Meet the Residents of Esplanade’s first Contemporary Performing Arts Research Residency
Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay, Singapore is pleased to announce the Residents of its inaugural Contemporary Performing Arts Research Residency. The open call, which ran from 1 Apr – 14 Jun 2021, received an overwhelming number of 300 applications working across disciplines and in diverse contexts. Esplanade thanks everyone for their interest and support of this new programme.
After rigorous review and deliberations by the Selection Panel, the centre is pleased to welcome seven independent practitioners, two duos and one collective as Artists and Researchers-in-Residence from April – June 2022 within the thematic focus of Potential Territorialities: Body, Space and Identity in Performance.
The fully-funded residency will support the Residents’ creative research, which transverses the boundaries of disciplines, questions existing systems and structures, with a view towards expanding artistic inquiry, experimentation and discourse collectively for the future.
Get to know the Residents of 2022 and their research:
Artists-in-Residence
Truong Que Chi (Vietnam)
In April 2021, Truong Que Chi first presented Life And Its Double in Hanoi. The play is rooted in quotidian observations and the examination of human existence. Without a fixed screenplay, each presentation begins with an environment and a personal library of suggestions—comprising content, performative situations, dialogues, texts and scenographic sketches—which fuels the ensuing structure of the performance. While in Singapore, Truong will conceive an expansion of Life And Its Double.
Weixin Quek Chong and Astrid Sweeney (Singapore/Spain and Denmark/Belgium & Ireland)
With overlapping interests revolving around ideas of morphing and transformation, Weixin Quek Chong and Astrid Sweeney will co-develop ontogenesis dreams: a sideways stretching of the sensory limbs during the residency.
Bertram Wee (Singapore)
A composer of concert music, Bertram Wee views his compositions as a conduit for performers to externalise corporeality. By examining body-related notions such as human fallibility, empathy and bodily submission, while also embracing the body’s organic potential as an instrument, his works endeavour to empower performers in shattering the boundary between musician and listener in creating collective, profound experiences of sound. During the residency, Wee will expand upon his compositional strategies through various methodologies.
Zai Tang (United Kingdom/Singapore)
Over the course of the residency, Zai Tang will begin the research and experimentation for Open Source Sound Portals: Speculative Music for Defunct Dance Floors (OSSP). The project is premised around how we can imagine new sonic and social horizons for dance music in this moment of stasis across global dance floors.
Meghna Bhardwaj (India)
During the residency, Meghna Bhardwaj will further develop Yarning, a project that explores the relationship between movement/dance and the rhythmic/vibratory structures, textures, and metaphors embedded in the gestures of weaving/crocheting/stitching/sewing/knitting.
Transfield Studio (Rick Yamakawa, JK Anicoche and Yuko Takeda) (Japan/Philippines)
In the last three years, Transfield Studio has been developing Sand (a)isles, a “fieldwork performance” that aims to find ways for people to gather and spend time together in the public spaces of a city. Interested in examining how we can be together by mapping water routes, while in Singapore, Transfield Studio will employ their methodologies of performative fieldwork to explore various water-related issues in the island city-state.
Sonja Jokiniemi and Daniel Kok (Finland/Switzerland and Singapore)
Over the last years, Sonja Jokiniemi and Daniel Kok have individually explored the weaving together of different materialities, including bodies, text, objects, plants, movement, colours, drawings, yarn and ropes. By choreographing various materials into performative bricolages, they endeavour to develop their own poetics based on multiplicity and discover alternative modes of communication. Over the course of the residency, they will intertwine their artistic praxes to pursue “other logics” underscored by hybridity.
Researchers-in-Residence
Zhang Yuan (China)
As a curator of contemporary performance, Zhang Yuan has noticed the lack of critical writings in China and Asia that utilise theoretical or conceptual frameworks rooted in this geographical region. During the residency, he endeavours to connect with thinkers, researchers, curators, dramaturgs and mid-career artists in Singapore and the region to explore new critical discourses for performing arts in East and Southeast Asia that bridge or provoke the communication between cultures.
Keisha Thompson (United Kingdom)
De-Cipher was conceived in response to Keisha Thompson’s training as a Secondary and Further Education Mathematics teacher. Through creative practices, the project aims to demystify mathematics and provide mathematical education to participants from a range of ages and backgrounds in both educational and non-educational settings. While in Singapore, Thompson plans to learn from Singaporean mathematical pedagogy in connection with developing creative practices.
Guy Cools (Belgium/Austria)
Building on the work of the Asian Dramaturgs’ Network, during the residency, Guy Cools intends to exchange and learn from the practices of colleagues in Southeast Asia. He is interested in how the historical and geographical contexts they are working in influence their practice. This exploration will draw parallels with the way his practice is deeply rooted in the Flemish performing arts of the 1980s.
Guy Cools’ residency is co-hosted in collaboration with Centre 42.
Find out more about the Residents at www.esplanade.com/residency
To get in touch with any of the residents about their research, please write to residencies@esplanade.com
The Contemporary Performing Arts Research Residency is presented by Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay, supported by the National Arts Council, Singapore.
To find out more about how Esplanade has supported artists and the development of new works in the last financial year, please read Esplanade’s Annual Report for FY2020/2021 which can be viewed at this link: www.esplanade.com/annualreport