Under is both a new play as well as an exercise in discovering new ways of storytelling with minimal words. Written by theatre practitioner Lee Shyh Jih, Under will undergo six months of workshopping, from April to September 2017. The aim of this period is not to produce a stage-able work, but to explore and experiment with way of storytelling using as few spoken words as possible. Alongside his collaborator Elysa Wendi and a team of performers, the group will come together in workshop sessions to explore the many possibilities of delivering the texts of Under.

The first part of the development process is an actor-centric workshop for the exploration of the many ways a body can deliver the same texts.

The new script, Under, has been written with the objective of minimizing/optimizing spoken words used in a naturalistic narrative. The proposed workshop phase is for like-minded actors to come together and explore as many possibilities as they can/dare imagine, in delivering the texts of Under.

Structure: 12-16 hours of workshop sessions (at Centre 42) per month for each actor. There will also be a 5-10 min daily routine exercise required throughout the 6-month duration. Actors will need to document their daily exercise.

Exploration process: Facilitators will provide ideas for explorations and instructions for daily exercise. Actors are encouraged to initiate ideas for explorations. Actors are encouraged to decide for themselves what they plan to explore within the span of 6 months, using the texts of Under.

Under is currently a work under Centre 42’s Guest Room programme. Read more about the further development of Under here.

Programme Partner – Lee Shyh Jih
Shyh Jih has assumed the roles of various capacities such as actor, director, playwright and sound designer in more than 15 productions since his involvement in theatre from 1991. His most recent script, Afar, was first staged in 2012 as part of Esplanade Studio Season, and re-staged in Jun 2016 under The Finger Players’ Watch This Space programme.

As a volunteer and collaborator with Drama Box, Shyh Jih has helped facilitate the theatre company’s Blanc Space Playwright series – a new playwright incubation programme since 2009.

Collaborator – Elysa Wendi
Elysa is a Singaporean multi-disciplinary artist with the focus on choreographic matters.

In year 2008, Wendi ended her chapter of choreographic journey with Arts Fission Singapore as the assistant artistic director with 6 full-length dance works, 20 vignettes and collaborative dance pieces.

Wendi, whose body of work deals with the quiet tension, distortions and oppositions in the mundane things depicted in body movement and environmental space; continues her choreographic considerations with performative & cinematic presence since 2009. She started collaborating with different filmmakers to explore the possibility of dance in film until her first directorial commission by Singapore Arts Festival, Dance/Film in 2011. Since then, her dance films were invited to screen in Hong Kong, Macau, Guangzhou and Beijing under Jumping Frame Video Dance Festival 2011, Singapore Short Film Festival 2011, Romania Digital Art Festival and Pool-Dock-11 Berlin 2010, International Video Dance Festival of Burgundy and Turkey International Dance Film Festival 2012. Recently, Wendi received a dance film commission from Jumping Frame Video Dance Festival 2017 and 2 commissions of dance portraits (films) from West Kowloon Arts District Hong Kong.

In 2013, Wendi received a mentorship grant from National Arts Council Singapore to study with Chinese filmmaker Ying Liang (2013-2015) and co-founded Cinemovement, a platform to promote dance film laboratory together with film producer Jeremy Chua in 2015.

Elysa Wendi is now working between Hong Kong and Singapore.