Multisensory journey transporting audiences to Perak’s Lenggong Valley, in all its natural and mystical beauty.

Modern Singapore rarely leaves much space or opportunity for truly connecting with nature. As much as we tout ourselves as a garden city, green spaces are often integrated into the urban landscape, rather than allowed to simply grow amok, or we lack older geological formations teeming with life. So if one truly wants to escape the thrall of city living, one has to travel out and away.

As it turns out, doing that doesn’t require you to go too far, as evidenced by local experimental rock band The Observatory, as they travelled to Lenggong Valley in Perak, Malaysia. Documenting their journey and encounters, the band then shaped that experience into a brand new performance, REFUGE, which made its premiere at the Singapore International Festival of Arts 2024. Marketed as a documentary, the experience is anything but, and makes use of both the flexible space at the SOTA Studio Theatre and the mysticism surrounding Lenggong Valley to present a wholly transcendent performance-installation-concert.

REFUGE is essentially an attempt to transport audiences to the Lenggong Valley in spiritual form, where attendees with bags are encourage to stow their bags outside the theatre, and even introduced to an oud-heavy scent we spray on our skin before entering, as if we are becoming one with the forest. With no fixed seating, audience members are allowed to roam freely around the space at any point in the performance, and gives us an opportunity to chart our own unique path and enjoy the show in whatever way we deem fit.

What actually happens in the show initially starts off innocently enough, with a film projected onto a grey canopy of gauzy material, draped in the form of a screen, while suspended by cables. We are introduced to Perak, following The Observatory on wheels as they ride down the road to the Lenggong Valley, before traipsing into an ancient archeological site. In these open-air and cave areas, we learn that this was once the dwelling of a civilisation, holding bodies and cultural remains from the ancient past of over 2 million years old.

But it is from here that REFUGE deviates from being a film, and becomes its own art form altogether. The film stops playing, and the canopy is lifted above us, forming a makeshift roof over our heads, quite literally forming the ‘refuge’ of the title. If we choose to look up – we see the image of some kind of ancient body projected, while performer Rully Shabara emerges from the shadows. Dressed in grey monk’s robes, Rully begins to perform some kind of ancient ritual, wielding a wooden staff as we watch, completely transfixed.

Multiple things are happening at once onstage – not only is the canopy lifting and falling, The Observatory is also outside, along the sides of the studio as they are lit by red light, intense as they drum and strum away, heavy on the pulsating bass that seems to enter your very soul. Are we somehow witnessing an ancient civilisation come back to life? Or have we fallen through a portal into the past? Either way, the combination of these elements are mesmerising, feeling as if we too are complicit as participants.

Eventually, these elements build up before rising to a climax, peaking before a momentary silence that leaves us believing that it is over. But not yet, for instead, the canopy completely falls onto those still under it, burying them beneath, like the bodies excavated at Lenggong. There is silence in the night, only the sounds of nocturnal animals rustling in the jungle, as The Observatory spelunk their way under the canopy, with flashlights, as if replicating an archaeological dig.

And that is perhaps all that is required to kickstart the ritual into motion again, as their dig finds success – now the canopy becomes more frantic, going up and down more rapidly, while The Observatory return to their instruments. The various elements come back to life, and suddenly, it is as if everything has finally synced up, a transcendence and realisation that there is something essential, powerful that lies just beneath the earth, one that we can harness or at least, appreciate when it emerges.

What REFUGE provides isn’t entirely a form of shelter, but an alternative way of immersing ourselves into documentary film. Mixing elements that are both real and imagined, one feels somewhat transported to the locations featured, all while having killer live music you can’t help but tap along to, and culminating in a last hurrah that feels like breaking forth into the light at the end of a long tunnel. We are weary, but we are moved, and perhaps, learned with the wisdom gleaned from these subterranean beings and histories hiding just out of sight, on a path towards healing through sound, magic, and the natural world.

REFUGE played from 31st May to 1st June 2024 at the SOTA Studio Theatre, as part of Singapore International Festival of Arts 2024. Tickets available here

SIFA 2024: They Declare ran from 17th May to 2nd June 2024 across various venues. Full programme available here

Production Credits:

Conceived and Directed by The Observatory Producer Deanna Dzulkifli Moving Image, Scenography and Lighting Duck Unit Sound and Performance (Live) Rully Shabara with xhabarabot Creature Creator and Performance (Moving Image) Justin Shoulder Sound System Design and Engineering rongzhao Technical Production ARTFACTORY Production Assistant Zasha Zahri Research Trip Documentation Arabelle Zhuang, Isaiah Cheng Local guides (Ipoh) VENTREX, special mention to En Rosli, Don Ventrex, Najwa and Billy Additional footage Isaiah Cheng