2015, Crosscultural Champion 2007, and Gamechanger 2019.

His passions are education and creating works that explore identity, traditions and reflect contemporary
society.

“Being postgraduate leader [at HKAPA] was a huge learning experience for me … And regarding practice
research, I realized that that’s the kind of person I am, really, because I do a lot of research that then
evolves into some kind of a stage work and presentation. I learned that I am good at guiding the students to understand what they are trying to discover for themselves and not impose my kind of perspective or my own aesthetics at all. I enjoy the process and really encouraging them to discover what they want to make work about. I really want to spend time … imparting this knowledge and this skill.” — Joseph Gonzales in conversation with Bilqis Hijjas.

SEA Choreolab 2025 is a project by

In partnership with

With support from the Insentif Seni grant of Jabatan Kebudayaan & Kesenian Negara Wilayah Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur.

William Tham

admin Southeast Asian Arts Residency, Writer
William Tham

Writer and editor William Tham joined us from Petaling Jaya for a two-month residency from May to June 2024.

About the Residency

William has written novels, short stories, and creative nonfiction, and is particularly drawn to topics rooted in the twentieth century. His writing project at Rimbun Dahan centres around the 1927 visit by Rabindranath Tagore to Southeast Asia, engaging with questions of translation, interpretation, and politics in a time of change. Its epistolary structure is particularly inspired by Zhang Ruihe’s short story “Driving North” (2023) in The Second Link: An Anthology of Malaysian and Singaporean Writing, which engages with similar themes.

Tagore, despite being better known for his poetry and fiction, was also a philosopher who engaged deeply with key questions of a nascent modernity. Having navigated the nineteenth to the twentieth centuries in British-ruled India, where anticolonial foment would take the form of nationalism, he deeply pondered ideas of nation and tradition, modernity and spirituality—ideas which are addressed here. William’s work approaches Tagore by interrogating the act of translation, and in the process, what also emerges is a story about the aspirations and imaginaries of Tagore’s contemporaries: the peoples of Malaya/Nanyang/Tanah Melayu and their imagined nation-to-come—as well as the unease associated with these rapid political changes.

About the Writer

William Tham is the author and editor of several books, as well as an editor-at-large for Wasafiri. His writings have appeared in PR&TA, NANG and The Best of World SF: Volume 2, among others. He also co-edited The Second Link: A Malaysia-Singapore Literary Anthology and has an interest in literary and cultural studies.

Southeast Asian Arts Residency – Terms & Conditions

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Dear resident artists, we look forward to welcoming you to our home and our community at Rimbun Dahan! Before you confirm your acceptance of this residency, please ensure you are comfortable with the following terms and conditions.

During the period of your residency, Rimbun Dahan will provide:

  • Private fan-cooled accommodation, including water and electricity, with a bathroom and kitchen. [In some cases, the kitchen may be shared with 1 other resident artist.] The kitchen is fully equipped with crockery (plates, bowls), cutlery (knives, forks, spoons, chopsticks), utensils (knives, spatulas, graters, cutting boards, can openers, etc.) and equipment, including fridge, stove, rice cooker and toaster.
  • For visual artists, a private fan-cooled studio, including sink with water and electricity. For performing artists, the use of the Dance Studio. For writers, unless you specifically require a separate studio, we will provide you with a writing space in your accommodation.
  • A living allowance of MYR1,000 per month.
  • Access to on-site facilities including clothes washing machine, swimming pool, Taman Sari vegetable garden, tennis court, exercise equipment, library, and shared office space (WiFi equipped).
  • Guidelines for living at Rimbun Dahan before your arrival, and orientation upon arrival to our site, facilities and operations.
  • Cleaning of your accommodation every 2 weeks. All other cleaning is up to you.
  • Transport to a local supermarket once a week, if required.
  • Occasional optional social mixers and excursions to local cultural events with other resident artists.
  • Occasional optional guided introductions to the heritage buildings, indigenous garden/arboretum, permanent collection of artworks, and the heritage textile collection.

