SEA Choreolab

From 6 to 14 July 2019, a group of 10 emerging contemporary dance choreographers from 7 Southeast Asian countries attended the Southeast Asian Choreolab 2019 at Rimbun Dahan, facilitated by Australia choreographer Liesel Zink.

The participants were:

• Ayu Permata Sari, Indonesia
• Hasyimah Harith, Singapore
• Irfan Setiawan, Indonesia
• Michael Barry Que, Philippines
• Mimee Somvanhpheng Keolouanglath, Laos
• Pat Toh, Singapore
• Pham Thi Hong Sam, Vietnam
• Pich Sopheavy, Cambodia
• Raul “Buboy” L. Raquitico Jr., Philippines
• Silver Yee, Malaysia

For nine days, the participants lived, worked and expored contemporary dance practice and creation together at Rimbun Dahan. consist of 7 work days with 2 days of study-tour. Work days took place in the dance studio at Rimbun Dahan. Each of the participants presented a 1-hour morning session sharing their own choreographic approaches or movement backgrounds. In the afternoon, Liesel Zink led the participants through sessions exploring choreographic methods and analysis.

The first day of the Choreolab concluded with a welcome dinner at Rimbun Dahan, including prominent members of the local contemporary dance community. The participants also visited Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre to watch a Dancebox performance, and took a short excursion to Forest Research Institute Malaysia and Batu Caves. Their full-day excursion included a long walk around the Dataran Merdeka/Chinatown area of Kuala Lumpur, while Liesel led the group through exercises involving visibility/invisibility in a public space.

On the final day of the Choreolab, the participants presented several short site-specific works they had made to a small public audience.

Project Aims

To support and enable emerging Southeast Asian contemporary dance choreographers to

1. Adopt new choreographic tools and physical, thematic and conceptual approaches to enrich their artistic practice;
2. Develop regional networks among their peers and with regional dance institutions, for knowledge sharing, future artistic collaboration and touring;
3. Experience works of art, cultures, places and histories beyond their home, to increase international understanding and to help contextualize their artistic practice.
4. Work closely with an established choreographer (Liesel Zink), to participate in her particular artistic approach, and to benefit from her insights, advice and experience.

We are glad that the participants had a positive and reenergizing experience with each other at Rimbun Dahan. Here is the word cloud from their feedback forms:

 About Liesel Zink, facilitator

Liesel Zink is an Australian choreographer interested in the body as a tool for socio-political and environmental expression. With a focus on site-specific work, Liesel seeks to engage new and diverse audiences in meaningful contemporary dance experiences. Liesel was awarded the 2017 Australian Dance Award for Outstanding Achievement in Independent Dance for her work ‘The Stance’, which has been performed at Sziget Festival Hungary 2017, Ansan Street Arts Festival South Korea 2017 and several cities around Australia. Prior to that her site-specific work ‘fifteen’ (Next Wave Festival VIC 2012 & Brisbane Festival QLD 2012) won two ‘best of’ awards both for Melbourne’s Small to Medium dance work and Brisbane Time Out’s dance award.

She is currently developing ‘Balloons & Granite’ (a large scale dance installation exploring the body in shifting landscapes) and recently premiered ‘INTER’ (a science, dance and spoken word collaboration).

Liesel has been commissioned to choreograph works for Australian dance companies including Expressions Dance Company, Tasdance and LINK Dance Company. Her choreographic style has evolved from her postgraduate research on body language and her ongoing interest in social psychology.

She was a lead artist in the creation of Force Majeure’s new site-specific work FLOCK (Commonwealth Games 2018) and has performed for Polytoxic Dance Company and independent artists including Liz Lea, PVI Collective and Dave Sleswick. As well as producing her own work she produces for dance artist Michael Smith, and co-produces The IndepenDANCE Project (Phluxus2 Dance Collective) and Angry Mime evening of experimental art.

More information: www.lieselzink.com

SEA Choreolab 2019 Call for Applications [PDF 1MB]

From 23 June to 1 July 2018, 13 selected choreographers from Southeast Asia lived together at Rimbun Dahan, exploring choreographic practice with guidance from our international facilitator, German choreographer Isabelle Schad, with assistance from Claudia Tomasi.

The program consisted of 7 work days with 2 days of study tour. During the Choreolab, each participant presented their own participant session, sharing their own choreographic methods, repertoire or movement techniques with the rest of the group.

