Asia-Europe Cultural Festival: 2024 Closing Curtain | Last Portrait
A contemporary dance performance evoking feelings of loss, grief and distance.
 | Contemporary Dance 28 September 2024, 6:00PM Esplanade, Annexe Studio, Singapore Countries: Germany, Italy, Singapore |
Weaving together text, sound, dance, and visual poetry, Ashley Ho (Singapore) and Domenik Naue (Germany) presents a new performance-installation on loss, grief and distance. In a world of rapid change, it feels like collapse is a spectacle we are watching collectively. Part of a generation hyper-aware of loss, we track change obsessively, also knowing that when we document what is present, we are pointing out everything that can disappear. How can we move forward, not stuck in nostalgia or paralysed by the fear of losing?
The law of conservation of energy states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, only converted from one form to another. Buddhism tells us that if you go down, deep down, there is not birth and no death, only continuation. Despite knowing these, we are still shaken by the feeling of losing, at every turn. The 2 artists' collaboration will look into this brutality in its flesh, to cradle it for what it is, through a nostalgic, poignant contemporary dance performance.
Intercultural dialoguing is integral to ashleyho+domeniknaue’s collaboration. They have been working with Pietro Marullo (Italy) for 6 months thanks to online sessions and on-site residencies both in Indonesia and Italy. Their work is an on-going conversation that develops where it travels through: Over het IJ and Dansateliers in the Netherlands, Studio Plesungan in Indonesia, Oriente Occidente in Italy, and Dance Nucleus in Singapore. With intermediate public presentations, the performance always remains an open question and an offering.
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THE ARTISTS
ashleyho+domeniknaue is a collection of limbs and hearts. We create transmedial performative encounters, playing across dance, poetry, music, and scenographic experiments. We believe in performance as a social practice—a political, intimate process of transforming and being transformed. More than a consistent focus on specific thematics, our works propose a way of being with the world, that confronts harshness through vulnerability and playfulness. We work like archaeologists, excavating hyper-personal documents and translating them into physical experiences that fuel collective imagination. Our collaboration has been nurtured by friendship, as well as support from institutions such as Dansateliers, workspacebrussels, Over het IJ, De Nieuwe Oost, CAMPO, and Dans Nucleus. Our work has been presented in festivals such as Moving Futures, FAT Leiden, Dansand, Offspring (SPRING Utrecht), and contact Contemporary Dance Festival. We graduated from the Dancer/Maker Bachelor's programme at ArtEZ University of the Arts in 2022, and are currently working between the Netherlands, Belgium, and Singapore.
Pietro Marullo is an Italian artist based in Brussels. His interdisciplinary work lies at the intersection of visual and performing art, installation and new technologies, deeply focused on social, historical and anthropological topics. He has always focused on the analysis of the human community, of the internal processes of violence, and of the cosmogonic forces that determine its morphology. His works are presented in four continents, in very important dance festival, performing art festival, theaters, music networks, puppet-object and contemporary art platforms.
Concept, performance, graphic and sound design: ashleyho+domeniknaue
Scenography: ashleyho+domeniknaue in collaboration with Lena Michel van Drie and Pam Sikkink
Dramaturgy: Elowise Vandenbroecke
Artistic coach: Gabriel Pietro Marullo
Styling: Cara Cain Insa Wittenhaus
Technical Support: Finn Borath
Production and Support: Dansateliers
Co-production: Over het IJ
Residency and financial support: Asia-Europe Foundation, Dance Nucleus, Studio Plesungan, Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst, Janivo Stichting
Thank you roelroel for the sound support.
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The event is part of the Asia-Europe Cultural Festival 2024, organised by the Asia-Europe Foundation - ASEF with the financial support of the European Union and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark. For the full programme, CLICK HERE.