Rimbun Dahan does NOT provide:

  • Meals or groceries.
  • Art materials or funding for art materials or artistic collaborators.
  • Flights to and from Malaysia, or funding for airfares.
  • Transfers between KL International Airport and Rimbun Dahan.
  • Any other local transport costs.
  • Travel visas, and any costs for procuring and maintaining travel visas, including short trips out of Malaysia to neighbouring countries.
  • Airconditioning or WiFi in accommodation or studio spaces.

Our expectations for resident artists:

  • Resident artists will use the residency to engage in the development of their artistic practice. The resident is NOT required to fulfil the artistic proposal as submitted in the application, although this is preferred.
  • Rimbun Dahan should be your primary home and full-time work place for the duration of your residency. This includes sleeping here at night, and being here on weekends. Occasional trips into the city are fine.
    • Malaysian artists should not be carrying on full-time or substantial part-time work (i.e. more than 2 days per week) in the city. Please discuss this with the residency manager if you plan to be away regularly.
    • Southeast Asian artists are encouraged to travel within Malaysia during their stay (and may be required to travel overseas to renew their visas), but such trips should not be longer than a few days and should be discussed with the residency managers.
  • Resident artists are expected to participate in 1 scheduled Open Day during their residency. Open Days invite the public to visit the studios of the artists to meet the artists and experience the art works being developed. On Open Days, the artist is expected to be on site and available to share in discussions about their art with visitors. The format can be discussed with the residency manager, and depends on the genre of the artists: for example, performing artists may offer a workshop or studio performance, writers may give readings. An Open Day is NOT guaranteed, however. Other than Open Day, the residency does not offer any kind of exhibition or performance production. 
  • Visual artists are expected to leave 1 artwork that has been made at Rimbun Dahan for our Permanent Collection. Selection can be decided by the artist, or the artist may invite the residency manager to discuss the selection of the work. If you are planning to make only one single work during the course of your residency, then you should discuss this requirement in advance with the residency manager.
  • Resident artists are expected to acknowledge the Rimbun Dahan Residency as a source of support when work created here features significantly in the first instance in any publication, exhibition, performance or other dissemination to the public. As such, resident artists may use their residency to create work for display/sale for external commissions, exhibitions, performances, partnerships & collaborations, etc.
  • Non-Malaysian resident artists are responsible for their own immigration/visa status. We do not provide work visas for resident artists. ASEAN passport holders are usually given a Short Term Social Pass automatically on entry, which usually lasts only 30 days. If you are interested in a residency longer than 1 month, you may need to exit the country for a few days to renew your social pass. You will need to support the costs of this travel. If you want a residency longer than 1 month, it does not need to take place consecutively; for example, for a two-month residency, one month of the residency can take place in February, and one month can take place in September.

Acceptance of Terms

These terms will be laid out in a Letter of Offer, which we will send to you once we have fixed the dates of your residency next year. Your signature on the Letter of Offer will indicate your acceptance of these terms.

If you have any questions or concerns about the terms & conditions of this residency, please do not hesitate to discuss this with the arts manager by email at arts@rimbundahan.org, before you sign the Letter of Offer.

Sittiphon Lochaisong

admin Southeast Asian Arts Residency, Visual Arts
Sittiphon Lochaisong

Thai visual artist Sittiphon Lochaisong is undertaking a 2-month residency at Rimbun Dahan, from October to December 2022.

See the catalogue of works that Sittiphon has made during his residency:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/17LU44ti9ZxepXI64jBf0oEXfpGGoAhZd/view?usp=share_link

About the Artist

Sittiphon Lochaisong, alias ‘Bomb, was born in Mahasarakham, Thailand. He graduated from the University of Silpakorn, Bangkok, Thailand, with Bachelor and Master of Arts Degrees in visual arts.

His paintings are a subtle combination of traditional Thai spiritual influence combined with his own unique vision. Ambiguous dots are joined and assembled, creating free-floating stellar scapes where figures and symbols meet with imagination and sensation. The spontaneous combines with delicacy, reflecting and embracing the complex and extreme nature of existence — a place of birth, life, death and the eternal.

