i ran 4km today!
not a very impressive number to many, but it is no less than a miracle for me. i had always struggled with the 1.6km and 2.4km during NAPFA in school. i like sprinting and i like walking long distances, but running long (anything above 800m is, or was, long for me) had always been a great struggle.
i used to fear the track. i used to dread PE lessons to the extent that i would feel cold while sitting on the grandstand, waiting for the teacher to announce the mileage for the day and chivvy us to the track. i wasn't adverse to sports. it was just running that really put me off.
but now i am in love with it (:
with each step, i affirm that it is time for action, and not for dreams. it is the time to be who i want to be, and not to imagine who i could be. the mental realm has been my recluse and place of solace for too long. if i want my life back, i have to get back to and fight with reality again.
a quote from the patek phillipe exhibition at st regis is on my mind - workmanship is being committed to an ideal.
i will not settle for less.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Thursday, May 27, 2010
voiced and voiceless
i've just had two of the best theatrical experiences these past two days. i get the sense that i should be writing a lot more and reflecting in much greater depth about the two performances, but..i am tired.
watched Cargo Kuala Lumpur - Singapore by Kaegi (from Rimini Protokoll) and Karrenbauer on the 25th. the audience were seated as cargo in a converted truck and we were driven around by truck drivers in a journey that simulates the journey that cargo transporters make from KL to SG. our drivers brought us to the port area, customs, industrial places, large holding areas, all the while providing a commentary on what the drivers had to do, how much they earned, and the technical specifications of some of the cargo they were dealing with. in between the professional content, they also shared about their personal history.
i am unable to continue. at least, not in a coherent, polished flow. i remember words, pictures, the girl with the boxes and singing those songs. penjuru domitory. foreign workers. we have so many, so many foreign workers in singapore.
what, really, is the cargo? the large containers the drivers have to transport across long distances through the nights with heavy thoughts of financial stress and separated family members? we, the audience sitting in the converted truck, being transported around with no say about where we wanted to go or what we wanted to do? them, the people who have been shuttled around nations, changing between jobs, utilised by organisations for industrial and economic purposes?
they live on the same small island of less than 700 sqm with us. yet we know so little about them, and are so estranged from them.
social estrangements. yesterday's performance also addressed this so strongly. it was I, Malvolio by Tim Crouch. i thought of the Twelfth Night performance that i saw in Stratford some months ago. i remember the Malvolio from that performance very well. his smile was heart-breaking, and yesterday's performance brought back those memories of the person whose ostracisation caused me such pain.
crouch was marvellous. he managed to understand the spirit and symbol of malvolio. and more than that, he dragged out the great potential in the malvolio character for social commentary. for twelfth night is, indeed, a mad and violent play. it is a world of madness, where people allow their emotions to swing them into all sorts of irrational behaviour. it is a world where the funny man is laughed at, where people have no qualms tormenting others for the sake of their own amusement. how far would this society, this human race, go in the direction of violence for the sake of amusement? i am not optimistic about the answer.
i really liked his interpretation of how malvolio would exact his revenge also. how, indeed, can malvolio ever make anyone feel the anguish and brokenness and rage and stupidness that he felt? he made use of the theatrical contract very well, exploiting the parasitic relationship the audience has on the actor by simply leaving the audience perfomance-less so that the audience would have some sense of how it feels to thrown out of the dream world, to fumble around stupidly in the new consciousness, to berate themselves for having ever entered the theatre.
in limbo. to be left in limbo. to be left to think "why did i ever."
isn't that one of the most painful questions ever.
