Dance review: T.H.E.’s PheNoumenon alienates despite promise of immersion
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Restaged for the cont.act Contemporary Dance Festival, PheNoumenon explores Man's relationship with the environment.
PHOTO: BERNIE NG
Germaine Cheng
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PheNoumenon (cont.act Contemporary Dance Festival)
T.H.E Dance Company
Esplanade Theatre Studio
Thursday, 8pm
Bright orange mounds punctuate the dimly lit space of the Esplanade Theatre Studio as audience members enter the world of PheNoumenon, choreographed in 2019 by Kuik Swee Boon, artistic director of T.H.E Dance Company.
Restaged for this year’s cont.act Contemporary Dance Festival, the brooding work seeks to examine Man’s relationship with the ever-changing environment around him.
Billed as an immersive performance, audiences are invited to move around freely, though there are demarcated “islands” in which to sit and a bare stage at one end of the theatre studio.
Gradually, the dancers emerge from their cocoons as the orange fabric transforms from shell to skirt. Their bodies are twisted by tension until a piercing scream sends them falling to the ground as the space is plunged into darkness.
PheNoumenon sends its six performers rolling and moving through this new world they find themselves in.
They move uninhibitedly, but there is bewilderment in their eyes as they circle the human landscape around them. Their physicality is urgent, often hovering on the knife-edge of control and release.
A large ball being tossed around is pulled apart to reveal a variety of orange tops made by costume designer Loo An Ni. A bundle of black footwear falls from above.
The dancers, a mix of apprehension and delight, poke their limbs into unfamiliar territory. Heads snake out of sleeves and slippers are held by clenched teeth.
Such moments of whimsy feel alienating as the dancers discover more of their world without letting audiences in. The work then repeatedly alternates between maelstrom and meditation, with each extreme state negating the one preceding it.
Once PheNoumenon arrives on its demarcated stage space, it seems to breathe a little easier as the conventional setting gathers and concentrates audiences’ focus on the action.
The ensemble breaks up to embody various characters – a statuesque goddess shrouded in cloth, a revolutionary shuffling to the beat of his own drum and a monster possessed by rage.
Amid furiously windmilling arms, the piece ends with two dancers in a gentle embrace.
This final gesture of hope feels more significant to the strange, delirious population of PheNoumenon’s world than to the audience members, who remain on the outside looking in, despite being within reach.
