American choreographer spent a month in residency at Rimbun Dahan in 2013, developing a new contemporary dance duet with French dancers Aimee Lagrange and Martin Harriague.
The work-in-progress of the duet, ‘one day without harming you’, was performed at ASWARA on 30 March 2013.
Stephen Shropshire (b. 26 December 1972) is a graduate of the Juilliard School in New York City. As a choreographer he has created works for o.a. Scapino Ballet Rotterdam, Norrdans,The National Dance Company of Wales, The Holland Dance Festival, and the Iceland Dance Company. In 2003, his work ‘The Piper’s Progress’ was awarded the Grand Prize and the Public’s Prize at the 8th international choreographic competition ‘Tandances’ in Luxembourg. His work ‘sugarwater’ was named one of the top ten dance triumphs of 2008 by the London Telegraph. From 2009 to 2012, Shropshire was the artistic director of Noord Nederlandse Dans.
‘one day without harming you’ is a short study for an evening length work to premiere in 2014 as part of the Holland Dance Festival. The work is an intimate portrayal of love and loss that explores narrative dance structure through contemporary abstract form. Darting between the present and the past, the work struggles to reconstruct fragmented memories in an attempt to come to terms with what it is to love and be loved in return.
In 2012, French choreographer and performer Mic Guillaumes undertook a short residency with opera singer Anne-Laure Poulain, preparing for a performance at the Melaka Art+Performance Festival.
From 9 to 10 December 2011, German choreographer Riki von Falken and the Dance Programme at Rimbun Dahan presented a new dance work performed by eight Malaysian dancers.
“The language of my body echoes a special experience: working with the students at the ASWARA, the national arts academy in Kuala Lumpur, in 2010. For me, there is a connection between the energy of the martial art Silat and my abstract form in dance. I use the particular expressions of the dancers for a meeting of cultures in these two different forms.” — Riki von Falken, dancer & choreographer from Germany
Riki arrived at Rimbun Dahan in mid-October 1011, having already led an audition for her work at Rimbun Dahan and ASWARA earlier in August. The eight Malaysian dancers whom she chose worked intensively with her in the process of creating this work. Echo II followed Riki’s creation of the original Echo work with four dancers in New Zealand earlier in 2011.
Performed by Bilqis Hijjas, Dayang Norinah, Khairi Mokthar, Naim Syahrazad, Ng Xin Ying, Nur Ekmal bin Yusof, Pengiran Khairul Qayyum & Rabiatul Adawiah.
8.30pm Friday & Saturday, 9 & 10 December 2011
3pm Sunday, 11 December 2011
Experimental Theatre, ASWARA, 464 Jln Tun Ismail, Kuala Lumpur
Every performance followed by Q&A with the choreographer and performers
Produced by Rimbun Dahan. Sponsored by the Goethe-Institut Kuala Lumpur.
Korean artist Natalie Kim Kyungmi began to explore her interests in contemporary dance during a stay in Malaysia in 2010. She performed in Dancing in Place in August 2010, followed by a brief mentorship at Rimbun Dahan with Japanese-Australian butoh dancer Yumi Umiumare and an appearance at the Melaka Art & Performance (MAP) Festival in November 2010. Natalie moved back to Korea in 2011.
Here Natalie discusses her experience of the mentorship and the festival, accompanied by photos by Anthony Pelchen.
“Just before the festival, I was privileged to have a personal mentoring workshop with Yumi, supported by Rimbun Dahan. We started the workshop by previewing my work and it was a truly valuable and thought-provoking process with lots of mutual brainstorming and discussion. Her methodology was inspiring as she never imposed any answers or theory but just threw questions at me to look into and explore. Her tremendous mentoring helped me focus on natural strength and emotion while understanding the virtues of dance performance.
Personally we’ve became very close friends with extra gin and tonic sessions every night during festival and her enthusiastic mentoring has never had a break since the festival till now!”
“Here I am performing ‘Mapping’ with Agung Gunawan (Indonesia) in one of the site-specific performances around Melaka town.
Each performer performed twice a day in different sites, either solo or in collaboration. I was lucky to get to perform with performers from diverse backgrounds such as Malaysia, Vietnam, Australia and Indonesia. It was a valuable learning collaboration process, seeing how my emotion and body could react and tune into all the different energies and movements, and, finally, with the audience.”
“Before the festival, I had come across news about a women executed in public in Iran by stoning to death. This piece was dedicated to her and all women who are still oppressed in many ways. It also reflects my personal experiences encountering different cultures which have different values and perceptions of gender.”
“Here I am performing my solo ‘Prophecy’, as part of the Cerita Pendek (Short Works) program. In this performance dance work I explore the hope of transformation across the passage of time.”
“This picture, and the one at the top left of this page, shows Eulogy for the Living, the group performance at the finale of the festival. I am with with Ikko (Japan), Agung (Indonesia) and Tho (Laos-France).
The process of creating this work was very inspiring as each performer had his or her own solo, yet needed to tune into others’ independent parts in an improvisational way until the final group encounter. During every rehearsal there was lots of discussion and experimentation to make this finale a ‘community-like’ performance.”
