Synopsis:

Intersections is a performance research lecture series aimed at facilitating a collision course between research, process and performance. Encouraging dialogue among the different artistic disciplines, the platform will bring together practitioners and/or researchers to investigate, question, critique and collaborate on performance practices and forms in the context of the contemporary world today. Participants have the flexibility of determining how their critical discourse with collaborators will be presented to a public audience. By opening a window on practice-led research processes to the public, we hope to provoke further dialogue and discussion, beyond the existing concept of performative space.

In this first instalment of the series titled Traditionally Speaking, Joint Artistic Director, Muhammad Noramin Bin Mohamed Farid, and fellow collaborator, Elizabeth Chan, will reflect on the experiences that have shaped their respective journeys as Malay and Chinese dance practitioners in Singapore. With support from their current PhD research on these forms, they will investigate what exactly are Chinese and Malay dance? What is Singaporean Malay and Chinese dance? How do the socio-political and historical trajectories of both forms intersect and interact? Let them be your guide in navigating how history has shaped what these traditional forms mean today...and what they mean tomorrow.

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Bhumi Collective
Bhumi Collective is a not-for-profit multi-disciplinary performing arts company that develops and produces inter-cultural and transnational work between artists from different parts of the world who have all converged in Britain and Singapore.

We intend to tell and stage stories that bring to the forefront the lesser seen, lesser heard or lesser talked about, stories that embrace our differences in race, religion, colour and circumstances and stories that celebrate what makes us human.

Adopting the word bhumi (meaning soil/earth in both Sanskrit and Malay) in our name is therefore reflective of the ever-changing face of the world's society- a fertile ground where the seeds of culture of our future will be planted and on which citizens of the world can collaborate and thrive.

Soultari Amin Farid
Soultari Amin Farid is a choreographer, arts educator and researcher from Singapore. He is currently based in London where he is a PhD candidate in Theatre, Drama and Dance studies at the prestigious Royal Holloway, University of London, UK. He is a recipient of the Singapore Youth Award (2017), National Arts Council Scholarship (2017) and Goh Chok Tong Youth Promise Award (2016).

His recent choreographic credits in UK & Europe include: Bhumi (Edinburgh Fringe Festival, UK); (Mis)fits (Footprints Festival, UK); Maa, What If... : The Mother in Tagore's Poems (Commissioned by Mora Ferenc Muzeum, Hungary) and Unity in Diversity (University of Szeged, Hungary).

Some of his notable works as Artistic Director in Singapore include: Touch: Identite (Collaboration with Sonic Artist, James Lye, and Hip Hop Artist, Fasihah); Mother Earth: Diminishing (Commissioned by Temasek Arts Centre, Temasek Polytechnic); GAIA: Pudar (Supported by Malay Heritage Foundation & the Malay Heritage Centre); and Padi Kuning [Yellow Paddy] (Supported by National Arts Council Polytechnic Initiative).

Amin's academic investigations into postcolonial theory and anthropology provides the impetus for him to produce artistic works which constantly questions and challenge the normative notions of class, ethnicity, identity and gender.

Amin believes that young arts practitioners must take ownership of their cultural traditions but must also become leaders in creating artistic works that are innovative and relevant to an evolving landscape.

Elizabeth Chan
Elizabeth graduated from the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts in 2013 with a BFA (Honours), majoring in Chinese Dance. During her time in Hong Kong, she performed with the Hong Kong Dance Company Outreach team on multiple occasions. Upon graduation, she became a full-time parade dancer in Hong Kong Disneyland. In Singapore, Elizabeth has performed with the Theatre Arts Troupe, the Singapore Hokkien Huay Kuan Dance Theatre and Xinyi Dance Company both locally and overseas. In August 2016, she completed her MA in Dance Studies at the University of Roehampton (London), and was awarded the International Excellence Scholarship. Elizabeth is also actively involved in dance research, and her research interests are in contemporary Chineseness and its political and socio-cultural implications and phenomena in the dance field. She believes in the importance of both practice and theory, and seeks to explore how the dancing body can claim a space in the larger world.