"them as have a voice must speak for them as have no voice". to all the malvolios and cargoes of the world, someone has been speaking, and will be speaking, for you.
watched Cargo Kuala Lumpur - Singapore by Kaegi (from Rimini Protokoll) and Karrenbauer on the 25th. the audience were seated as cargo in a converted truck and we were driven around by truck drivers in a journey that simulates the journey that cargo transporters make from KL to SG. our drivers brought us to the port area, customs, industrial places, large holding areas, all the while providing a commentary on what the drivers had to do, how much they earned, and the technical specifications of some of the cargo they were dealing with. in between the professional content, they also shared about their personal history.
i am unable to continue. at least, not in a coherent, polished flow. i remember words, pictures, the girl with the boxes and singing those songs. penjuru domitory. foreign workers. we have so many, so many foreign workers in singapore.
what, really, is the cargo? the large containers the drivers have to transport across long distances through the nights with heavy thoughts of financial stress and separated family members? we, the audience sitting in the converted truck, being transported around with no say about where we wanted to go or what we wanted to do? them, the people who have been shuttled around nations, changing between jobs, utilised by organisations for industrial and economic purposes?
they live on the same small island of less than 700 sqm with us. yet we know so little about them, and are so estranged from them.
social estrangements. yesterday's performance also addressed this so strongly. it was I, Malvolio by Tim Crouch. i thought of the Twelfth Night performance that i saw in Stratford some months ago. i remember the Malvolio from that performance very well. his smile was heart-breaking, and yesterday's performance brought back those memories of the person whose ostracisation caused me such pain.
crouch was marvellous. he managed to understand the spirit and symbol of malvolio. and more than that, he dragged out the great potential in the malvolio character for social commentary. for twelfth night is, indeed, a mad and violent play. it is a world of madness, where people allow their emotions to swing them into all sorts of irrational behaviour. it is a world where the funny man is laughed at, where people have no qualms tormenting others for the sake of their own amusement. how far would this society, this human race, go in the direction of violence for the sake of amusement? i am not optimistic about the answer.
i really liked his interpretation of how malvolio would exact his revenge also. how, indeed, can malvolio ever make anyone feel the anguish and brokenness and rage and stupidness that he felt? he made use of the theatrical contract very well, exploiting the parasitic relationship the audience has on the actor by simply leaving the audience perfomance-less so that the audience would have some sense of how it feels to thrown out of the dream world, to fumble around stupidly in the new consciousness, to berate themselves for having ever entered the theatre.
in limbo. to be left in limbo. to be left to think "why did i ever."
isn't that one of the most painful questions ever.
"them as have a voice must speak for them as have no voice". to all the malvolios and cargoes of the world, someone has been speaking, and will be speaking, for you.
Monday, May 24, 2010
kids (:
was ushering for i-theatre's gruffalo show at alliance de francais last week. they had two shows per day, and both of the first day's shows were specially reserved for school bookings. we had children from primary schools, children from minds, children from national library's kids group, children from private kindergartens...you get the idea. i don't wish to fall into the trap of romanticising childhood, but it was really an absolute joy watching them queue up, run around, ask for toilet, chatter and scold and laugh and basically, do all sorts of kiddish things and sometimes even adult things with a kiddish air.
during the performance, there was one scene where a character on stage center was going to chase after another character on stage right. after delivering his speech which made clear his intention, he swopped to stage left to enact the theatrical gesture of a chase, i.e. exaggerating the distance by running up and down the stage. a girl from the audience immediately exclaimed "but she's over there!". imagine the laughter and looks of amazement from her teachers.
i was really caught by that girl and the insight she gave me into her world, our world, and the worlds we dream up for ourselves. aren't there many times when we engage in performative acts for the sake of exaggerating and calling attention to what we're doing, or for the opposite aim of concealing what we really wish to do? sometimes, we feel that people are not appreciating us enough, or not recognising the effort we're putting in, and we harp on our sacrifices so that they would notice. sometimes, we conceal when we do not take ownership for certain desires that we have, or we suppress needs that we feel too vulnerable to share. we gesture towards A when what we really want is B, and we strive after C to cope with our belief that we can never get D.
i see so many performances every day and it sickens me. i am conscious too, of my own performances and that i need to change. which is really quite a self-attacking statement because the more i type, the more i am crafting and engaging in self-presentation, which brings me deeper into the act of performance.
craft.
i'll think about that another day.
for now, my aim is to think before i speak and be more watchful of my own actions. but even as i make this resolution, i remember what ps william said during that meeting, that "the product is more important than the publicity".
so God, please change the person, and not merely help her to regulate her performance.