Half of every work day was spent with Isabelle Schad, as she shared her artistic approaches and ways of looking at dance with the participants.

The program concluded with an open showing of movement tasks from the Choreolab. The open showing was attended by the general public and members of the local arts community, outside in the gardens at Rimbun Dahan.

Participants

• Lau Beh Chin, Malaysia
• Nurulakmal Abdul Wahid, Malaysia
• Jereh Leung, Singapore
• Josh Marcy, Indonesia
• Fitri Anggraini, Indonesia
• Sherli Novalinda, Indonesia
• Mee Soydala, Laos
• Noutnapha Soundala, Laos
• Vidura Amranand, Thailand
• Nguyen Thanh Chung, Vietnam
• Gebbvelle Ray ‘Dingdong’ Selga, Philippines
• Nicole Primero, Philippines
• Eva Wegener, Sri Lanka/Germany

Project Aims

To support and enable emerging Southeast Asian contemporary dance choreographers to

1. Adopt new choreographic tools and physical, thematic and conceptual approaches to enrich their artistic practice;
2. Develop regional networks among their peers and with regional dance institutions, for knowledge sharing, future artistic collaboration and touring;
3. Experience works of art, cultures, places and histories beyond their home, to increase international understanding and to help contextualize their artistic practice.
4. Work closely with an established choreographer (Isabelle Schad), to participate in her particular artistic approach, and to benefit from her insights, advice and experience.

About Isabelle Schad, facilitator

Isabelle Schad studied classical dance from 1981-90 in Stuttgart, and from 1990 to 1996 she danced in various classical companies. She began creating her own choreography and extending her dance education through diverse workshops and scholarships, was a member of Ultima Vez / Wim Vandekeybus in Brussels, and worked with / danced for Olga Mesa, Angela Guerreiro, Felix Ruckert, and Eszter Salamon.

Since 1999, she has developed numerous projects and dance performances of her own, in close collaboration with choreographers, performers, musicians and visual artists, which have been presented internationally in theatres, alternative places, galleries or festivals such as Tanzplattform, Tanz im August Berlin, Internationale Tanzwochen Wien or Dashanzi International Arts Festival Beijing.

The pieces California Roll and Still Lives – a community project that has been realised in more than 12 European cities – have been presented at Tanzplattform Germany 2006 and 2008. The community project TÜDDELDÜDDEL-LÜD has been presented at Tanzkongress 2009 in Hamburg.

Isabelle Schad regularly shows her work at Hebbel-Am-Ufer in Berlin. Since 2008, she has developed an ongoing project in collaboration with visual artist Laurent Goldring, followed by the solo Der Bau (2012) and the group work Collective Jumps (2014), which were both invited to Tanzplattform.

She is teaching in Berlin at the Inter-University Centre of Dance Berlin, and internationally in the frame of workshops or short period projects mostly supported by local Goethe-Institutes. She is actively engaged in the free dance scenes of many Balkan cities / countries, including Zagreb, Sofia, Skopje, Bucharest, and Belgrade.

In her work, Isabelle Schad explores relationships between the body, its languages and representations. She focuses on working methods that privilege exchange, the sharing of ideas, practices and knowledge as a tool for circulation, for continuity in learning and cooperation with other artists.

Isabelle is co-organizer of the working space Wiesenburg-Halle in Berlin, and a Zen-Shiatsu practitioner who practices Aikido on a daily basis.

More information: http://www.isabelle-schad.net/

About Claudia Tomasi, assistant facilitator

Claudia Tomasi first studied dance and choreography at PEPCC in Forum Dança, Lisbon. In 2013 she concluded her Bachelor of Dance, Context, Choreography at HZT / Berlin. She has been studying visionary craniosacral work at the Milne Institute in Berlin since 2017.

Great influence and inspiration on her work as a dancer and/or choreographer have been Deborah Hay, Shannon Cooney, Francesca Pedulla, Frey Faust (Axis Syllabus), Elisa Ricci, Philipp Gehmacher and Isabelle Schad. Since 2007 she has been working on her own pieces as well as in various collaborations as an interpreter and artistic assistant for other choreographers and artists, including Shannon Cooney, Isabelle Schad, Ingrid Hora, Claire Waffel and Julian Weber.

She is currently working with her brother, the audiovisual artist Benjamin Tomasi, in cooperation at the interface between contemporary dance, sound art and fine art.

The Southeast Asian Choreolab 2018 is a joint project by

In partnership with