I was cleaning the floor of AS7 this evening. Not literally. But wow, this must be one of the first times I've finished the bulk of a choreography more than a day before deadline. (Sorry Terence Then, I know it's bad....) Anyway I've been wanting to blog lately but have had no idea how to organize my random thoughts. I've decided to start with the three shows I caught over the weekend of 17 to 19 this month. 17: Chun pangsehed me last-minute for the Foreign Bodies show. Thankfully I saw Bettina when I was getting off the train, and she let me sit with her. The show was good. I loved the An An-ish segments best, but more than all of the dancing, David's video projections were super brilliant.
18: I caught Jessica in the Contact concerts - 3, Momento, and Edge. Alison's casting for her item was strange, and I don't know whether the extreme segregation of her girls by grouping and costume was mostly accident or intention. Hazel and Jessica were in pretty purple dresses, while the other three looked like female cadets at morning PT. The only pleasant outcome of this uncomfortable caste system was the girl-on-girl, purple-on-grey action near the end. As for Chou Shu-Yi's solo, let's just say that the musical accompaniment had what sounded like crickets, before becoming entirely one-note. Let's face it: dance is freaking subjective. Yarra's item opened strongly. The audience was greeted by an impressive arrangement of hoisted chairs, and a cast of six boys seated in a row, in distinct personalities: one burdened, one insecure, one colourless, one eager, one rebellious, one innocent. Water Bloom was better the first Saturday. The second time around dancers generally seemed tired, but only by comparison. My favourite item across was Kim Jae Duk's Clocker, a duet between two men.
19: I had just seated myself at Wilkie Edge with a green tea latte and the monster of a tome Yvonne lent me, after dropping off my dad at the airport, when I realized that it was half an hour from three, which was likely the only time slot I could make that week to watch Esther in the third act of Love: In Stores Now, a musical at Orchard Central. I was smack in front of her when she entered for the intro mass dance, and got to see her cua tio face again. The third act had almost no plot movement, but Izyan was again super funny and Andy was again super shuai, and I suppose the underlying messages hit home: for your loved ones, buy outrageously expensive gifts; if on your own, shop likewise to numb the loneliness.