"therefore, i urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God - this is your spiritual act of worship. do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - his good, pleasing and perfect will." romans 12:1-2
during the performance, there was one scene where a character on stage center was going to chase after another character on stage right. after delivering his speech which made clear his intention, he swopped to stage left to enact the theatrical gesture of a chase, i.e. exaggerating the distance by running up and down the stage. a girl from the audience immediately exclaimed "but she's over there!". imagine the laughter and looks of amazement from her teachers.
i was really caught by that girl and the insight she gave me into her world, our world, and the worlds we dream up for ourselves. aren't there many times when we engage in performative acts for the sake of exaggerating and calling attention to what we're doing, or for the opposite aim of concealing what we really wish to do? sometimes, we feel that people are not appreciating us enough, or not recognising the effort we're putting in, and we harp on our sacrifices so that they would notice. sometimes, we conceal when we do not take ownership for certain desires that we have, or we suppress needs that we feel too vulnerable to share. we gesture towards A when what we really want is B, and we strive after C to cope with our belief that we can never get D.
i see so many performances every day and it sickens me. i am conscious too, of my own performances and that i need to change. which is really quite a self-attacking statement because the more i type, the more i am crafting and engaging in self-presentation, which brings me deeper into the act of performance.
craft.
i'll think about that another day.
for now, my aim is to think before i speak and be more watchful of my own actions. but even as i make this resolution, i remember what ps william said during that meeting, that "the product is more important than the publicity".
so God, please change the person, and not merely help her to regulate her performance.
"therefore, i urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God - this is your spiritual act of worship. do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - his good, pleasing and perfect will." romans 12:1-2
Monday, May 17, 2010
training in progress
it is time for the training to start.
rinjani's the main reason of course, but what's a mountain but a symbol of all the things its been used as a metaphor for? the lit student in me has invested it with all these other identities, because the appellation of "mountain" is too evocative for me to not think of all the other mountains and burdens and barriers.
i condense them all into this, and i will train to overcome it. and i am enjoying the training, because there is joy in the labour, in the preparation, in the working out of one's decision.
and of course, this journey of physical, mental and spiritual training has pushed to be thought through and hammered out into words. it is not content to remain as a mass of half-formed sentences and a ball of emotions in my soul. the training has generated words, for every experience has a verbal dimension, no? images and emotions may form part of our consciousness, but the vague impressions demand to be distilled into words, slotted into structures so as to give them some assurance of immortality. (on a side note, every time i say "so as to", i think of the national pledge). i have decided that my training would not be complete unless i set myself to this verbal training too. because this is another aspect of myself that i've lost to the mountain. the experiences of the years and my ways of dealing with them have resulted in the death of my capacity to think through, own, and express my emotions. i want my consciousness to regain its verbal vitality. i want my words, and my mind, back.
"if i have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if i have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, i am nothing" 1 cor 13:2
rinjani's the main reason of course, but what's a mountain but a symbol of all the things its been used as a metaphor for? the lit student in me has invested it with all these other identities, because the appellation of "mountain" is too evocative for me to not think of all the other mountains and burdens and barriers.
i condense them all into this, and i will train to overcome it. and i am enjoying the training, because there is joy in the labour, in the preparation, in the working out of one's decision.
and of course, this journey of physical, mental and spiritual training has pushed to be thought through and hammered out into words. it is not content to remain as a mass of half-formed sentences and a ball of emotions in my soul. the training has generated words, for every experience has a verbal dimension, no? images and emotions may form part of our consciousness, but the vague impressions demand to be distilled into words, slotted into structures so as to give them some assurance of immortality. (on a side note, every time i say "so as to", i think of the national pledge). i have decided that my training would not be complete unless i set myself to this verbal training too. because this is another aspect of myself that i've lost to the mountain. the experiences of the years and my ways of dealing with them have resulted in the death of my capacity to think through, own, and express my emotions. i want my consciousness to regain its verbal vitality. i want my words, and my mind, back.
"if i have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if i have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, i am nothing" 1 cor 13:2
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