Transcript: On Crossing Distances
Jevon
Yeah, Yun Teng, I think what I wrote in the chat – all the exercises right, so the one that was made visible the most is Exercise 3. I can briefly describe Exercise 1: badminton paper planes – straightforward, we just threw paper planes to each other, badminton a little bit. That was I mean, the genesis of a lot of things. Exercise 1 was done like at my house, like below my house. Exercise 2 was done below Shaw’s house. Exercise 2: paper planes with warm-up. Yeah, the warm-up thing is exactly what it is we did like a proper warm-up thing that Shaw led before we did the exercise, and I think to me that is notable because Shaw's practice is of course much more embodied than mine so of course having a warmup changes a lot of things that, yeah lah, I wouldn't actually otherwise have noticed. The paper planes in Exercise 2 we threw a bit differently, I think we had like a, kind of a box around us that we tried to land the plane into right.
Shaw
We tried to pretend then that like... so you know, under the pavilions, you know HDB blocks have pavilions, and they have like tiles, coloured tiles right? So we're trying to imagine that the large squares, you know, kind of demarcated by coloured tiles would be our quote unquote platforms, and this is before we entered starch, and then we still had that like, maybe we are on our different platforms and we cannot leave, you know. So we're trying to have our paper planes land on the platforms lah.
Jevon
Yeah. Yun Teng if you remember, I think in the earlier proposals there were like the two islands, yeah. Anyways, then Exercise 3 is yeah lah. So Exercise 3 is what is on the wall text. Exercise 4 is yeah, I guess, conceptual distance lah, which Shaw shared just now also.
Shaw
I think that it's not so much teaching each other the concept because teaching is one thing – teaching is its own thing actually, I would say – but I think we were trying to get, I think the goal is to get the other person to as close as possible to an understanding of what you know of this thing that you're familiar with. Yeah, and I think that that is a different thing from teaching. Teaching is [one thing] yeah, but then trying to do that in an exercise is a different thing. Yeah.
Jevon
I think it's not… Conceptual distance is one thing, but I think we were also trying to share why something is not only familiar to us, but also exciting to us, right? Yep. Exercise 5 is experiential distance, I suppose. It's mainly Shaw teaching me like, or like choreographing something for me. But I think in all across exercises we were just trying to attempt bridging different kinds of distances. Does that make sense? Yeah, that's really it I think.
Oh, Yun Teng I think elaborating a little bit on Exercise 3, there’s a part of it that wasn't quite on the wall text. Which is that we would we would sit on opposite sides, right? If you can imagine like Marina Bay, sit on opposite sides. And like try writing a letter to each other, like trying to see where the other [was] and you write, and then after that, we would like rotate. So we would leave our letter there, and then we go to the other side, and we read each other's letters. And then we write a response again. Does that make sense? Yeah, my bad, I think yeah that one wasn't communicated so much.
Shaw
It’s like a treasure hunt. Actually on one of the postcards, there’s the “Do not touch” right? So I wrote that on the folded piece of letter and then I taped it down to the floor, and people were just like what is this? “Do not touch”.
It was so like, it was so impromptu. It would be like, I think it was just one afternoon I was at Jevon’s place and then we were like, hey, let's just go downstairs and and try, you know. So then we went, we just folded some paper planes and then we went downstairs, throw them and play badminton. So that was how it started.
When we started doing things that was when the process really started for me, which is, you know, I... not to discredit the obviously, you know, the phase one, phase two, that we've gone through to get to like here, but I've been really, really, like wanting to make something as we went. Make as in, make in space, you know. I've been thinking a lot about how... and I did say this to you Jevon, I think, like to try not to just talk about work or like just make something at the table, you know, but like really experiment with ideas as as we come up with them.
Shaw
There's a lot because I feel like, especially for whatever movements that people saw in the final thing, right, which is actually a lot, which is actually quite a big part of the work. It's the manipulation of the cloth and kind of the sequencing of the movements, right? Actually didn't come until, like, two days before the show, you know. I mean, we did, we did workshop, like, all the different elements, but it really, really just came together a few days before the show and then during the show, it continued to grow.
But it was not up to... It wasn't like up to a performable state, at least for me, you know, like dramaturgicalIy it was still quite lacking and the flow of it, I wasn't very satisfied. I think only until the last, kind of like the second day at night. That I was like, okay, I feel I have accumulated enough good decisions or choreographic decisions for me to be okay with it and then like go from there.