Lochaisong’s hope is to create paintings that have the potential to motivate the viewer to examine their own interconnected existence: where one can consciously perceive the unstoppable propulsion and expanse of nature and their place within it. His abstracted ‘universes’ are a place where the viewer is compelled to concentrate, and rewarded with a glimpse of a deeper understanding of a greater truth.

https://artistbomb.wixsite.com/artist
https://www.instagram.com/bomb_stp/

About the Residency

In the residency program, living among beautiful nature at Rimbun Dahan has given me inspiration to create paintings related to the environment here. I aim to create paintings that depict the beauty and wonder of trees, flowers, insects, wind, sunlight, rain, etc, through the process of working in a semi-abstract style. It is the presentation of nature as it appears, but combined with imagination, bringing reality towards a more fantastic world to show how magical nature really is.

Marco Ferrarese

admin Southeast Asian Arts Residency, Writer
Marco Ferrarese

About the Author

Marco Ferrarese was born near Milano, Italy, and has lived in Penang since 2009, from where he covers Malaysia, India and the larger Southeast Asian region for a number of international guidebooks and publications that include Lonely Planet, South China Morning Post, Nikkei Asia, the Guardian, BBC Travel, and Travel + Leisure Southeast Asia.

In the footsteps of fellow countryman and homonymous Marco Polo, in 2012 Marco hitchhiked from Singapore to Italy across Silk Road routes and the Middle East. His debut novel Nazi Goreng (2013) was a bestseller in Malaysia until it was banned by the Ministry of Home Affairs in 2015. Marco has also played guitar in Malaysian hardcore punk bands and written a book about it, Banana Punk Rawk Trails (2015), and earned a PhD in subcultural anthropology from Monash University Malaysia. In 2017, he published “The Travels of Marco Yolo”, a collection of some of his published travel articles.

He and his Malaysian photographer wife Kit Yeng still call Penang home, even though they are on the road reporting from elsewhere most of the time. Know more about him and his books at www.marcoferrarese.com and www.monkeyrockworld.com and https://web.facebook.com/ferraresewrites/

About the Residency

After 10 years of hectic magazine publishing, Marco has come to Rimbun Dahan to try to slow down and concentrate on jotting down the draft of a new novel. It doesn’t have a title yet, but it will be a cheeky suburban horror story that draws on folklore, stereotypes and contemporary urban life to point the finger and make fun of the ethnic squabbles that are part of life in Peninsular Malaysia.

Abdul Shakir (Grasshopper)

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Abdul Shakir (Grasshopper)

Our first digital art and projection mapping artist, Abdul Shakir spent a month at Rimbun Dahan from mid April to mid May 2022, experimenting with projections on organic surfaces, and producing visual elements inspired by the traditional carvings and other artefacts at Rimbun Dahan.

About the Artist

Abdul Shakir (also known as ‘Grasshopper’) is a multidisciplinary multimedia digital artist and one of the co-founders of Filamen, which focuses on projection mapping, light installation and interactive installation projects. Shakir has worked in post-production and production agencies, and has done various projects related to design and art: graphic design, motion graphics, projection mapping and interactive installation. His projects have gone beyond Malaysia and reached an international level, displaying his works in China, Hong Kong, Spain, and the USA. Some of the notable platforms in which he has shown his work are LAMPU Festival, Urbanscapes Art Festival, Rainforest in the City, and George Town Festival.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/grassh_opper/

About the Residency

Throughout my one month residency at Rimbun Dahan, I managed to experiment on two bodies of work. The first, and also the main one, is the “Organic Projection Mapping”.  Most of my previous projection mapping works were done mainly on manmade objects such as buildings and vehicles. This residency enabled me to start experimenting with organic projections, where I could explore the mapping process on living organisms such as leaves and trees. The process is different from the normal projection mapping I usually do. Instead of having mappings done based on existing blueprints or templates, I get to experience impromptu mapping on-site.

In total,  I’ve managed to do 4 mapping sessions around the Rimbun Dahan compound. Thanks to the facilities provided, I was able to do this without technical difficulties although it was done during the night time.

My daytimes at Rimbun Dahan were filled with visual developments. I managed to produce more than 30 visual elements, rendered out every day. These visual elements were then composed into motifs, inspired by traditional carvings and objects around Rimbun Dahan. 

