Experimentation Ground is an incubation space for artists interested in experimental performance making and performance art.
Featuring two original experimental performances: A Place We Could Not Name by XUE and Auction For The Afterlife by Vicki.
This year, the programme also partnered with HOTHOUSE to present Crawling Under Tiger, a distinctive work blending soundscapes and movement.
These thought-provoking performances delve into the realm of experimental art, offering audiences a unique and unconventional experience at this year’s festival.
Dates: 17 & 18 January 2025
Admission Type: Free, with Registration
a place we could not name
Show #1 – 17 January 2025: 7:30PM – 8:30PM
Show #2 – 18 January 2025: 2:30PM – 3:30PM (Artist Talk: 3.30PM-4:30PM)
Show #3 – 18 January 2025: 7:30PM – 8:30PM
Venue: *SCAPE The Ground Theatre
Artists and Collaborators: XUE, Razan Wirjosandjojo & Mervin Wong
‘a place we could not name’ is an ongoing performance proposition that experiments with various processes of space-time intervention to materialize a site of transformation. The work seeks to explore place as a mutable construct, perpetually negotiated and redefined through the body’s engagement, marked by both its presence and absence.
Through provocations of body, sound, light, and object, stirrings of place rise and recede like waves on a shoreline; every arrival mediates a departure.
The project raises questions of agency and identity: How does the body choose to “place” itself in liminality, and how might it resist?
Auction For The Afterlife
Show #1 – 17 January 2025: 8:30PM – 10:00PM
Show #2 – 18 January 2025: 8:30PM – 10:00PM
Venue: *SCAPE Level 4 Dance Studio 3 & 4
Artists and Collaborators: Yang Vicki, Wu Jun Han & Teo Xiao Ting
‘Do all birds go to heaven? Do I need a standing fan in hell? Is it a healthy descent of 10,000 steps? A soft-hearted take on a grief practice, Auction for the Afterlife is a participatory performance that illuminates our systems of value appraisal across the material and transcendent plane. Drawing inspiration from a Chinese cultural practice of burning paper good offerings for the departed, the performance presents an alternative valuation on traditional afterlife securities through personal memory, desire and legacy. Through an invitation into a spirited collective process of bidding in an “auction”, the performance is an exercise and an inquiry into how we decide what is important to us, and how it might change when we reflect upon these things in temporary community with others.
Crawling Under Tiger
Show #1 – 17 January 2025: 8:45PM – 9:30PM
Show #2 – 18 January 2025: 8:45PM – 9:30PM
Venue: *SCAPE #05-03
Artists and Collaborators: Collaboration with HOTHOUSE, Mary Sue, Kenzo Nagari, Loy, Jack Lim & Leo Yee
Drawing from the shared childhood experiences of music producer Mary Sue (b. Siew Png Sim, 1999) and movement practitioner Loy (b. 1999), of traditional myths, rituals and folklores, a birthday bash of three deities is reimagined through a sino-futurist lens in this transdisciplinary live activation in collaboration with Hothouse (est. 2020).
