Dates: 2024/09/27 – 2024/09/28
Venue: Esplanade Annexe Studio [Singapore]
Curated and directed by Dance Nucleus
Participated artists: Gabriel Pietro Marullo, Pat Toh+Jenni Large, Transfield Studio, ashleyho+domeniknaue
Official website: https://www.esplanade.com/whats-on/2024/vector5-psychogeographies
Whenever my grandfather would begin talking about something, almost simultaneously, my grandmother would start speaking about the same thing. As if I were watching a single video from two slightly different camera angles, they spoke independently, although they shared the same topic. The other day, my grandmother, who used to speak that way, passed away. And years before her, my grandfather had already gone.
He used to tell me, again and again, about the meals he remembered from his childhood. In his later years, he said, “The fact that I’ve talked about it so many times must mean it tasted good. But now, I can’t even remember the taste—or whether it really was that good at all.”
In his final years, my grandfather used to write down our family tree, which spread in the shape of an open fan. If I were to place myself in the center, the family tree would look as if the edges of the past were closing in on me. The tree still has a future of growth. Of course, there are also many relationships in my life that cannot be recorded in my family tree, relationships that have expanded as if I were the knot where the new branch begins to weave outward. Yet it remains true that, no matter how I may try to distance myself from systems of family or marriage in society, as an animal, my body and gestures are inherited from my family—from the people I was born from.
Is that why I find myself wanting to recall events that I haven’t lived through?
[Photo: Rogan Yeoh]
In Singapore, I witnessed last portrait, a performance by Ashley Ho and Domenik Naue★1. This piece had previously been staged in the Netherlands in July 2024 and in Italy the following month. This time, it was presented in Singapore, Ashley Ho’s home country. Ashley met Domenik Naue, who was born in Germany, at a university in Amsterdam in 2020, and they have been collaborating ever since. They call themselves “GENERATION ZERO COVID BABIES”★2, acknowledging that their artistic practice began during the COVID era and that their unique creative vocabulary developed under those circumstances. To create, to perform, to share a space with others—so much has changed during the pandemic. Yet, the two artists began their practices precisely within that moment of change.
To start with, I’d like to share the other works exhibited alongside last portrait. The works were displayed in the venue as follows: on the first floor, there was an installation of last portrait (which is also the “stage” of the performance), and on the second floor, there was another installation. This installation was composed of drawings and videos of the performance project paper tears, and memorandums used for their past projects and discussions. These memorandums were displayed on several iPads. Since they were written on an online whiteboard, we find various types of writings and drawings scattered around the screen—texts of different sizes, photographs, sketches, videos, handwriting, and digital fonts★3. The two artists communicate in English on a daily basis, but their multilingual expression may reflect the intimacy of their relationship, not just in terms of spoken languages like English or German, but in a broader sense of language as a system of communication. Ashley, who is a native English speaker, comes from a Singaporean family where they also use languages related to their family roots. In Ashley’s case, Mandarin is also her everyday language, so her linguistic awareness is presumably different from those who have only English as their mother tongue★4. Furthermore, in Amsterdam, where they are based, both artists speak Dutch. This diverse linguistic environment is evident in their artistic practice, which fluidly moves between languages, graphic design, video editing, soundscapes, and performance. It’s not surprising that their curiosity turns toward the languages and bodies they inhabit, and the mobility that exists behind the family tree★5.
[Photo: Rick Yamakawa]
last portrait is a performance, as well as an installation work. It weaves together several narratives: Ashley’s father, who has lived with Parkinson’s disease for eighteen years; Domenik’s grandfather, who worked as a gardener after surviving World War II; and respective family members of these two. The “stage” for the performance is on view for the audience outside the performance hours. At the center of the installation lies a mound of soil, and around it, various objects are arranged: steel racks, garment racks, microphones, a mandolin, piles of letters, and more. A total of eighty-seven numbered objects are arranged in the venue, each given an explanation in the handout. For example, Ziploc bags Ashley’s father uses to organize his medication (numbers were given to each bag since each had different dates); his white plastic pill case; Domenik’s apple juice recipe, which he learned from his grandmother; his pot (during the performance, actual apple juice is boiled); screenshots of Ashley’s family messages; Domenik’s letters from his grandfather; and the list continues. These items, which to me seemed to function as memorandums, resurface in my memory, and I realize it is not only Ashley and Domenik who are having conversations through languages formed by various media. Even within families—or precisely because we are family—we speak in a multitude of languages.
[Photo: Rogan Yeoh]
Around the installation, there are audience seats, but some are arranged inside the “stage.” The stage begins with a long, sustained tone from the two performers, who stand face to face before a microphone. Their voices reverberate from the speakers and fill the venue. If you look closely, you will notice water trickling from their mouths. For anyone with caregiving or healthcare experience, this scene would evoke the image of saliva drooling from weakened lips. Throughout the performance, water dribbles out of their mouths from time to time.
Whilst following the timeline of roughly sixty minutes, the transition between scenes occurs gradually. I say “gradually” because the two rearrange this multitude of objects by doing different things, and by the time the audience notices, the overall situation has already shifted. Although the two made a script structured by time, the audience perceives it more spatially. Like a memorandum, the performance unfolds by “wandering” around the objects displayed here and there. The performers’ gestures sometimes address their own families and sometimes address the other performer (their family) as if they are speaking on behalf of that other. As shown in the statement, the work has a clear structure in which two performers, or in other words, two families, are being juxtaposed, their narratives intersecting through acts of storytelling.