I also managed to share my practice with other residence artists here at Rimbun Dahan. It was such an interesting session as we opened up to each others’ thought processes and will, hopefully, lead up to collaborative projects in the near future. 

On my final night in Rimbun Dahan, I compiled all the visual motifs I had produced during my stay and arranged and composed them to be projected onto the facade of the heritage house Rumah Uda Manap. I decided to bring this house back to life by introducing vibrant elements that are inspired by the surroundings in Rimbun Dahan. The idea is to give back to Rimbun Dahan, of everything I have gained here. 

Shan Shan Lim

admin Arts, Resident Artist, Southeast Asian Arts Residency
Shan Shan Lim

Malaysian multidisciplinary artist and textile designer Shan Shan Lim joined us for a 3-month residency from March to May 2022.

About The Residency

Shan Shan approached her time with us as an opportunity to explore the boundaries of her artistic expression. Not content with limiting her work to a single medium, she experimented with cotton, wool, popsicle sticks, rice paper and linoleum. And the experimentation did not end there. Having foraged rocks from our forest at Rimbun Dahan and a local waterfall, she extracted earth pigments to concoct her own palette of natural paints. Taking the experiment further and drawing on her background as a weaver, she hand-dyed yarns using the Malaysian ikat technique and created a series of textile pieces. The resulting mixed media collection, a journey from the tangible to the abstract, is titled ‘The Shadow Self’.

“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” — Carl Jung

We all carry a shadow. It represents a side of ourselves we choose to ignore. By focusing on the shadows cast by the world around her, Shan Shan unearthed her own shadow. For inspiration, she did not have to venture too far beyond her studio. Rimbun Dahan’s wealth of local flora offered up silhouettes of seeds, leaves, flowers, branches and herbs. The collection encourages us to find beauty in the overlooked shadow world that is tied to every blade of grass and every human being that walks the planet.

About The Artist

Shan Shan Lim (b.1993) is a multidisciplinary artist and designer based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Her works draw inspiration from a spectrum of cultures from her childhood in Malaysia, schooling in India and her bachelor’s in London. She specialised in weave and print at Central Saint Martins, earning a degree in Textile Design. She returned home to Malaysia where she founded her eponymous design studio in 2017.

Her work is a means to make sense of her environment, both physical and incorporeal. They reflect a search for harmony and spiritual freedom in a world of chaos. Each piece is a question simultaneously posed and answered, using intuition as her guide.

Her most notable exhibitions include Lokal Helsinki (2021), The Back Room (2020), Deck, Singapore (2020) and Bank Negara Malaysia (2018). She was also selected for the Art Girl Rising residency at Sepat House (2019).

Website: https://www.shanshanlimstudios.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shanshanlim_

Lee Mok Yee

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Lee Mok Yee

Malaysian visual artist Lee Mok Yee spent two months at Rimbun Dahan from March to April 2022 exploring different materials from Rimbun Dahan and its surroundings, creating structures connecting body and architecture.

About the Artist

Lee Mok Yee is a Malaysia visual artist and drummer born in Klang, a port town near the capital city, Kuala Lumpur, where he currently lives and works. A graduate of Dasein Academy of Art and the Fine Art program at Middlesex University of London, Mok Yee is an artist whose work is primarily concerned with the entanglement between the conceptual and the material. 

His work is process-focused and often interrogative of the aspect of ‘materials’ in art-making, choosing to work with ready-made or store-bought objects. Mok Yee re-arranges these materials as an act of interrogation against uniformity; pushing against the boundaries of function in mass-production, and in the re/arranging he questions the idea of moving within structures as an exploration of change and its futilities.

Website: https://www.leemokyee.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leemokyee
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leemokyee/

About the Residency

During his 2-month residency at Rimbun Dahan, Mok Yee explored different materials inspired by Rimbun Dahan and the Malay kampung surroundings. Using scrap wood and PVC carpet that he bought from stores nearby, he attempted to build structures which connected body and architecture. The outcome was a study of materials, pending further exploration in this series of works.

