A co-production between Theatreworks and Le Centre National de la Danse, Paris, France
15 – 17 September 2005, Singapore
10, 11, 13 – 15 January 2006, Paris
"...for we are all outsiders..."
This first-time collaboration between Benoit LaChambre and Ong Keng Sen challenges the parameters of contemporary dance by working with narrative, the grand epic and a personal response of parallel dream universes, the identitites of a revered Asian text and the outsider.
This collaboration starts from the great Indian epic Ramayana which has transmigrated to diverse parts of South East Asia and which has become assimilated as the Thai, the Indonesian, the Laotian, the Burmese, the Malaysian, the Cambodian story of all times. A thrilling tale of abduction, battle, love played out in a universe thronged with heroes, deities, monkeys, demons and Sita. The first work running to twenty four thousand stanzas was said to be composed in a state of pure inspiration in 1500BC.
like the cat... is conceived by Ong as an experiment of culture where LaChambre and the audience who know only fragments of the original story enter into an abstract landscape vibrating with fleeting characters and intense dream states. With LaChambre singularly suggesting the major characters, our landing pad is far away from any preconceived space, time or identity.
"I have always felt that the project is about these characters and the stories in which Benoit and I are embedded in our daily lives and dreams; it is not just about them nor are we talking about us. It is this story." - Ong Keng Sen
Presentation at Le Centre National de la Danse, Paris, France in January 2006