Song of Lamentation 2014

22 Aug 2014 : Performed at The 5th Arts Island Festival , in Klungkung, Bali, and Kediri, Central Java. Undisclosed Territory#8 Performance Art Festival at Studio Plesungan in Solo, and Bedog Arts Festival at Studio Banjarmili, Yogjakarta, Indonesia) and at Melaka Arts and Performance Festival, Malaysia

Song of Lamentation/Kidung Merintih (Cantus Lamentus) In this solo movement work I attempt to draw parallels between Judaism and Islam, between the Jew and the Arab, who are supposed to be brothers. I lament what is happening in Gaza, I lament the inability to share a homeland. As part of the series Diasporic Body, I investigate the layers of refuge in the absence of any home. A research in which I attempt to perform the layers of identity and simultaneously experience the dissolution of that self before another culture’s eyes. The simple device of an old brown bedsheet from my family home and childhood years is used to convey multiple images. In my solo, I reach out to a universal that allows space for both difference and understanding. The performance, both dark and humorous, draws parallels between Judaism and Islam, such interrelated faiths, seeking to generate motifs from the evocative nature of gesture and prayer, placing two world-views side-by-side. I am not of them, yet amongst them, trembling with the fear and love of an unknown God. I employ and old brown bed sheet from my childhood as the material. The images shown here are from the final performances of the tour at Melaka Arts and Performance Festival, performed inside the ruins of the Church of St Paul on Bukit St Paul.