Habitat: Indiegogo campaign

Our indiegogo campaign has less than 9 days left and we need all the help we can get. Will you check out our indiegogo campaign video and if you are able to donate a few dollar bills, we would be very grateful!

Thank you shoutout to Media Generation (http://www.media-generation.com/, Annette Floystrup, tribalyna, Anonymous, and Kyla Barkin for your donations!

Singapore. The process

Habitat,

The process:

The nature of a collaborative creative process between dance artists produces unexpected results. Habitat is becoming a waiting ‘Zone’ where I witness the new and bizarre while humming to a tune in my head.  The singer that can’t tune one note (myself) finds himself delighted with his own music.

The dance material is taken out of context and while dancing I seem to feel like I am doing what I shouldn’t in the middle of a busy road. Habit is opening a new door to the poetic aspects of living in a Modern city – Singapore. I face the difficult task of turning the mundane tasks into interesting subjects – finding in the ridiculous of brushing my teeth every morning with my eyes closed an inspiration to develop gestural choreography.

In the beginning I thought pedestrian. The latter is a very famous word in the umbrella of contemporary dance; I come across this empty concept in all sorts of places, at the costume department, in the studio with other creatives, on stage and in press releases. I understand now that pedestrian is a very vague and empty word that doesn’t inspire me to create dance.

Habitat is a creative process where I discover my private self – creating new and bold dance material inspired in my most private and mundane situations.

Habitat of a Singaporean dancer: Kai Eng

In February, I went to the home of a Singaporean dancer, who had just moved back from living in Stockholm for a number of years. She had just moved into this apartment she shares with her boyfriend and her landlord that has typical Singapore views of government-subsidized housing called HDBs in an area that I'm not familiar with. Even though I've grown up living in Singapore, I didn't have many local friends as I attended an International school and an American school later on. Almost all of us lived in private condos and no one I knew lived in an HDB flat from my schools. I had very few local Singaporean friends who I'd met through the dance studios I trained at and through the ice rink (I used to be a figure skater). This particular dancer, I had met at the ice rink. She and I were rink buddies back in those youthful days. We sort of lost touch after I moved away from Singapore to the US but reconnected on Facebook. She became a modern dancer while in Sweden.

When we look at the Habitat we place ourselves in, it reflects a physical place of where we our in our life in that current moment. I had asked Kai why she didn't move back "home" with her mother and she replied that she was going to live with her boyfriend that moved with her from Sweden and didn't want to burden her mother. She chose her living arrangements. I believe that when we get to choose our own living arrangements, we are much happier wherever we are. We get to unleash our truest selves 24/7 instead of just behind closed doors.

Photo Credit: Alistair Chew (Visit his Tumblr blog with AMAZING Dance Photography! Tonight We Dance)

 
























 


Photo Credit: Alistair Chew (Visit his Tumblr blog with AMAZING Dance Photography! Tonight We Dance)

Her current habitat is humble and simple. Her landlord was excited to have us film and photograph in her apartment.


A BIG Thank you to Alistair Chew (Seriously check out his blog: Tonight We Dance) and Kai Eng for this photoshoot! I'll have more pics highlighted from that shoot that will be used as part of the backdrop for Habitat.