tyc Annual Report

tony yap company
tyc
Artistic Director’s Report
tyc’s vision to build a platform for collaborations for
performers and artists from different cultures and
disciplines has seen strong and robust development
in the past year.
The MAP (Melaka Art and Performance Festival) has
taken an important presence as a new and vibrant
festival in the Asian Region. Its focus on giving a
platform for independence artists in the region has
proved to be rich with unexpected success in
innovative and creative outcomes. 30 over artists who
participate every year made strong connections and
networks for future collaborative initiatives. Original
works were created from artists individual lives and
this presented a wide freshness and diversity.
Artforms are wide and inclusive. Performances
remained free to the general public and in three days
have an estimate audience of over 20,000. The
responses have been very encouraging with emerging
new, fresh and exciting visions.
Collaborative Centre in Melaka – What seem to be
unfolding is the need for a collaborative centre for
independent artists set in relatively affordable centre
beyond MAP’s platform to perform. We are now
looking at finding a model that is simple and easily
organised and administrated. The state government of
Melaka has requested for a proposal and this a
tremendous positive sign.
The Melbourne Filament stream of choreographic
laboratory has further taken dance rituals and created
a force for the hybrid of the diverse and even bold
practices. A core of these artists are dedicated and
fervently enthusiastic. This enthusiasm keeps
propelling tyc’s creative pathways. Brendan O’Connor
a new comer, a co-pilot to the explorative laboratory,
brings a fresh assistance to reflect in the workshop
processes, building structural designs for risk in
experimentation
The discourse between contemporary western and
non-western practices and meta-meanings continues,
depth has taken a central focus. The reflection of one’s
psyche (soul) continues in the creative path. From the
foundations and influences of the psycho-physical
training method of Grotowski, butoh and Asian
shamanistic trance practices, we explore the vocal, the
kinetics and their innate relationship to text, design
and new technology.
Zero Zero from a fifteen-year alliance with Yumi
Umiumare dipping into spiritual cultural backgrounds
has a new alliance with Video and sound artist Matt
Gingold.
tyc creative partners include Nottle Theatre (Kekkai),
Agung Gunawan of Surya Kencana and In The Arts
Island Festival (Indonesia), Nadja Kostich (Light in
Winter Festival, Federation Square), art curator Lella
Cariddi, media artists, Anthony Pelchen, Domenico de
Clario, Mike Hornblow and Multicultural Arts Victoria.
These partnerships continued to exploring boundaries
creating new pathways for independent Australian
artists with performance opportunities locally and
internationally.
Thank you to Jill Morgan executive officer of MAV for
the continuous support and partnership, Kath Papas
tyc’s propelling producer, tyc’s development advisory
panel - Kirsty Ellem, Suzanne Fermanis, Helen
Herbertson, Odette Kelada, Ronald Koo, Jill Morgan,
Sophie Travers, and Yumi Umiumare, Andrew Ching
of E-plus Entertainment for his courage in supporting
the vision of MAP and Agung Gunawan as an artistic
collaborator in new ideas and practices in the eastwest dichotomy.
Tony Yap
Artistic Director
Producer’s Report
2011 was a year of real consolidation and progress
for Tony Yap Company, with the hard work of
establishing the company in 2009 and 2010 coming
to fruition in many ways.
A very full schedule included creative development,
performance, the third edition of the Melaka Arts and
Performance Festival, fundraising and program
development for 2012, and strategic planning for the
company.
TYC's program touched Australia, Malaysia and
Indonesia. Regional work was a strong focus in
2011 too, including a major performance – Eulogy
for the Living – presented at the stunning Ballarat
Mining Exchange, and the company's first residency
at Bundanon. Equally, it was a strong year of
international connections, with the major
collaboration with Theatre Nottle (Korea) continuing
for Kekkai, presence at the Island Festival, and an
outstanding international contingent of artists at
Melaka Arts and Performance Festival including
established artists from the Netherlands, France and
Indonesia, as well as Australia.