Australian-based Japanese choreographer/performer YumiUmiumare undertook a short residency at Rimbun Dahan in 2010, working with and mentoring performer Natalie Kim Kyungmi, towards a solo work for the Melaka Art+Performance Festival. Yumi also conducted a workshop on 21 November 2010 at The Annexe Central Market.
Yumi is at the forefront of Butoh fusion in Australia, with work across genres, including ‘Butoh Cabaret’. She works internationally and performed first in Australia in the early 90’s with Tokyo Butoh company DaiRakudakan. She has had a commitment to teaching and mentoring for over a decade, initiating with Tony Yap the Beyond Butoh series of annual showings in Melbourne.
From 22 to 24 April 2010, the Dance Programme at Rimbun Dahan presented Bodies across Boundaries: two dance works by Malaysian choreographers & performed by Australian dancers, plus two dance works by Australian choreographers & performed by Malaysian dancers.
In the studio and on stage, we reached across the seas, building bridges with our bodies, and showing that differences of language, background, and home are no barrier to moving together.
‘Bodies Across Boundaries’ presented two new contemporary dance works by acclaimed Malaysian choreographers Amy Len and Suhaili Ahmad Kamil, performed by a group of powerful young Australian dancers. The show also included two contemporary dance works performed by talented Malaysian dancers including Hii Ing Fung, Stephanie Lim, An Nur Azhar, and Bilqis Hijjas, and created by Australian artists who have been in residence at Rimbun Dahan.
8.30pm Friday 22 April, Saturday 23 April 2010
3pm Sunday 24 April 2010
The Actors Studio, Rooftop at Lot 10 Shopping Centre, Jalan Sultan Ismail
Presented by the Dance Programme at Rimbun Dahan
Supported by the Australia Malaysia Institute and the Australian High Commission
Works in the Program
STRINGS is a multidisciplinary work involving Australian visual artist Rochelle Haley, who will be making live drawings in response to the movements of dancers on stage. The dancers themselves will respond to the projection of the drawings as they develop, creating an intricate web of causal connections between the two dimensions of the paper and the three dimensions of the bodies on stage.
SHUTTLING is a dance work choreographed by award-winning Malaysian choreographer Amy Len and performed by the three Australian dancers currently resident at Rimbun Dahan, as well as three of Amy’s dancers from Kwang Tung Dance Company. The work is about the unconscious memories that are aroused when people from different backgrounds meet.
DAZZLE was created by Australian choreographer Angela Goh for three Malaysian dancers — Hii Ing Fung, Stephanie Lim and Jojo Wong, two of whom she worked with when she was first in residence at Rimbun Dahan in 2009. The work explores the idea of camouflage and deception, being seen and not seen, and how hiding the face makes someone inhuman.
WONDERWHATTALAND has been created by hit Malaysian choreographer Suhaili Micheline with the three Malaysian dancers. A crazy trip inspired by Alice in Wonderland, it includes rap songs made of the names of Malaysian food: gulp, slurp, chomp! Pulling out the bizarre in the most everyday things, Wonderwhattaland will be a work that sends the audience out giggling but thinking.
Norwegian choreographer Kristine Nilsen Oma was in residence at Rimbun Dahan in 2010.
She developed a solo work, Marilyn Monroe’s last 20 minutes before committing suicide, which was performed at Dancing in Place, a weekend of site-specific work at Rimbun Dahan, 7-8 August 2010.
About the Work
Western neuroses meets the Third World. The work is an experiential exploration of the Buddhist concept that earthly desires can lead to enlightenment.
The work is a response to meeting a whole new environment and culture, and a personal quest to understand both my own desires and how to make them come from a higher perspective. In the context of the Third World certain neuroses becomes ridiculous. Yet they were created as a response to the Western world I have lived in all my life. How do I cope in the Third World? How will my neuroses behave? Is there a control in this experiment?
Marilyn Monroe, goddess of the Western world, a legend still worshiped, becomes the symbol and character of what the Western world promotes as success. Yet I suspect her life was not a happy one. I have my own spin on it. I relate to it.
Judy Garland is singing somewhere over the rainbow. Marilyn is nowhere to be seen, only a hijab lying by the side of the pool, and the record playing and playing again and again…
Alice comes from Texas, but lives in Portugal. Sometimes her English is perfect, and sometimes it isn’t. She won a million dollars in a lottery and every day she paints her fingernails red. She might be someone you know, or perhaps you have never heard of her. So does she really exist?
Singaporean choreographer Joavien Ng and Spanish choreographer Paloma Calle are currently undertaking a one-month residency at Rimbun Dahan supported by the Asia-Europe Foundation. During their residency, Joavien and Paloma are collaborating to create a new performance work entitled ‘The Diary of Alice’, intertwining the concepts of fiction and identity.
A 3-hour performance laboratory exploring creative processes associated with the body, objects, space, image and sound will take place on Sunday 14 March, from 12pm to 3pm, at The Annexe Gallery, Central Market Annexe. Artists in all genres are invited to participate, while Paloma and Joavien facilitate a development process involving their new work, ‘The Diary of Alice’.
