I must write about this while the memories and sensations are still fresh. Sam Teo and I went for about an hour and a half improvise-dance-performing in the lovely space at Post Museum (http://www.post-museum.org/) run by Jennifer and Tien Wei. Sam and I danced amidst plastic white chairs, square straw mats, and Christians practicing prophetic art - giving free art in service of their God - by asking for your name, saying a prayer, and then beginning to draw based on what they see, before telling you about the vision that led to their "kindergarten drawing". We are sequestered behind the red brick wall, 2 doorway-shaped holes in the wall like peepholes into which inquisitive passers-by crowded to look in. Most of the audience were men, migrant workers from Bangladesh, maybe India, maybe Sri Lanka. Some would peer in to watch the dancing, some to see what the free art was all about, and sometimes a couple people would venture decisively past the crowd, the barrier, to get some free art and blessings from the good Christian folk. The divide is glaringly obvious. The exchange is friendly, maybe shy. In the dance we offer white chairs for our audience. They smile in recognition of the offer but nobody sits. Am I on the inside looking out or the outside looking in?
Sam and I keep dancing, we sculpt the space, we have rhythmic physical communications, clapping or slapping or moving to an invisible groove. Somehow there is a draw to introduce some Indian dance elements - attention to our hands, the mudras - but we are both uncertain about this choice, and aware that these guys looking in from behind the wall - all men! - may not be from India and may not appreciate or care for our pseudo-Indian playing.
But how to communicate? I speak no Hindi or Tamil or anything, really. I make direct eye contact with some of the men. Some seemed really intrigued by the dancing. Why and how? What do they see in this that may remind them of what they know, of festivals, of children at play, of naughty, middle-finger-pointing, innocence? Or do they see two crazy Singaporean girls dancing amidst crazy Singaporean Christians, with too much free time and freedom to do things for no economic gain? I wanted to ask. I want to know. I wish I could talk with them. Across the cultural, social, the gender divide. Past my fear that maybe some of the appreciation is not for the humanness of what we are doing, the dancing that is not dancing, the gestural, physical, human behavioural communication; but for the unafraid display of moving female bodies. Is it my prejudice? Are these unfounded, these sources of discomfort, from hearing about how men and women interact in South Asia? Would such questions be as obvious to me if the watching group were more homogenously men + women, migrant + local, blue collar + white collar?
On another note I really appreciated their retro fashion, the old suzuki-brand auto-car shirt, their bright eyes, compassionate hearts. I say compassionate because that is the energy, in spite of the sexist vibe. One of the Christian ladies says to me after we finish dancing, that in her prayer for 4 of the South Asian men, she got a sense of their gentle hearts. 3 of them were Muslim. She seemed surprised by this statistic, a slightest touch disapproving, but mostly cautious - she had to make sure she did not speak as if through God, in case they thought she spoke through Allah, and to her that would be praying to the wrong God. And in any case her vision/thoughts come from Jesus Christ, and she did not want to say she was speaking based on the messages she received through Jesus Christ - for the religious disagreement might surface and spoil the spirit of her blessing.
(This reminds me of the story from Eva Nurifah, an Indonesian Muslim who's worked in Singapore for 15 years, about how friends would join a particular Christian organisation, renounce their Muslim-ness, because they knew they would do better in exams if that happened. Bizarre, to me, but that is her reality.) (Of course this is not the same here. The intentions are completely different. But the tension, of being under a different umbrella because of a different religion, faith that lies under different stories and men, is the same. The spiritual is difficult to separate from the socio-cultural, the prophets, the perspective and face of God.)
Our friend Jereh joined in the dance for awhile. 2 women and 1 man dancing together, touching and sharing weight. I was aware of choosing not to contact improvise dance too intimately for too long - firstly Jereh and I haven't danced much together, secondly I was uncomfortable with how easily the audience gaze could move from simply curious to the erotic. Again - are these just my prejudices??? It was really important to me that I lifted Jereh almost as much as he lifted me. Just to show that I could. That women and men can both be strong, and it's OK for us to trust each other. Is that stupidly moralistic/feminist of me? And did I really think sharing weight equally would impress upon our audience our equality? Particularly when I failed to truly support Jereh's weight anyway. And our audience was overwhelmingly male, men who mostly could lift incredibly heavy things all day long; and knew physically strong women too.
All this aside though, when it ended it ended. We were a discovery for the passers-by, the earnest Christians, a handful of Singaporeans (friends of friends, perhaps). The dancing ended quietly as it began. The peering crowd - changing faces as men passed through, left and returned - dissipated, and quickly regrouped around one South Asian man getting his art blessing from a local Chinese woman. They "ambushed" her, asking questions in minimal English, as she finished and got ready to pack up at 9 pm. I felt a touch of fear and suspicion coming from some of the other Christian women, stepping in to take the pressure off her. I engage the single cheeky questioner in conversation. The poor English is an excuse to poke at our choice to give things for free in our free time. This man works hard to provide for his family back home, surely. So our behaviour probably seems silly. The conversation goes nowhere so I tell he and his friend laughing behind his shoulder to "go home!" (with a flourish of an arm gesture chasing them off, like a joke). He asks the same question over and over, refusing to accept our answers, probably trying to get a chance to flirt. I know this technique, of seeming harmless, and then suddenly switching to sexual predator. I have heard stories about visits to India, and very particular certain types of Indian men, and have met a couple (Indian! And this is not my prejudice) men like that in Israel and England. (No joke. They've got skillz. At being extremely annoying.)
I saw people in broad strokes of categorisation, despite having spent a lot of time talking to the Christians individually, and receiving their individual blessings before dancing. (How can I individualise my dance for each person? They receive individually, I give broadly, my dance perceived through singular eyes.) There is something about knowing my socio-cultural paradigm (I believe in quantum physics, in madness, in God or Allah or Him or Her, that which is unknown that is knowable only through faith or blindness or both) is different from someone else's that lets me chunk groups together, even though the label is just a label and we all acknowledge that in our conversation. Even though I believe we are 99% same, 1% unique. Why this generalising, in spite of picking up on particularities? I should know better. I do know better.
God is great and men are weak.
? is meek and we are weak.
How to shift from weak to meek?
The Christians took their Lord out of the church, not to evangelise but to bless.
The dancers took the dance performance out of the theatre not to perform, but to share.
The passers-by walked in because they are curious.
The owners of Post Museum are artist/curator/eco-cafe people, and they offer a complementary space to the current economy of big/small/medium business. The market is really free. Really really free. The space is safe. The passers-by are plenty, and plenty curious.
I want to do this again, and again. To dance, make something of this random exchange, these human encounters.
