OUTDOOR SCREEN PROGRAM: DANCE ON FILM
Header Image: Rory Daniels, The Oracle (2020)
The Oracle (2020) by Rory Daniel
This performance video examines the primordial foundations of humans and examines how social norms are used to mask our inner animal. The artist uses ritual to lower his human facade, to invoke and reveal his primitive and animalistic core. This process uses the expressionistic Butoh dance style to conjure an imaginary world where the line between humans and other species is blurred. This world is depicted through a make-believe Oracle sending glitched, echoed, and distorted images from the future.
Rory Daniel
Rory Daniel’s creative practice combines video, performance, installation, and photography. The concepts supporting his practice converge posthuman and post-anthropocentric ideas and research around human behaviours dictated by our denial of death. By imagining a flattened hierarchy between human and non-human, his work questions how humans might integrate and equalise with non-human species. His work also touches on our reluctance to behave like animals – in a futile attempt to deny our mortality. These ideas are expressed through dance inspired by Butoh – an evocative theatrical dance style that originated in Japan in the 1950s. He is interested in revealing the invisible animal this is in all of us – dropping the human mask that we would normally keep veiled. Allowing his animal to be publicly revealed.
You can see more of Rory at:
A Film for you and your plant (2021) by Daniel Kok and Luke George
Plants and humans come together as collaborators, mediators, and audience. Starting from the belief that plants know (what do they know?), we come together to reimagine the experience of the visual, the sensual and what is regarded as sensible. Listening to... breathing with... arriving at... moments when the in-between reveals itself, we catch a glimpse of a world where the human is not at the centre but coexists with the Other.
A Film for you and your plant is a filmic adaptation of National Gallery Singapore’s Performing
Spaces 2021 commissioned performance work, HUNDREDS+THOUSANDS. This site-specific work brought together 100 people and 100 plants for a live encounter at the Padang Atrium of the Gallery, lasting under 90 mins. This film combines footage from the live performances, as well as other video materials.
Because of restrictions, the live performance was limited to a small audience each night. The artists created a video work along with the live event. This 24-min video is neither documentation nor a trailer. Luke and Daniel would like to think it’s both, or something else, something more. The film has been conceived and created for people to experience together with their plant(s). It’s especially suited to people spending a lot of time at home with their plants, particularly during times of Covid lockdowns and isolation.
Daniel Kok
Pronouns: He/Him
Daniel Kok (Singapore) has a BA in Fine Art & Critical Theory (Goldsmiths College, London, 2001), an MA in Solo/ Dance/Authorship (HZT, Berlin, 2012) and has studied Advanced Performance and Scenography Studies (APASS, Brussels, 2014). His performances have been presented across Asia, Europe, Australia and North America, notably in the Venice Biennale, Maxim Gorki Theater (Berlin), AsiaTOPA (Melbourne) and Festival/Tokyo. As artistic director of Dance Nucleus (Singapore), he focuses on building capacities for interdisciplinary praxis and trans-local partnerships in Asia and Australia. He curates the annual da:ns Lab at the Esplanade (Singapore) and is a core group member of the Asia Network for Dance (AND+).
You can see more of Daniel at:
Luke George
Pronouns: He/Him
Luke George (Melbourne) creates new choreographic and visual work that takes daring and at times, unorthodox methods, to explore new intimacies and connections between artist and audience. Born in lutruwita/Tasmania and based in Naarm, Luke creates and performs work locally and internationally/culturally, through experimental processes with collaborating artists and the public across Australia, Asia, Europe and North America. A highly awarded and commissioned artist, in 2019 Luke was recipient of an Australia Council for the Arts Fellowship and premiered new commissions for Dance Massive and the Venice Biennale. In 2020 Luke was appointed Artistic Associate of Temperance Hall and to the Co-Design Consultation Group for a dedicated Melbourne dance festival. In 2021, Luke has premiered commissioned works at the National Galleries of both Victoria and Singapore, Liveworks Festival of Experimental Art (Sydney) and 2022 will premiere a new commission for RISING Festival (Melbourne).
You can see more of Daniel at:
This screen program is displayed on rotation (no set times) on the Outdoor Screen in the Plaza between 14-28 February.
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