Presented by the M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2007
Esplanade Theatre Studio,
2 & 3 Feb 2007, 8pm
Performed by Daniel K, Bani Haykel, Cyril Wong, Neo Hong Chin

The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.
- Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

1.
The mystery was revealed. We are under the mystery.

2.
In that moment when the entire theatre was bathed in sepia, one became acquainted with a certain idea of salvation: grim, but the only kind we can ever imagine in the obscurity of that interim, that sudden flash of total comprehension between oblivions: one was salvaged by beauty, but beauty in so far as that which is left after the crucible of experience. What one understood in that brief moment of respite — the only moment of complete illumination, in an otherwise utterly blackened or selectively lighted theatre — was that which the audience had been warned of at the start: “There would be no more bodies, no more distance. There would only be the here and now.” One gravitated towards this loss as a supplicant towards ______, drawn as they were deifugally.

3.
The notion of music and sound as that which is invisibly affective.

In four poetic movements, Vermillion sang of human experience’s dark subterfuge. It is both elegy and paean

Between shadows, Bani Haykel’s face contorted to sing:

there is light.
there is light by the window here.
there is here by the window lit.
lit is there by here the window.
by here is window the light there.
there. there.

Between shadows, a soul afloat in despair, words bubbling out of its mouth.

4.
Wong, the first soloist, explained that Francis Bacon’s paintings, through its cruel colourations and brutal depiction of beaten bodies, deal with the trauma of a post-war society. The implication of that remark — that of drawing reference to the specific kind of trauma that was engaged by the painter — is a grave one: once this notion of post-war trauma was thrown out to the perceptive audience, a certain expectation naturally arose within that audience’s imagination. While it was with this informed imagination the performance must engage it was precisely this aspect that Vermillion seemed to have left out in its execution. Nowhere during the performance was one able to locate allusions to a temporally and culturally specific human experience.

It was thus miraculous to still find oneself, by what one saw, moved close to tears: Vermillion’s raw and heartfelt evocation of human suffering became that which transcend the perimeters of time and space; it became that which is universal.

5.
The theme of trauma was dealt with in a way that was understood to be conceptual, though by virtue of the depth of emotions Vermillion was able to elicit from the audience — as the enthusiastic response during the Q & A session clearly showed — it still possessed a veritably soulful core that was not obliterated by the nature of its method. At this juncture, one cannot help but be reminded of all those semiotic junk multidisciplinary artist Brian Gothong Tan has been churning out since “appropriation” has become an all-too-easy way for “artists” to justify their own highly individuated shallowness and stupidity.

6.
I want to talk about speech and invisibility.

The painting can be both statement and enunciation. Or, to be precise, enunciation that floats out of statement. Neo Hong Chin’s performance was the most mysterious of all: with one hand tied to ankle, her movements were limited and expanded at the same time.

The canvas is the site where time is given a material form. The canvas opens up like a closet and time hangs inside. Wear it if you like, wear it if you don’t.

We shall always need the painting. Neo’s performance made one believe otherwise.

7.
Bacon on images:
[They] help me find and realise ideas. I look at hundreds of very different, contrasting images and I pinch details from them, rather like people who eat from other people’s plates.

The last segment, Daniel’s, felt the least inspired of the four, though it began beautifully: Daniel’s body striking out of the dark in sporadic flashes of strobe light - Plato’s cave: the pain of living lies before and after its own myth. In full lighting, the choreography felt mechanical, much nuances being washed out — wanting of soulfulness, neither his movements nor his interaction with the pole generated any meaningful images, that which could have illustrated or extended the notion of suffering. And we hunger for more.

8.
On Seated Figure, 1983.

In a poem called scraping the arched roofs, which appeared in his third collection entitled Below: Absence, Cyril Wong writes:

Why do you write?
To describe a moment,
to know I can inscribe an order, shape its glow.
Why do you write?
If I didn’t, I would sing.

If desire is flow, the body in motion enacts loss. The act of sitting is either voluntary or involuntary. One is tied to a freedom to choose. When seated, ropes appear as the next logical step toward an end. The freedom to choose precludes knowledge of destiny. On the dark stage, from above one ray of light illuminates the scream that became a song before all light went out, through the windows of his skull. We stood still, watched him give back our souls.