Malay folk dance, rope art and Vedic metal: Worlds collide at Esplanade’s da:ns focus weekend

SINGAPORE – A dance performance featuring fiery sambal and an unusual tie-up between rope artists and a metal band are unexpected offerings at October’s da:ns focus – Connect Asia Now. Part of the Esplanade’s year-round dance series, this is a weekend of programmes created by, or with, Asian artists. 

Collaborations between international and Singaporean talents undergird two key programmes – Still Lives: Singapore by Luke George and Daniel Kok, and Batu by Ayu Permata Sari and Hasyimah Harith – while Sounding Light by Taiwan’s Cloud Gate Dance Theatre anchors the weekend.

Multidisciplinary artists George, 47, and Kok, 50, have returned with another iteration of their long-running Still Lives project, which began in 2019. 

The artists take rope art beyond its erotic roots to explore sports culture, relationship dynamics and national identity. Their Esplanade presentation incorporates rope in a “non-sexual context” and contains no nudity. 

Melbourne-based George and Kok, who splits his time between Singapore and Berlin, have worked together for over a decade, but Singaporean Vedic metal band Rudra throw a new element into the mix.

For two hours, Rudra’s four members will give up headbanging, allowing George and Kok to quietly compose their living artwork. 

Guitarist Vinod Seer, 41, says in a Zoom interview: “We are so used to making a lot of noise with the drums, guitars and vocals – we are walking or running around. This time, we are doing the total opposite. We are like mannequins or puppets.”

The production, George adds, is about “negotiating a building of mutual trust and communication”, as he and Kok work to make sure the band feel comfortable and “supported by the rope”. It also incorporates ambient sound design and videos capturing the members as individuals. 

Since 1992, Rudra have gained recognition in the global metal scene, pioneering a thrilling subgenre that melds extreme metal, traditional Indian music and lyrics inspired by Hindu philosophy. Recently, they have also picked up projects with unexpected collaborators like puppet troupe The Finger Players and chamber orchestra re:Sound. 

Still Lives: Singapore seeks to defy expectations – from preconceived ideas audiences might have about rope art to the perception of Singapore as conservative and lacking alternative subcultures.

Kok, who plans to present more works with George in Singapore, looks forward to facilitating interactions between communities that might not otherwise meet. 

“What would it mean for the audience to consist of metal fans, shibari (Japanese bondage) enthusiasts, and your general visual and performing arts crowd?” he asks. “Our multiculturalism also extends to the fact that different people identify with Singapore as home.”

Cultures also come together in the other da:ns focus programme, which finds affinities between the Malay-Muslim communities of Indonesia and Singapore. 

Indonesian choreographer Ayu, 34, met Singaporean counterpart Hasyimah, 37, in 2016, when Kok’s company Dance Nucleus invited Ayu to visit Singapore. In 2024, the Esplanade’s Contemporary Performing Arts Research Residency enabled them to develop their first formal collaboration. 

Batu is the first commissioned project from the residency. It centres on the symbol of the mortar and pestle (batu lesung), used to grind ingredients in kitchens across South-east Asia.

Since its inception, the production has evolved through conversations with test audiences, reinterpreting the shared cultural object to negotiate femininity, tradition, desire and control. 

While Batu reflects the artists’ backgrounds in Malay folk dance and Indonesian Lampung Pepadun traditions, audiences need not be familiar with these to appreciate the one-hour performance, which folds in sensory elements like the smell and taste of sambal and the hypnotic sound of the grinding stone. 

In their broader practices, both artists question patriarchal traditions and explore subjects often seen as taboo, including sexuality, pregnancy and the female body.

This can be difficult in conservative contexts: Ayu recounts exchanges with male relatives who struggled to accept challenges to their long-held beliefs. She adds: “I respond to criticism not by forcing change, but by continuing the conversation.” 

Their performances, Hasyimah says over Zoom, can help women “feel less lonely” while holding space for different perspectives. “I feel a sense of responsibility as an artist to ask difficult questions.”

Batu is also special because of her friendship with Ayu, who has supported her through seasons of pregnancy, birth and motherhood.

“This particular work,” she says, “has been anchoring my soul.”

Book it/da:ns focus – Connect Asia Now

Where: Esplanade, 1 Esplanade Drive
When: Oct 15 to 18, various timings
Admission: From $32. Special prices available for Esplanade&Me members and limited concessions available for seniors, full-time national servicemen, students and persons with disabilities  
Info: www.esplanade.com/dans