Throughout the rehearsal process right, I think because there was so many elements to this work and I mean, even the choreography was made, not just by me, it was like me and Jevon, right. So Jevon actually gave quite a lot of input on the movement of it, or the movement of basically me lah, basically my body, and that process right, is just so difficult to explain. It was like, suddenly, let's try this projection. Suddenly, let's try to play with the cloth. Suddenly, let's go and play badminton. And it kinda was like a pinball. Like, we were a pinball in a pinball machine and just like, trying to hit all of these things, all ding ding ding. And then after that, finally, you get enough like EXP to birth out that, whatever you saw, you know, and I don't know if we could have done it in another way. I really don't know.
Jevon
I don't think, no, I don't think it was that chaotic. And I don't think it was that freeform. Because I recall that for a lot of the things that we wanted to do, I would often ask you like, how does it tie to what we've discussed before? Because I'm aware that this is like a phase three. So I think quite often I would ask you or us or even like when I'm proposing something I would often ask,yeah, how does it tie to what we have mentioned in phase one or phase two, or like, whatever proposals that we have sent? So I don't think it was that freeform. I think there was curation, curation was just done in a different kind. It's not, it's not... sorry, sorry it's not organization in the in the sense of like, coming out of a timesheet or schedule, but just organisation of ideas. And what threads are relevant lor to explore this point or not, right? I think to me, yes, there was a lot of playing and exploring, but I feel like I almost feel like sometimes the best play and exploration comes from... yeah lor, very deeply understood boundaries lor.
Shaw
Yeah, I think for me, the theatrical the theatrical lighting was great, I mean iit's just natural for me to be like, okay this is, the area of focus is in the centre, you know, then how, what will look nice, you know, than just one like that, one like that. But I think for me, I also saw the top one was kind of like the Sun, you know. The wall text that we put on the wall that people read, Exercise 3 right, Across A Small Distance, 'go to opposite ends and then just regard each other from a distance'. And actually throughout the entire exercise you know, both of us had difficulties looking across the distance because of the Sun. You know, the Sun was so bright and it was in our eyes, and it was also very present in our writing, you know. Like I think some of the postcards were also, if you really read the small text, like you will be able to see like oh, “the sun is in my eyes” or something like that, “I decide to lie down instead and consider the distance” instead of just trying to force your sight to discern you know, when actually it's just so impossible in the... yeah, just like in the presence of the Sun lah, the setting Sun, which is very, very strong. Then there was also the Sun's rays being reflected off of the water that was in between us, kind of made it all the more, just glaring, you know, just to look at it, so I feel like the sun's presence was a big thing.
People will make their own connections and it is not too far from like what I see, you know, that light as. And actually, in one of our early explorations before I kind of, before I made the switch lah, like some of my movements would also regard the thing as like the Sun, you know. So for example, I think I wanted to pull up the carabiner with that light in my face. So actually, I wouldn't be able to see whether it reached Jevon or not. But then yeah, I mean that sort of changed right, you know, once it came to the show.
Jevon
Oh, okay. Okay, the Sun thing is also notable because depending on which side you're on, the Sun will either be behind you or in front of you.
Shaw
I feel like it also really... actually now that after we've been talking about it. I think I put in more effort trying to look across, trying to identify Jevon. But yeah, I think both, was it both times? I really stood there and like, just trying to use my eye power to really like, you know. And I think whereas Jevon was like, okay, the Sun is too bright, I will just lie down, I will do something else. And I cannot, I really cannot see. So for me, I did something very futile for a while lah, you know, and then I got frustrated and everything. And I think that kind of is reflected in the performance. People have also have also come up to us saying like, why are you moving around so much, then Jevon just sit there. As in that's not to say that we are both not putting effort in our own ways, right? It's just a different kind of activity that we choose to do lah, you know, how we choose to respond to that kind of distance, which I think really manifested actually in the show. Yeah.
Jevon
It's also that for the first part of the exercise. The Sun was in your favor, but it was against my favor.
Shaw
Yes. Yes. Only after I went around, then I was like, Oh, I can better empathize with Jevon’s position. And then I did the same thing, I also just lie down.
Jevon
But I think the the poetic thing for me here is that what helps you see can also blind you. I think that's what I found quite rich about the Sun thing.