The Variasian Experience Analysis Art Essay
VariAsian was held at the University Cultural Centre Dance Studio in NUS on 12th March 2011. It was the 6th NUS Arts Festival and they had many different creative persons from different Fieldss and different states to come down and execute in jubilation of this festival.
The public presentation was about the disregarded times of the past. With the new and up universe of engineering, we tend to bury the memories and the things we one time loved buttocks. What we used to play with when we were kids such as the five rocks, hopscotch and the congkak is now replaced with high engineering games such as the play-station games and the iPhones. The new coevals of childs are now exposed to the new appliances that would do the traditional games ‘disappear ‘ even faster. Sometimes as life base on ballss us by, we tend to go forth those memories behind to be forgotten whereas VariAsian brings us back to the life we used to hold, when everything was simple and was about holding merriment with friends compared to the complexnesss of the current engineerings that people are so caught up with now.
‘When the bell rings… ‘ by Sufri Juwahir was the gap act of the eventide. He was invited to be a invitee choreographer in this production. This piece was performed in silence and the terpsichoreans used the sound of their motions, their breath their linguas and the slippers that they wore throughout the piece as their music.
It started out with five pupils have oning bag battalions and slippers with ice pick in their custodies. They walked onto the phase with boxes laid out as chairs and continued to eat their icy comeuppances. They easy started speaking and before you could register what they said, their words became sounds. Like a codification linguistic communication that merely your friends that know you would understand, but the people that does non cognize you every bit good, would non. The conversation started acquiring intense and looked like they were reasoning or contending over something, like how childs would reason over bantam things. One started to travel off from the others, one Saturday on the floor alternatively of the ‘chair ‘ , one was being nescient to everything that is around her and merely concentrating on eating her ice pick while the other two tried to work out the state of affairs. I reminded me of how I was when I was a pupil in primary school during my lunch interruption. My friends and I would ever play with the five rocks and hopscotch. Sometimes when there are misinterpretations or merely kick unreasonable statements, we would travel off in different waies but the following twenty-four hours, it would travel back to the same modus operandi with the games and it would be a normal twenty-four hours in school. It was the same for this piece of work.
They developed from words to sounds so from sounds into motions. They were confronting different waies and at their ain single infinite on phase. The blocks on phase were moved and were now their private infinite, their safe topographic point. They were ‘speaking their heads ‘ through motions, seeking to talk what they feel. The motions that we used were about similar but after awhile, they started making the same motions like they were doing up for the battle. They easy came together and stacked the boxes into a wall for a game of fell and seek. They would take bends to conceal behind the wall of blocks and making the same motions. The 1s that were caught would take a block and played a game of ‘hitting the slipper ‘ . Two of them that we caught formed a pyramid of their slippers on top of the blocks and the game is to strike hard it down with another slipper. One by one got caught and every bit shortly as the two misss formed their pyramid, the remainder messed with it and destroyed it intentionally over and over once more like how toughs in schools would pick on you over and over. It happened once more and once more until the two misss picked up their slippers and started dancing with the slippers on their custodies, standing up for themselves against those toughs. They broke out and they all were playing their single games. Some played with their bags, some played with a friend and one was playing the congkak, a long disregarded game, by herself in the corner. It felt like she was conveying back the memory of the game or conveying back an old memory of something she had forgotten for rather some clip and so did the others. All their motions were related to that congkak in one manner or another. Either doing sounds and noises like the beads that hits the wooden base or puting on the floor like the congkak and merely moves when person touches it or places it someplace else. When the miss played with the existent congkak, the others followed her by imitated the motions or the sounds like they were remembering the yearss of their childhood when they used to play that game. Like how when you were younger, you had more freedom to make whatever you wanted with lesser jobs and things to believe about. The lone thing that mattered was that every twenty-four hours that was spent was an gratifying one.