Throughout 2011 our steadfast partner and
supporter, Multicultural Arts Victoria (MAV),
continued to provide auspicing, governance, support
and advice to TYC, and we thank them
wholeheartedly for their vital contribution. In
particular we thank Jill Morgan, Hung Nguyen, the
MAV Board of Management, and staff.
Two other key partners we thank are Monash
University for their tremendous support of the Kekkai
residency and development, both at Bundanon and
their Clayton campus, and Andrew Ching and E-Plus
Entertainment in Kuala Lumpur, who have been so
committed in their shared vision for the development
of Melaka Festival. Though not 'visible' in the
company accounts, these two partnerships have
been very significant in terms of goodwill and in
kind support, and have also supported the artistic
growth and development of TYC.
Our company development advisory panel - Kirsty
Ellem, Suzanne Fermanis, Helen Herbertson, Odette
Kelada, Ronald Koo, Jill Morgan, Sophie Travers,
and Yumi Umiumare – provided invaluable input and
guidance, and we warmly thank them
Other key supporters we acknowledge are: the
Australia Council for the Arts for Emerging Key
Organisations support 2009-2011, the AustraliaMalaysia Institute, the Australian High Commission
KL, the Sidney Myer Fund, the Besen Family
Foundation, Kultour, and Performance Space.
TYC's work is the result of very long standing
collaborations with a community of highly-skilled
independent artists in Australia and Asia. The
longevity and sophistication of the TYC's Asian
collaborations, and the extent of its networks with
independent artists and other small companies in
Asia, continues to be unique in Australian dance.
TYC's ongoing relationships in Malaysia, Korea,
Indonesia and Japan, in particular, will continue to
be the cornerstone of its organic evolution and
growth beyond 2011. Collaborative artistic
relationships will find voice in landmark new
intercultural and interdisciplinary works. TYC's
meaningful existing networks with artists, companies
– fellow participants in the live stream of
contemporary Asian performance – will continue to
set a benchmark for Asian Australian contemporary
dance works.
We hope you are keeping an eye on us in 2012 and
beyond!
Kath Papas
TYC Producer
Our Vision and Goals
Vision:
Position Tony Yap Company as the leading creative force in
contemporary Australian/Asian Dance practice
Goals:
> A flexible organisational structure that will ensure the long-term
creative and flexibility of the Company. We create work that is unique
in that it allows evolution: we are constantly looking for a structure
that allows spontaneity within structure, work that is always fresh and
current and still within the original artistic framework.
> Collaborations especially between artists from diverse artforms and
cultures have been a natural rhythm of tyc’s innovation. We look into
pathways that is beyond the mainstream and markets.
> New work which positions the company as a leading creative force
in Australian/Asian contemporary dance practice. We want to foster
and continue artistic and creative partnerships in the Asian region and
to profile Asian Arts in an international context.
> A creative laboratory environment which experiments in new
methodology and cross-cultural art forms working with bilateral
collaborating partnerships. Our new direction for physical dance
practice transforms ancient shamanistic practice into a post-modern
medium. To create a multi-modal form that is intrinsically
international in its artistic language.
> New audiences from all multicultural backgrounds who appreciate
challenging contemporary Asian Arts. We want to foster and continue
artistic and creative collaborations in the Asian region and to profile
Asian Arts in an international context.
Eulogy for the Living
tyc presented the Australian premiere of Eulogy for the Living
at the Ballarat Mining Exchange on 5 March 2011.
The notion of a living eulogy was originally inspired by the
little wooden tablets that hang in the Cheng Hoon Teng temple
in Tony’s childhood hometown of Melaka, Malaysia. The
tablets commemorate loved ones who have passed on.
‘Eulogy for the Living is a devotional work for making our way
in the world. Here we transform and reconnect a deeper part of
ourselves, within the fleeting transience of contemporary life.
We the living both preserve the past and allow things to pass
– we eulogise ourselves in each moment. Life goes on…’
The work of nine artists, including Tony and long-term
collaborator, dance artist Yumi Umiumare, is integrated in
Eulogy for the Living. During the rehearsal period each artist
generated a deep, personal and individual work, which is
woven into a collective whole and will use the stunning space
of Ballarat Mining Exchange.
