Dates
01.07 / 19:00
Venue
Time
1H
Language
English, Mandarin, Malay with English and Polish subtitles
Credits
Concept, Documentary and Direction – Choy Ka Fai
Dramaturgy – Tang Fu-Kuen
Spiritual Presence – Kali and Kuan Yin
Choreography and Dance Performance – Sun Phitthaya Phaefuang
Sound Design and Musical Performance – NADA (Rizman Putra & Safuan Johari) and Cheryl Ong
3D Visual Design and Technology – Brandon Tay
Light Design, Installation and Technical Direction – Ray Tseng
Visual Operator – Damjan Šporčić
Technical Direction Singapore Studio – ARTFACTORY
Tour and Stage Manager – Tammo Walter
Production Manager – Mara Nedelcu
Guest Dancer: Yantar 007, Sinoa Revlon, Diana Revlon, Mother Tsunami Tornado
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Yishun is Burning is developed with the support of tanzhaus nrw Düsseldorf and Singapore Art Museum. Additional support was received from the Nationales Performance Netz (NPN), Coproduction Fund for Dance, which is funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, Germany. The research process was supported by the National Arts Council, Singapore and Kunststiftung NRW, Germany.
Additional information
14+
The piece uses a fog machine, laser light, strobe, and flashing lights. It includes images of a ritual with self-harming acts, which may have a disturbing effect on some viewers. There is a moment of complete darkness. Loud music as well as repetitive sounds are played.
CosmicWander is an on-going project by artist Choy Ka Fai exploring shamanic dance culture in Asia. In search of the supernatural dance experience, Choy Ka Fai had filmed extraordinary shamanic rituals and folk traditions that are still prevalent in our contemporary times, intersecting with the broader environmental, technological and political shifts in Asia. Started 2018, he first set out on an 18-month journey across Asia to meet more than 50 spirit mediums in Siberia, Taiwan, Vietnam, Singapore and Indonesia. Ka Fai returns with encounters on altered states of human consciousness and transforms these experiences on stage. He seeks to speculate on the alternative modes of knowing and living, as well as other realms of reality other than our own.
On a quest for religious ecstasy, the audience of Yishun is Burning dives into the notorious city of Yishun. This is Singapore’s dystopian suburbia, where hybrid spiritual acts are perpetrated: a suburbia of darkness, a kind of antithesis to the gleaming clean image Singapore cultivates. Singapore has traditionally been known as an authoritarian city state where society is ruled by control and where freedom of speech is non-essential. Yishun Is Burning is a multicultural voguing dance party that traverses the boundaries of gender, race, and religion, inspired by the Singaporean phenomenon of ritual reverence of deities in their struggle against evil. The performance stars Norwegian-Thai dancer Sun Phitthaya Phaefuang aka Aurora Sun Labeija, a rising star of the Southeast Asian voguing scene, whose dance is accompanied by a music performance coming from the Malay band NADA (Rizman Putra and Safuan Johari) from Singapore and Chinese drummer Cheryl Ong. Thirty years after the iconic New York documentary Paris Is Burning, this evening combines themes of a globalised world with old and new movement traditions and celebrates the search for (one’s own) spirituality in dance.
AFTER THE SHOW, THERE WILL BE A MEETING WITH THE DIRECTOR, CHOY KA FAI.
Guest dancers:
Goethe Institut is the partner of the show at Malta Festival Poznań.