The two bodies touch each other for the first time in the performance when Ashley asks Domenik, “Do you wanna be my father?”★6 and guides him to the chair. She then demonstrates to the audience the massage she has been giving to her disabled father. While Domenik attempts to emulate a physically tense body, Ashley reenacts massage gestures, murmuring gentle instructions—“Whenever I touched him, there is always a little bit of tension… Yep, exactly… a bit more tension, yep…”—thus recreating the physical tension of her father’s body on the stage. The only thing Ashley can remember is the tension she felt in her palms. She now soothes Domenik’s head and neck just as she did for her father. Ashley’s gestures are deeply intimate. Or in other words, the gestures themselves are the intimacy given to her father and are now also given to Domenik, sitting right in front of her.
Six years have passed since Ashley left Singapore. Ashley now gives massages to her father only when she is back in her country. In the process of creating this performance, these gestures were also given to Domenik. Perhaps, these intimate gestures were shared between the two as they gathered documents of their family and revisited their memories. In that sense, what happened on stage is the document of events that can’t be materialized—a document of trial and error of documenting.
[Photo: Rogan Yeoh]
From the latter half of the performance, the interactions within each family overlap with one another. Ashley, through a monologue, calls her father, who does not respond★7. She then ends her monologue by asking Google Assistant the same phrase we soon hear from the audio in the recorded voice of her father. We are not sure if this recorded voice was taken by accident or if it was scripted. Either way, Ashley and her father repeat the same phrase—a phrase they used over and over again.
“Hey Google, play Shallow.”
Google Assistant responds (intentionally staged) by playing Shallow (2018), a duet by Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga. The voice of her disabled father triggers the magic of the “stage.” The lyrics begin with Cooper singing, “Tell me something, girl,” followed by Gaga responding, “Tell me something, boy.” This is again a scene that shows how an interaction creates an overlap at the same time.
The two dance freely until the last half of the song: they keep embracing each other, standing above the mound of soil in the center stage. Both wearing tank tops, their arms stretch around each other’s shoulders, and their heads come to rest. Water pours from their mouths, soaking each other’s backs. Ashley and Domenik are still themselves, but now they appear as if transformed, embodying the intertwined narratives of their families that permeated the space.
As the “dance” ends, the performance transforms yet again.
[Continue to Part Two]
★1──VECTOR #5: Psychogeographies – Exhibition of Performance was curated by Dance Nucleus, an organization led by a Singaporean artist, Daniel Kok. This program invited artists working with not only dance or theatre, but any type of time-based media, and the program took the shape of an exhibition. The author participated as Transfield Studio (co-directed with Yuko Takeda). Dance Nucleus is an artist-run alternative space in Singapore, offering diverse programs and managing its studio.
★2──Extracted from the memorandums referred to later. In one of them, there was a bullet-point note titled “Things We Know Now,” reflecting on the situations and contexts an artist might choose to rely on. One entry read: “4. We have had practice making in a specific way: rapid, interrupted (we are GENERATION ZERO COVID BABIES), in an echo chamber of friends.”
★3──We can also observe their interpretation of language (in a broader sense) through their website. There is no distinction between artwork and research, and multiple languages appear across both printed and digital materials. In the exhibition, such documents were literally scattered across a tablet screen, accessible through resizing and scrolling. Even on their website, we see traces of trial and error, as if they are searching for a loophole in how to scroll up or down.
★4-1──Singaporean English, also known as Singlish, is influenced by Creole languages such as Mandarin, Malay, and Hindi. It is important to note that the term “English” itself can have a broad definition, depending on the context.
★4-2──As the author, I have occasionally experienced the strange sensation of speaking English with other non-native English speakers. Why are we able to understand one another? How can we be sure that meaning is being conveyed accurately? Would this discomfort disappear if we spoke the same language natively? I don’t think so. This is why I believe that the work of Shinbun-ka, a theatre company led by Yutaro Murakoso, should be explored in other linguistic or multilingual contexts. Shinbun-ka examines how we pass meaning to others, particularly through the transformation of “language” in performance and acting.
In the preface of Toride, a play by Murakoso which won the 22nd AAF Drama Award (readable from the Award’s website. Last accessed: 2025/05/13), the playwright expresses his intent to capture the subtle transitions of perception that sustain a family system. especially by focusing on inappropriate language in domestic settings and the suspension of judgment around it. Toride will be staged in 2025, so for now, I will only offer here a brief outline of the play. We shall carefully consider the narratives of a family after watching both the play and the performance.
★5──This also relates to Tso-Hsin Tang’s Luma, the work I referred to in the first essay of this review series, where the artist maps out the place her grandparents travelled. This is about the mobile history left in our bodies (no matter the scale of its travel, it is important for the individual), or in other words, it is about the importance of embracing the history of time and space that spreads behind and in front of our bodies. And is about why it should be shared with the audiences. (Translator’s note: the review is currently available only in Japanese)
★6──In the original Japanese essay, excerpts of the scripts are translated by the author, based on the archived play, scripts, and the author’s personal notes. Their latest work and its script are not publicly accessible. However, information about this performance can be found on the artist’s website among their past works.
★7──On the day I saw the performance, Ashley’s father was at the venue as an audience member, sitting at the same angle as where Domenik was performing. From my seat, I could see Domenik exactly behind Ashley’s father. Even though Ashley’s real father was present, Domenik’s overlapping presence made it seem to me as if he were Ashley’s father. Then I heard Ashley calling her father.
Date of viewing: 2024/09/28 (Sat), 29 (Sun)
Translated by Mitsue Kitagawa
Proofread by Erika Dreskler
The original Japanese text is written in Nov 2024.