Eulogy for the Living was envisaged by Yap as a series of
works to be presented over a number of years, evolving in
their treatment of theme in the same way our lifelong
understanding of life, death and spirituality evolves with age.
Each iteration will respond to its performance site, creating a
series of works that commemorate and are inspired by their
fleeting physical home as much as what they are eulogising
outside of it.
In November 2010, Eulogy for the Living premiered with great
success in the ruins of St Paul’s Church in Melaka, as the
keynote work of the 2010 Melaka Art & Performance Festival.
For this iteration in Ballarat, the soaring spaces of the Mining
Exchange provide similar atmosphere of reverence, of rarefied
air floating with particles of memory and significance.
Directed by Tony Yap Creative collaborator Yumi Umiumare
Created & performed by Tony Yap, Yumi Umiumare, Adam
Forbes, Janette Hoe, Yoka Jones, Geraldine Morey, Daniel
Mounsey, Ben Rogan, Brendan O'Connor Video Design by
Matthew Gingold Fabric installation by Pia Interlandi Lighting
and production by Dori Dragon Bicchierai Sound by Gus
Macmillan TYC Producer Kath Papas TYC is incubated by
Multicultural Arts Victoria
Winter Filament
Winter Fillament was a highlight of the Light in Winter Festival,
Federation Square.
This mesmerizing performance/installation installation brught together dance
theatre, moving images, fabric installation and sound to create an immersive
experience within the altrium of the Melbourne Federation Square.
Drawing on the poetic thread of the moon as a insipational celestial filament. The
moonlight and its shadows in a dance liken that of the whirling dervishes. The
dance, like a filament, illuminates with it link to the elements of the heavens and
earthy shadows.
This performance/installation was planned to coincide with the day of a total luna
eclipse, 16 June, 2011, and close to the winter solstice, 21 June.
Ten thousand fold are the riads on which we pass through life
Our eyes are caught by many things
Darkness and light come and go
Far over the mountains we walked
Clouds are hiding our traces
The path that we traveled we no longer know
– Zeami (1363-1443)
Choreography Tony Yap & Brendan O’Connor
Music; Domenico de Clario
Vocals: Emma Bathgate
Dancers/Performers: Yomal Rajasinghe, Lucinda Fitzmaurice, Yoka Jones, Gretel
Taylor, Miguel Kong, Fina Po, Benjamin Woods, Tina Evans, Melanie Jame Walsh,
Claire See,Belinda Bailey,
Melaka Arts and Performance Festival
www.melakafestival.com
18 –20 November 2011
MAPFest is developing a strong reputation for bringing leading Malaysian, Australian and
international artists together in performances and exhibitions throughout Melaka's stunning
heritage precinct, including the majestic ruins of St Paul's Church. Festival events are free to
all, and attract thousands of spectators.
The festival theme draws directly from Melakan history andtradition. On his inspiration, Tony
Yap says: 'Looking to start a new kingdom, Parameswara was resting with his entourage on
the side of a river when their dogs began chasing a small mouse deer. The mouse deer was
cornered at the edge of the river. With nowhere to go it suddenly turned around, became
fierce, and chased after the dogs! In this transformation, a timid mouse deer, turning around
on the edge of being destroyed, Parameswara saw the sign he needed for the place to start
his kingdom. It so happened he was sitting under a Melaka tree. So this is how Melaka got
its name. This is set as the theme for MAPFest – ‘Turning Around’, a metaphor for spiritual
transformation through the creative drive.'
The Arts are necessary to propel the new. MAP seeks to promote Melaka to the world as a
Creative Hub for innovative arts – where heritage is respected and artistic and cultural fusion
is encouraged. Not just as entertainment but through a vibrant development of community
involvement that integrates – and maps – the arts within the life of Melaka.
Melaka is fast developing commercially and there is a need to combine this with cultural and
creative paths through a balance of spiritual and artistic maturity. Innovative focus and
international collaborations will expose the community to a potentially vibrant new direction
in the development of Melaka’s future within the Global MAP.
