I regretted not asking more friends to come to this performance with me.
Not because even a small black box theatre like one that The Substation has was only half filled.
I have to admit that I attended the show because I am a friend of Elysa, one of the two dancers in the show. I suppose most of the audience knew someone in the production, or knew someone who knew someone in the production.
At 7.45pm when the theatre was opened for audience admission, there were two big round tables i the middle of the stage. Everyone inside the theatre, production team or audience, were invited for a porridge dinner. You just helped yourself to the porridge – everyone was urged. For those who had dinner before coming to the show (like me), we were treated with tea, beer or wine. Until the show started around 8.30pm, the black box theatre was more like the courtyard of a big family having a daily home made dinner.
A photographer was snapping pictures away while everyone mingled around. Just before the show started, a group picture was taken with everyone (again, production team and audience).
The show began with a movement piece by Elysa and Scarlet. Then the Traditional Southern Fujian Music (南音）Society started playing and singing. While my ancestor did come from Fujian province, I must admit that I understood no words that were sung. Elysa and Scarlet were writing on the wall words I presumed to be lyrics of the singing.
While I did not understand the words sung, the music transported me, on a Sunday evening, in downtown Singapore, to a space on this island that seemed familiar and yet was not so. The music was slow in pace, non dramatic in tone. The players and singers were dressed like ordinary folks. They did not seem to be performing an act, but more like having a relaxing entertainment after a long day of work and a satisfying dinner. The songs must have been sung a zillion time but tonight was like any other nights that they had to be sung, since people were gathered together after dinner. It seemed that way to me.
Elysa and Scarlet created some movement pieces while the music and singing went on. The movement pieces were so restrained, appeared to minimize any distraction or alteration to the slow music.
At the end of all the singing and music, stools were put on stage and the production team gathered. Let’s watch a show, Elysa exclaimed. A montage of all the moments captured by the photographer before the show started and during the show flashed in front of us accompanied by singing of 水调歌头. That encapsulated the whole evening which was quite succinctly reflected by the Chinese title of the performance – 相聚一刻 (together for a moment).
The photographer, I was told later by Elysa, is a filmmaker (Lei Yuan Bin 雷远彬).
A slow, seemingly ordinary, yet fast disappearing evening in our break neck pacing society. A reminder of an alternative to how life could be.
