sarma

This "poetics" on his critical writing was commissioned by Sarma and published on the occasion of the first Unfolding the Critical colloquium in March 2003.

From: Tang Fu Kuen
To: Myriam Van Imschoot
Subject: Sarma
Date: Mon, Dec 18, 2000, 7:53 PM

Dear Myriam,

Thanks for your interest. I’m equally intrigued by and about you.

Right now, I’m very busy with the Flying Circus Project in Singapore at TheatreWorks, led by director Ong Keng Sen. The FCP is a large inter-Asian congregation of both traditional and contemporary artists working the the fields of theatre, performance, dance and visual arts. The Cambodian dancers, Tibetan lamas, Naxi shamans, Ea Sola, Boi Sakti, Meredith Monk, Richard Schechner etc. are just some of the participants in this year’s 3-week intensive project. The FCP has been going on for the last 6 years, as a response against western dominance in intercultural work (eg. Peter Brook, Ariane Mnouchkine etc…).

It’s hard to describe oneself – so please understand. I cannot be as complete as I’d like to.

I’m a Singaporean Chinese male, 28 years old.

Primarily, I position myself as a cultural dramaturg. I come from a formal education in theatre (western, Asian and Southeast Asian histories and praxis). I worked as a collaborator and performer with Ong Keng Sen for 8 years. I enter dance from the essential interest of viewing the body as the key image-making tool in live art. Besides, I have lost my interest in the dramatic text, catharsis and other theatrical pretensions.

Part of my dramaturgical work is writing dance criticism. Under my Chinese name, Deng Fuquan, I write for the country’s main daily, The Straits Times, and also for The Arts Magazine, and for Taiwan’s Arts Journal. I’m starting with Ballet International with the postcard view from Bangkok. But I’m so busy, I’m near-kapoot to even write that yet…

Apart from writing – which is really a way of documentation for me – I also organise and curate events. In June this year, for instance, I created Dance Eco Asia which centred on Dance and Ecology involving major (Chandralekha, Sardono, Hong Sin Cha, Sakiko Oshima) and emerging choreographers, to examine existing resources and future dance sustainability. I will be assembling soloists from Asia-Pacific in conjunction with the Singapore Arts Festival, and also another set of soloists from Europe and Asia for a forum on the theme ofThe Body as Industry (I’m waiting for the Asian-Europe Foundation to reply on some matters to confirm the go).

As a dance dramaturg, I am now working with a Hong Kong choreographer on the sino-sciences as a response to the body-centric work emerging from Europe, esp. In the last 5/6 years. In fact, I should be in Ghent in May 2000 for a work-in-progress with Lynda Gaudreau from Montreal. Perhaps we see each other then?

You have heard from Jérôme Bel about me (and perhaps some other choreographers too) because he had come across my review of Xavier Le Roy’s Self-Unfinished during his research on Xavier for his work. I had met Jerome in Podewil in Berlin during Yvonne Rainer’s session, and we met again in Paris when I was there to look at the Festival d’Automne – both occasions being rather kismet, actually.

You can say that my dramaturgical work has several broad strands: intercultural, body-centred, research-based, multidisciplinary and Asian-slanted. I travel a fair bit, regionally and abroad (of late, more of Europe than America). It is in my ethics and duty as a cultural dramaturg to build my info/knowledge resources and then make meaning of performance as a phenomenon and organising metaphor.

As the world of dance intellectualism now stands, I think too much is viewed from western perspectives. The complexity of Asian philosophies, epistemologies and modalities of modernity are much too ignored for a balanced discourse. Peggy Phelan talks nonsense half the time, as does André Lepecki. It is a shame that no one from my continent comes up strong to tell these people off for making gross generalisations about the movement, body and cultural/human identity, with little or no consideration of non-western paradigms. I do not pretend to be some big guru. If I do not drop out from dire economic survival, I would like to continue my work as a cultural dramaturg – if only to exist as resistance.

Now, I do not know why you are interested in my existence. Would you also please respond to my curiosity?

Yours,
Fu Kuen