What is a modernized society?

What does modernization mean for us?

Who are we?

 

There is a bottle with a letter and instructions inside. The instructions tell their readers to re-examine different senses of value from before and after Western modernization. Through experiments, the bottle’s recipients are invited to create a new piece of performing arts that allow them to survive the present.

 

This is a project that started as an extension of the “Archive Box” Project, originally conceived by Ong Keng Sen from Singapore together with the Saison Foundation. It developed and performed as Dance Marathon: OPEN WITH A PUNK SPIRIT! In 2015 Singapore International festival of arts directed by Ong Keng Sen. The “Archive Box” Project is based on the question of how dance artists may confront with the fact that their works are fundamentally ephemeral. Archive boxes were, then, created to be used by other artists, who might in turn be inspired to make new dance works from the boxes. The project was an attempt at transferring ephemeral pieces of dance into physical objects.

 

In this project, a Japanese dancer and choreographer Natsuko Tezuka converted her piece entitled “Anatomical Experiment-6” into an Archive Box. Then, Venuri Perera from Sri Lanka created a new performance based on this Archive Box which was the “bottle with the letter and instructions inside.” This exchange between Tezuka and Perera has now developed into the “Floating Bottle Project,” in which Yeong Ran Suh from Korea will receive the bottle and create new work.

 

The showing of 3 pieces by Natsuko Tezuka, Venuri Perera, and Yeong Ran Suh all together will mark the start of collaboration toward the creation of new dance work that examines modernization from multiple perspectives.