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 City of Dreams Straits Times, Singapore Come dream a little dream with me CITY OF DREAMS The Necessary Stage CONTINUING the collaborative efforts that began in the first M1 Youth Connection with Mostar Youth Theatre from the former Yugoslavia, this year's Youth Connection -- the third -- closes with the British Sycamore Works in a work that travels here after London and Germany. More installation art than theatre, Lasalle students work with conceptualist Peter Reder to create a representative landscape of the island. Under his direction, the performers draw intensively from their own family histories, far more than the previous versions shown in Giessen, Germany or London. The performance space is infused with a meditative aura. Seated on straw mats against the four walls, the audience faces a calm pool of light, focused on a chateh (a traditional game). A gong sounds, and two performers appear, dripping sand on the floor. A spot on the ground turns into a line, and the line lengthens and joins. An island is formed.So begins the performers' collective imagination of what the island is. They fill out the space within the sandy outline. Leaves are scattered as branches are laid out to form conduits of water. Stones and broken twigs are arranged carefully in a manner of constructing signs. The evolution of the map can take nostalgic turns. Memory and history are unpacked as performers bring out various containers to empty of content: Brown boxes containing old photographs, a Ladybird storybook, school awards, scrapbooks; and a suitcase reveals a book on Edgar Allan Poe and a Filipino shirt made of pineapple skin. The sense of ritualistic procession is heightened by the seemingly-choreographed order in which the performers construct their assemblage. They appear uninterrupted, displaying the objects in meticulous and precise manner. As the performance is largely silent, it is dependent on the soundtrack to superintend meaning. Tom Wallace's sonic narrative weaves sounds of water with oral history, drums, reminiscences, 1950s pop songs and Singapore's "moment of anguish" into an evocative blend of history and recollection. A Malay man talks of his childhood playing "fighting fish", while a British newscaster speaks of the Japanese "magnificent victory" in Singapore. The anecdotal architecture is transformed into a true map of the island, showing how our history and collective memory are both selective and disrupted. The map presents the problem of interpretation. Despite the coordination of cues between sound and object to produce narrative meaning, many objects remain coded in their distance on stage and relative silence.Fortunately, when the construction ends, the performers pick up wine glasses to serve the audience, moving towards interactivity, encouraging them to explore their work. Suddenly, the static map becomes communicative. The more the audience ventures, the more they discover. Small clusters of twigs represent Orang Laut villages. A solitary pile of leaves represents the tokenism of Bukit Timah's Nature Reserve. The performers showed a light touch of humour when they placed a cluster of candles beside the river to show party-round-the-clock Boat Quay, and left the chateh alone as an innocent distraction. This artwork, like archaeology, is a wonderful dig towards discovery. City Of Dreams in on at The Necessary Stage@Marine Parade Community Complex until Saturday. Tickets at $20 are available from Sistic (tel: 348-5555). |
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View other texts Guided Tour: City of Dreams: Performing difference: |
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| © Peter Reder 2007 | ||