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…”