Bringing this year’s cont·act Contemporary Dance Festival to a close is Elusive — a double bill by T.H.E Dance Company. Playing at the DBS Foundation Outdoor Theatre, the work comprises two brand new choreographies from acclaimed international artists.
The first of these is Chorales by Kim Jae Duk (South Korea), who is also T.H.E’s Resident Choreographer. Chorales focuses on Kim’s perspective of the body and its beauty, while also considering transience and temporality. Waving and weaving, the movements of the piece explore undulations amidst the group, which the choreographer describes as ‘like imagining the sea, moving side to side, up and down, slowly forming a tornado before spreading out’. Choreographer Kim also likens it to a spiritual, even ritualistic process, in order to evoke new moods and emotions.
“One thing I was sure of is that I didn’t just want the audience to connect with the dancers through their eyes, and deliberately made sure the dancers weren’t looking towards them most of the time,” says Kim. “Instead, there’s a lot more focus on the body, and give the movement meaning from beginning to end. The choreography is entirely from me, but my dances do enjoy the process of rehearsing for it, and we’re always able to talk and discuss the process during rehearsals.”
The second part of the double bill features MALEBRANCHE — Harleking multitude by Ginevra Panzetti (Italy/Germany), one half of performance and research duo Panzetti / Ticconi. This work takes inspiration from Commedia dell’arte (comedy of the profession) as well as Dante Alighieri’s Inferno, and explores extreme and opposing contents merging into a system that confuses and surprises, transformative yet unsettling. The work takes on clear political themes, especially in terms of communication and its relation to censorship, and ultimately, how we end up reading reality itself.
“It’s a work that plays with opposing feelings and emotions, and bringing out the imagery is extremely important to me, particularly with regards to how social media and our new means of communication are making messages more fluid and ambiguous in the way we read it,” says Ginevra. “It starts with laughter, which draws people in, but slowly reveals a darker side to it, part and parcel of being human. I do not wish to impose any specific meaning onto it, rather, to open up the conversation and for each individual to think about their own feelings, to absorb the piece before questioning it, and choose to read it in their own way.”
A sinister chuckle and a swaying chorus may seem to be tonal opposites, yet with Elusive, they showcase the sheer spectrum of the human condition, as both works speak and contemplate on how elusive the truth behind our nature is, ultimately considering the convergence of beauty, transience, desire and wit in our shared human experience.
Photo Credit: Crispian Chan
Elusive — a double bill by T.H.E Dance Company plays from 28th to 30th June 2024 at the DBS Foundation Outdoor Theatre at Esplanade. Tickets available here
cont·act Contemporary Dance Festival 2024 – On the Cusp runs from 6th to 30th June 2024 across various venues. Tickets and more information available here
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