This piece was concentrating more on the narrative is wants to state alternatively of the technique and the motion as it was largely gestures that were used and game playing. It was a public presentation that people can associate to and can see themselves in it as it was something that everyone has gone through earlier in their lives. It was about the memories that we keep throughout our lives and the ideas that are most cherished to you. There might be times when you merely want to throw a specific memory off but no affair what you do, you can look to allow it travel. It depends on us if we want those memories to populate on or non. We have the power to do it come back or let it to vanish everlastingly. Traditions that used to be so close to our Black Marias that was passed down to us from our great grandmas are now on the brink of extinction due to the engineering that has been overmastering our universe. How it can take away traditions and take off cherished memories that have yet to go through down to our coevals of kids. Even though those memories or experiences that we ‘ve went through are mistily at that place, it will ever linger in our heads particularly those that affairs.
As for the 2nd piece, it had more of an wellbeing and playful sort of feel compared to the first. ‘Variasian ‘ which is the name of this piece was choreographed by Zaini Mohd Tahir. He is the Artistic Director, the Resident Choreographer and the laminitis of the NUS Dance Ensemble.
This piece was besides about the games we play and how games used to be simpler when we were younger and how it became more complex as we grew older but we ne’er stop playing. It merely advanced into a more technological version of the traditional games. Some games we grew up with and some had to turn up with us but we still play.
There were a choir standing at the sides of the phase when we walked into the studio of where it took topographic point. As I sat down, they started singing. I had thought I walked into the incorrect public presentation infinite. After they were done with the first vocal, the terpsichoreans came out and started running about on phase playing the really old and traditional game that people still play today, the ‘scissors, paper, rock ‘ game. When the say the word ‘stone ‘ , they had to remain still in whatever place they were in and travel when the said the remainder. Watching them reminded me of how I used to love playing that game during recess period when I was in primary school. The volume and the velocity of the game increased as each unit of ammunition passed until it got so feverish and helter-skelter in the public presentation infinite. Their voices got louder and louder every 2nd and it felt like it could make the other side of the school evidences. Then all of a sudden there were silence and terpsichoreans started vanishing into the wings go forthing half the sum of terpsichoreans on phase. As the terpsichoreans were easy vanishing, the choir sang a slow and dramatic vocal while walking through the infinite on phase, from one side to the other like altering the chapter in a narrative or a drama. The terpsichoreans get downing dancing with flow like motions that looked like they were drifting through the infinite. Their motions and the choir mashed and complimented each other attractively like a absolutely fitted pealing on your finger. Their motions were insistent throughout the piece but they changed it a small by utilizing cannons and different degrees. Once the vocal was over, the terpsichoreans at the side wings rolled in with a cute, wellbeing vocal that came on. It sounded like a vocal you would here when you play a specific game in the arcade. The terpsichoreans were like the life in the games with green and pink lighting, it made it experience like we were besides in the game. Some were ‘crabbing ‘ sideways while the others are running and jumping around them like they were supposed to catch them in order to win. That had to be my favorite portion of the whole public presentation. Then there was a sudden alteration in music and a techno like vocal came on and all the terpsichoreans ran off except for one cat, merely standing at that place like it was his clip to reflect and acquire the limelight, and that ‘s what he did. He started ‘Para Para ‘ dancing entirely in the center of the phase. Para Para is an arcade game that you play entirely where there are colored pointers lined with electronic detectors, and you have to dance and hit all the pointers to win. Slowly all the terpsichoreans came on phase and joined him in his game of Para Para but one by one they could n’t catch up and died like they lost the game. One by one collapsed onto the floor and including the male terpsichorean who looked like the male monarch of the game. Surprisingly, the last one standing was a miss and she walked off with an evil laughter with deathly music following her as she left the phase. It was such an unexpected stoping for the piece and I think it made it more interesting and made an impact on me. I left the public presentation with that stoping tarriance in my caput throughout the dark.
The eventide was a really interesting one as it genuinely spoke to me and I could associate to both pieces in many ways. It was a dark that took me through memory lane.