Each participant should bring a digital camera (a mobile phone with camera is suitable), and an object with special meaning to the participant, either positive or negative. Participants are requested to wear loose comfortable clothes, as some movement will be involved.
A lecture presentation of the artists’ previous works will take place at The Annexe Central Market on Monday 15 March, from 8pm to 10pm, followed by a discussion and Q&A session.
About the Artists
Photo of Joavien Ng by Matthew G. Johnson.
Joavien Ng began her choreographing and performing career in 1997, after graduating from La Salle School of Performing Arts in Singapore. Her works have since been presented by various Singapore and international arts organisations such as Esplanade Theatre (Singapore), Singapore Arts Festival, Kampnagel (Hamburg), Contemporary Dance of Fort Worth (USA), Little Asia Dance Exchange Network (Asia), Alkantara (Portugal), and Singapore Art Museum.
Joavien’s most recent work, Body Swap, in which she collaborated with Germany-based American choreographer Dani Brown, was presented at Kampnagel and Esplanade Theatre in 2009. Other works include LAB at the Esplanade Theatre in 2008 and Body Inquireat Singapore Arts Festival 2008.
Paloma Calle was born in Madrid in 1975. After training and working for more than 10 years as a performer in experimental dance and theatre companies in Spain, Germany and Italy, she began to develop her own projects in performance art, staged performances and video in 2004. Her work is usually based on autobiographical material that she explores and reconstructs from an ironic and artifactual perspective. There is a constant questioning and experimenting with the conventional use of space, resulting in works in different formats conceived for diverse spaces ranging from a theatre to a walk with the audience through the periphery of a city, or a performance in a private house. Paloma also regularly questions the role of the audience in her work, encouraging the audience to enter a state of alertness and activity.
Paloma’s work, presented in a number of centres and festivals in Europe and in Spain, include des-trozos, lovely epi-ladies, parlez moi d’amour, ZOO, simple present, SECRET, territorio: sad y k, DE MANO, 1, 2, 3, 4 partes, EVEREST/príncipes, 100 cosas que hacer la noche en blanco mejor que ver la noche en blanco, concierto y subasta, and hello myself.
This residency is supported by the Asia-Europe Foundation as a follow-up to ASEF’s Point to Pointe dance forum in Portugal last year.
Felicity Fenner is an Australian curator of contemporary exhibitions including Primavera 2005 at Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art, the 2008 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art and Once Removed, Australia’s group exhibition at the 2009Venice Biennale. She is a contributing editor of Art Asia Pacific and publishes regularly in a variety of journals including Art in America and Art and Australia.
Felicity is Senior Curator at the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales and Deputy Director of UNSW’s Centre for Contemporary Art and Politics. She is completing a PhD on curatorial strategies in major international exhibitions. During her time at Rimbun Dahan, Felicity is continuing her ongoing research into contemporary Asian art in preparation for a major exhibition exploring how artists and designers envisage our future urban and social environments in the context of global warming and climate change.
The current choreographer-in-residence at Rimbun Dahan, Australian dancer-choreographer Angela Goh graduated with a Bachelors in Fine Arts (Dance) from Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in 2007. Since then, she has performed in Lisa Wilson’s Elbow Room and in Soft Landing directed by Solon Ulbricht. As a founding member of the independent dance collective little moving poets, Angela has choreographed and performed in three shows at The Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Art in Brisbane. She also created Like No Place for the Judith Wright Centre last year.
Angela previously performed in Kuala Lumpur with QUT at Tari! 07, and is excited to return to explore her Malaysian heritage through new choreography. She presented a site-specific solo performance entitled Octagon in the Round for ‘Dancing in Place‘ at Rimbun Dahan from 23-24 May.
After two months of physical and conceptual experimentation and investigation as resident choreographer at Rimbun Dahan, Angela presented the new works she created at Rimbun Dahan — see I’m seen it seems and filled and spilt — at a work-in-progress performance at KLPac on 11 July.
The Choreographer’s Residency at Rimbun Dahan provides accommodation, studio space and limited funding and production support for contemporary dance choreographers from Southeast Asia and Australia to live and work in Malaysia. For more about the residency, click here.
Dancer Hii Ing Fung rehearsing for Angela Goh’s group work.
Dancer Hii Ing Fung rehearsing for Angela Goh’s group work.
Workshop
Angela will conduct a contemporary dance workshop in the main dance studio at ASWARA on Friday 17 July from 10am to 12.30pm. During the workshop she will teach a class and excerpts of her new group work, see I’m seen it seems.For more information about the time and location of the workshop, contact Yunus 012 332 1657.
Performance
Angela will perform the solo work she created at Rimbun Dahan, filled and spilt, in a group show at ASWARA:
The show will also feature work by Liu Yong Sean, Kim Jungyeon, James Kan, Wendy Rogers and Jennifer Twilley (guest lecturers at ASWARA from UC Riverside), Shafirul Azmi, Naimsyahrazad, Melinda Kwong and Fairul Zahid.
For more information, please contact Bilqis Hijjas at 017 310 3769 or bilqis@rimbundahan.org