Mok Yee also resumed his study of techniques he had used previously, creating drawings using charcoal on paper, and etchings on kitchenware. For Mok Yee, this practice was a kind of collective process of memory and form inspired by Rimbun Dahan.

Cheong See Min

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Cheong See Min

Malaysian weaver and textile artist Cheong See Min is in residence at Rimbun Dahan from March to June 2022.

About the Artist

Cheong See Min is an artist, weaver and textile artist from Johor Bahru, Malaysia. She obtained a Master of Fine Art degree from the Graduate Institute of Applied Art in Tainan National University of Art, Taiwan, in 2020, and a Bachelor of Fine Art from Tunghai University, Taiwan, in 2017. In 2017, she received Nando’s Art Initiative Second Runner Up award and was also selected for Bakat Muda Sezaman Young Contemporaries 2019. In 2021, her work was also selected for the International Biennale Exhibition of Micro Textile Art “Scythia”, Ivano-Frankivs’k, Ukraine.

“I am an obsessive street observer and “collect” the way people unconsciously place their belongings in their neighbourhood. The rhetoric of object placement from the alleyways has inspired me and become the theme and motif in my artworks. Collecting materials from the street and recreating them within the concept of “textile”, my artworks are a collection of my memories and past experiences about the daily objects and people in places I have lived. In my works, I portray stories through textiles and the found objects, building self-understanding through the process.”

Website: https://seemincheong.wixsite.com/homepage
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cymin_cheong/

About the Residency

In this three-month project, I plan to collect dried leaves, tree bark and fruit found in the garden of Rimbun Dahan, to dye with yarns and to produce a series of small artworks with the weaving techniques I have learnt in this time. Being resident in Rimbun Dahan full time, I believe it will draw me into different perspectives and comparisons between Malaysia and Taiwan, and will nurture my work in the tropical garden.

Online Visibility for Cultural Practitioners

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Online Visibility for Cultural Practitioners

In October 2020, artist and digital marketing professional Rupa Subramaniam conducted a series of workshops for former resident artists at Rimbun Dahan. These workshops were supported by British Council and Yayasan Sime Darby, as one of the Hubs Clinic Grants, part of the Hubs for Good program.

Suddenly art needs to go digital. But what does that really mean? This workshop helped artists pivot to digital through a holistic, conscious approach. It included understanding digital branding, as well as researching potential global audiences using tools like Google Trends, to design successful online art campaigns that can stand alone.

In the three two-hour Zoom sessions, the 18 participants learned to move confidently into the digital sphere.

The workshops were conducted by Rupa Subramaniam, a working artist with extensive professional experience in corporate-level digital media strategy. Read more about the trainer…

We have condensed the main suggestions from the workshop into this handy guide:

Hints & Tips — Increasing Online Visibility [PDF, 374KB]

 

About the Trainer

Rupa Subramaniam (b.1989) is a Malaysian creative professional based in Kuala Lumpur. Since 2014, she has been developing communal art project that get disseminated through digital platforms. She is known for her feminist-themed works, the body painting photography series, “This Body is Mine” and “Antidote” that have reached more than 2 million views worldwide. The exciting ways she uses traditional Indian coloured rice have also appealed to the local ‘hipster’ Instagram audience. Her works, while very accessible, do not sacrifice depth. Her projects have been exhibited in Global Movement of Arts in World Humanities Conference (UNESCO, CIPSH), Belgium, National Arts Gallery of Malaysia and Freedom Film Festival, among others.

Her corporate experience in digital media strategy, since 2009, has required her to conceptualize ideas, execute campaigns and justify advertising reports. Working closely with media partners such as Facebook, Google and YouTube, she has strong insights to develop clear communication messages. She has won numerous advertising awards including Aegis Global Award (Gold, 2012), Malaysia Media Awards for Best Use of Digital Search; Integrated Campaign; Branded Content and Sponsorship (2010 – 2013). Her top clients then include CIMB Bank, Nippon Paint and The Star Media Group.

She is also the founder for Art Battle MY (2016) and volunteers with GoodKids for grass root art classes (2018) to invest in developing young talent.