T.H.E Dance Company opened the festival at the Esplanade Theatre Studio with a new piece Mr. Sign by its resident choreographer Kim Jae Duk. According to the programme, Mr Sign "examines the individual's space in a hierarchical society" and "questions if communication is indeed important to humans". Kim Jae Duk's choreography was strong and he made full use of the competent dancers. This piece featured spoken texts which the dancers surprisingly delivered well. A memorable piece to start the Festival.
Another event was Accents of Southeast Asia held at the Goodman Arts Centre on 3 Dec. A short programme featuring 3 dance items. Vietnamese Ngo Thanh Phuong's Eighteen was about Vietnamese women who wants to break out of the traditional family culture. A straight forward piece, and rather short. Malaysian James Kan's Fragment was about broken soul. It would be interesting to see the original 80-minute version as the version staged here was too brief. Goh Shou Yi from Singapore presented By You in This Instance/ Mean Me. It had the most "dance" movement and also received a lot of support from the audience.
AFX - Asian Festivals Exchange was a platform to link with various festivals. This year's edition featured groups from Seoul Dance Collection, Guangdong Festival and Yokohama Dance Collection. Good effort from all of them but I did not have a favourite. It was probably watching too many dance programmes within such as short period..
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