Creative Director: Tony Yap
Festival Collaborator : Kath Papas
Visual arts curator: Anthony Pelchen
Festival Producer : Andrew Ching
Production and marketing: E-Plus Entertainment
Festival artists: Azliza Ayob (Malaysia) – Agung Gunawan (Indonesia) – Amadeo
Marquez-Perez (Australia) – Anthony Pelchen (Australia) – Belinda Bailey (Australia) –
Brendan O’Connor (Ireland) – Cecily C. Cheo (Australia) – Cheo Chai-Hiang (Singapore) –
Chong Keat Aun (Malaysia) – Domenico De Clario (Italy) – Damian Vincenzi (Australia) –
Endah & Rhesa (Indonesia) – Frank van de Ven (Neathelands) – Gretel Taylor (Australia) –
Hoa Yen (Malaysia) – Kiea Kuan Nam (Malaysia) – Kim Dae Gun (S Korea) – Kwaifei Liew
(Malaysia) – Matt Gingold (Australia) – Mic Guillaumes (France) – Minstrel Kuik
(Malaysia) – Ng Chor Guan (Malaysia) – Peter Snow (Australia) – Pia Interlandi (Australia) –
Sam Burke (Australia) – Soufiane Karim (New Caledonia) – Suhaili Micheline (Malaysia) –
Tina Evans (Australia) – Trevor Flinn (Australia) – Tony Yap (Malaysia/Australia) – Zaffa
(Kasmir) – Yoka Jones (Australia)
Zero Zero
In July-August 2010, Tony and Yumi Umiumare began creative development of
their new work, Zero Zero. Tony and Yumi are resuming their partnership of
fifteen years of collaboration on a variety of projects, most notably the acclaimed
series How Could You Even Begin to Understand?
Further creative development was undertaken through site specific presentations
at Arts Island Festival, Indonesia, in July 2011. Zero Zero centres around the
concept of ‘zero state’, a metaphor for attaining total emptiness after having a
completely full state. Through the creative development in July-August 2010,
they visited landscapes and environments in Malaysia and Japan where specific
cultural, spiritual, and ancestral connections exist. Filmmaker Sean O'Brien
documented the work.
Yap and Umiumare presented a dance-only version of the work in the curated
‘Return to Sender’ season, put together by Jeff Khan and Paul Gazzola for
Performance Space in November 2011. This presentation – ZeroZero – Miskin
(meaning ‘poor’ in Malay and referring to Grotowski’s concept of poor theatre)
focused on choreography with elasticity for improvisation.
“Next was Tony Yap and Yumi Umiumare’s strong, powerful and incredibly
moving Zero Zero. Butoh influenced, it has been developed from Yap and
Umiumare’s interest in striving for a ‘zero state’ of total emptiness. It’s also
influenced by their mutual interest in the shamanistic dance practices, ritual
environments and ancient cultural heritage of their homelands: Japan and
Malaysia. It seems to be divided into three sections – a mesmerising, sculptural
solo for Yap, who is strong and powerful in it, but also off balance and
sometimes like a darting bird; a solo for Umiumare, where she is like a hooked
fish on a line, one minute happy, the next dissolving into tears; and a duet for
them both. Strange, angular and puppet-like, they never touch. Amazing.” –
Lynne Lancaster reviewing ‘Return to Sender’, Arts Hub
In 2012 Yap, Umiumare and sound and media artist Matthew Gingold are
working to add responsive and interactive media, sound and light to the
choreography. The final work will be be developed ready for an early 2013
premiere, and subsequent touring.
Kekkai
Creative Development Partnership, tyc and Theatre Nottle (Korea)
With the support of Monash University Academy of Performing Arts and the Centre for
Theatre and Performance, tyc and Nottle Theatre engaged in a creative partnership that
explored the concept of kekkai in performance. In Buddhism, a kekkai is a protective or
sacred barrier that denotes a tied or a bounded world or area. Though dance and physical
theatre Nottle and tyc investigated the internal kekkai of people and the kekkai between artforms; the two companies; and movement and stillness, while letting narrative emerge
through these creative tensions. The aim of this work was to go beyond the everyday sense
of boundaries. The companies also explored concepts of trance and possession, and the
question of how kekkai functions as we traverse a contemporary, global society. Real and
imagined gateways, barriers and connecting zones were explored though sculpture, light
and movement.
