SoftMachine

What is the state of contemporary dance in Asia? How to record and describe the creative universe of its exponents? These are some of the questions that drive the work of the artist Choy Ka Fai, who since 2012 has traveled the Asian continent to explore the creative universe of more than eighty artists dedicated to dance. His SoftMachine project is a choreographic map composed of multiple knowledge, experiences and memories about the significance of this discipline.

Choy Ka Fai arrives for the first time in Latin America to present a scenic portrait of the work of the artists Rianto (Indonesia) and Surjit (India), who have known how to mix typical dances with more contemporary concerns.

Rianto is a specialist in traditional Lengger dance that challenges ideas of gender, and whose interest has been to explore to what extent the masculine and feminine, the urban and the rural, can be united in a single dancing body.

Surjit Nongmeikapam is a young dancer who has learned various forms of classical Indian dance and martial arts, seeking to go beyond the conservative tradition of his own culture. The performative and the documentary come together on stage to transform SoftMachine: Rianto & Surjit in an invitation to explore the tensions between past, present and future of dance.

Concept, Direction, Performance and Documentary Choy Ka Fai Performance and Choreography Rianto and Surjit Nongmeikapam Dramaturgy Tang Fu Kuen Sound Design Zulkifle Mahmod Lighting Design Andy Lim Executive Producer Yap Seok Hui Tour Manager Mara Nedelcu

* SoftMachine was commissioned by Esplanade – Theaters on the Bay, Singapore, Da:ns festival 2015.  The project is supported by the National Arts Council of Singapore.  Supported by TheatreWorks, Singapore, DanceBox, Kobe, Kyoto Experiment, Attakkalari Center for Movement Arts, Bangalore, Living Dance Studio, Beijing. The SoftMachine digital archive is a co-production with deSingel Internationale kunstcampus.

THIS WORK IS PRESENTED IN GAM FOR THE SANTIAGO A MIL FESTIVAL 2018