Last week, Japanese performance group Sal Vanilla brought its Zen-infused mixed-media art to the tiny city-state of Singapore.
[inter/action] enjoyed a three-night run at Little Asia 2003, a new mini-festival that will also present Australian percussionist Ben Walsh and the country’s own Daniel K. & Co. over the following weeks. Singapore recently joined Little Asia, an alliance of Asian and Australian presenters aimed at initiating cultural exchange for small-scale experimental theater in the region.
Tokyo-based Sal Vanilla may have been founded by two ex-Dairakudakan members, but this hour-long work had none of the older butoh company’s lurid theatricality and grotesque humor. In fact, it didn’t resemble butoh in any obvious manner.
[inter/action], which premiered in Korea last year, knits stark, all-male dancing with complex lighting schemes, giddy computer-generated projections and a live electronic score by Metro 999. The intricate web of images and sounds brilliantly envision urban life, a space awash with information.
In the black box-style Esplanade Theatre Studio, the action mostly occurred on a raised, H-shaped stage — a runway bookended by oblong platforms against large white screens Ñ with the audience and production team seated lengthwise on either side. The performers were also free to roam on the ground.
Bareheaded men, looking almost sexless in their white-and-gray sweatsuits, gestured with small flashlights in the darkness. As they passed each other in two rows against the surging electronica, the twinkling torches traced semi-circles in the pitch-black air, as if fireflies had come to visit.
Two opposing camps of three emerged from this opening group. How these men moved and related to each other (as other media fought for everyone’s attention) formed the piece’s ideological core: Technology, however advanced and liberating, has blunted our social skills and our humanity.
When they shivered or thrashed their arms in unison, you could feel their collective anxiety. They linked arms in a processional cycle, but never connected. Two men on opposite ends of the stage reached out in vain. When they rolled themselves into an endless chain of human logs, that relentless sequence visualized their shared isolation in a busy, busy world.
It wasn’t just the cool austerity, the wildly expressive soundscape or the intensely focused performers that was so attractive here. Every medium took equal footing, which allowed you to choose what you saw, making each viewing a uniquely personal experience. That, I think, is what makes a Sal Vanilla show so special.