Both companies had successfully worked together previously, and both share the same core
values and working methods where the company works collaboratively and without internal
hierarchies driving the process of creation as actors, dancers, and musicians respond to a
series of impulse and provocations, some of them motivated by manipulating the physical
environment in which they are working.
The collaboration between the two companies started in late 2010 when tyc came to Nottle’s
permanent home in a converted schoolhouse in the countryside outside of Seoul for a
week-long residency. During that time, many of these creative tensions were explored as
moments of extraordinary stillness and beauty were created. Following on from that
productive period, Nottle and tyc engaged in a further development of the work in August
2011 at the arts centre Bundanoon, followed by a further residency on the Monash campus,
where students from the Centre for Theatre and Performance had the opportunity to
observe, document, and analyse this unique cross-cultural practice. A showing of the work
as a creative development project, which will form the basis of a future work that is to be
developed for international festivals, was presented to an audience of Monash
undergraduate and postgraduate students and staff, while a post-show feedback session
provided an avenue for further discussion and refinement of the show beyond the residency
period.
tyc and Nottle are working to secure resources for the next stage of the work.
Melbourne Filament
– Choreographic Laboratory
Tony Yap works with a core group of approximately eleven independent artists twice a week
throughout the year in a collaborative research process. Weekly sessions with Melbourne
Filament are a vital part of Tony Yap's own personal practice, and a testing ground for
choreographic and movement ideas that feed into performance work. The Melbourne
Filament is a laboratory, a rich and complex system of peer mentorship and critical
feedback. Its approach is that of committed, long-term and skilled collaborators constantly
seeking new grounds. The Melbourne Filament nurtures the individual practice of the artists
involved – some established, some emerging – making a valuable contribution to
development of artists within the contemporary performance sector.
tyc’s unique choreographic language continues in its dictinctive mix. tyc remains committed
to the exploration and creation of an individual dance theatre language that is informed by
psycho-physical research, Asian shamanistic trance dance, Butoh, voice and visual design.
To date workshops, classes and a group of long-term artists in a laboratory for exploration
and investigation are run twice a week. We are looking at the forming of a performance work
primarily through a long process of laboratory work as oppose to an idea-initiated outcome.
Other research and activities
> REvisitations – REvisitations is about memory, hospitality and place. The project brings
together visual and performing artists working across media. A contemporary exhibition and
performances with Domenico de Clario, Anthony Pelchen, Elizabeth Presa & Tony Yap
17 February – 20 March 2011 at La Trobe University Visual Arts Centre, Bendigo.
> Metanoia Illuminations a spellbinding cross-cultural dance theatre performance with
Light installation and music artist Domenico de Clario on piano, performance artist Tony Yap &
dancer Brendan O’Connor. Banyule Arts Space, Ivanhoe, Victoria.
> In The Arts Island Festival The essence of this festival highlights the emergence of new
forms of expressions. The Festival envision an experience that crosses the boundaries between
observer and performers and both contributing and becoming the constructive part of the
festival. tyc is a major partner to the festival as a mentor and collaborator to the Festival Artistic
Director, Agung Gunawan. www.theartsislandfestival.com
> Little Con Pushing the experimental edges of things, on Saturday 6 August 6 –
Dancehouse, Carlton - Performers: Emma Bathgate, Brendan O’Connor, Tony Yap, Lucy
Farmer, Fiona Bryant, Peter Fraser, Kathleen Doyle, Alexandra Harrison, Jonathan Sinatra,
Gretel Taylor, Alice Cummins and a mystery guest or two. Review:
http://www.realtimearts.net/article/104/10408
> Lumiere Performed at the Opening Ceremony of the Penang Performing Art Centre,
Malaysia 3 November.
Sponsors & Partners
Tony Yap Company is an Emerging Key Organisation of the Australia Council
for the Arts. We thank all our partners and supporters in 2011.