the subtle beings - emergence
part of Hand Unmade curated by Damian Barbeler, presented by BackStage Music
Woodburn Creatives, Redfern
30 August 7.30pm
All photos by Ollie Miller, unless otherwise stated.
the subtle beings - emergence is an excerpt of a greater performance-installation journey which was first presented at Articulate project space in 2018. This is where WeiZen re-imagines a Rungus dance ritual from Kampung Minyak, Sabah in Malaysian Borneo.
In conversation with the Rungus ritual facilitator, Mary binti Mojihit and the village head of Kampung Minyak, Osewan bin Ayung, this section is an embodied and material response to the speculations about the source of the gestures, and conversations about the ritual’s intention.
Ritual assistant: Oliver Damian. Live sampling and re-compositing of sound sources: Dahyo Lloyd. Material: pig skin embedded with synthetic horse hair made by Katja Handt.
“I am interested in the performance of ritual like experiences; of being possessed as a transformative experience for both of the performer and onlooker. Then there is the notion of possession as the filling in of, and the mediating of, many kind of absences. It makes me wonder about the kinds of qualitative states that may make possession possible: mental vulnerability, uncertainty of social identity, lack of access to deeper communion or devotional spaces, the thinning veil between life and death, unbelonging…”
Photos above by Alan Schacher, of Oliver Damian setting the scene, preparing a rhythm which anchors and persists…
‘Hand Unmade’ – and remade – BackStage Music’s daring musical innovations
(Review) by Claudia Jelic | Sep 2, 2024 | Ambassador thoughts, Music Directors & Conductors
August 30, 2024, Woodburn Creatives, Redfern, NSW
The Woodburn Creatives offered an intimate setting for ‘Hand Unmade’, a multi-arts event curated by Damian Barbeler, with Lamorna Nightingale as Artistic Director. This marked yet another bold and exciting program as part of BackStage Music’s 2024 series. Far from a traditional concert setting, this evening of music, light, sound, movement, and even food, was continually surprising and always thought-provoking.
The artists and performers involved in this concert come from diverse backgrounds and professions. Personalities shone throughout the evening as the compositions and installations often stemmed from the artists’ personal experiences. There was a wonderful sense of anticipation before each new ‘chapter’ of this ‘multi-art’ essay; the sense that quite literally anything could happen.
Wearing only a sheet of pig skin embedded with synthetic horsehair that was stuck to her chest, WeiZen Ho reinterpreted a Rungus dance ritual from Kampung Minyak, Sabah. Titled The Subtle Beings – Emergence, this powerful work melded the voice, the body, and the performance space itself. At times quite confronting, there was an immediacy to WeiZen’s movements which organically unfolded along with Dahyo Lloyd’s live sampling and WeiZen’s vocalisations. WeiZen’s eventual removal of the pig skin across the front of her body seemed a symbolic reference to the -un- of unmade; the reimagining and resurfacing of the body and the spirit, enabling a process of transformation and change. This installation set up an important theme that pervaded throughout the evening, namely the challenging of the parameters of a performance. It was fitting that the pig skin, hung up on wires from the ceiling, remained for the duration of the concert…
…it was a really compelling performance, and so quietly so -- so very focussed. I stayed with it the whole way through. So fascinating to see how the hair of the 2018 had become "hairs", so to speak -- and that attentive combing through them drew attention to to something that held such an interesting tension between the calming and the abject. The vocalisations at the end were particularly striking. They seemed to come through the space as if not from you at all. So fascinating!
Jen Craig, Author and Breath-work therapist
