Dance practitioners and researchers Dr. Nidya Shanthini Manokara and Jocelyn Chng presented the findings of their research into motherhood, dance and text, in a devised performance, and an exhibition.

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Dance practitioners and researchers Dr. Nidya Shanthini Manokara and Jocelyn Chng investigate motherhood in its various manifestations – from creating life to producing creative work. Grounded in their dance practices of bharata natyam and ballet respectively, Shanthini and Jocelyn respond to themes of creation and creativity in the dramatic writings of playwrights Verena Tay, Ovidia Yu and Chong Tze Chien.

The presentation is in two parts: The first is an exhibition displaying the research materials that Shanthini and Jocelyn encountered during their investigations, which include texts, photos and food. The second part is a devised performance which draws on text, dance forms, and the two women’s personal experiences to playfully tease out the relationships between art and motherhood.

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Sunday,  19 March 2017
4pm @ Centre 42 Black Box

Admission price: Give-What-You-Can
(Cash only, at the door)

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Dr Nidya Shantihini Manokara
Dr Nidya Shanthini Manokara (PhD NUS) is a dance researcher-practitioner. Having completed her arangetram (solo inaugural performance) and Diploma in bharata natyam, Shanthini holds the title Natya Visharad from Singapore Indian Fine Arts Society. Informed by her classical training, her academic research interests include evolving Asian performance practices and their affective registers. Shanthini has taught a range of theatre, film and dance courses at NUS, NTU and Lasalle College of the Arts. She has completed a Dramaturgy Apprenticeship with Centre 42 and is currently the Resident Dramaturg with RAW Moves, a contemporary dance company. Shanthini is also an External Assessor for dance with National Arts Council.

Jocelyn Chng
Jocelyn holds a double Masters in Theatre Studies/Research. She is currently building her portfolio career as an educator and practitioner in dance and theatre, while pursuing an MA in Education (Dance Teaching). She is also a founding member of the Song and Dance (SoDa) Players – a registered musical theatre society. Her work with SoDa has included performing, stage and production management, and choreography. A lover of mountains, both literal and metaphorical, she hopes to one day fulfil her bucket list dream of reaching Everest. Well, at least the base camp.

An exhibition displaying the research materials that Shanthini and Jocelyn encountered during their investigations, which include texts, photos and food, was held in the Rehearsal Studio. Here are images from the exhibition:

Reading Material

#1: ABOUT THE LUNAR INTERVIEWS

#2: ABOUT PLAYING MOTHERS

Programme Handout

Dance practitioners and researchers Dr. Nidya Shanthini Manokara and Jocelyn Chng presented the findings of their research into motherhood, dance and text, in a devised performance, and an exhibition.

In the final instalment of The Vault series exploring play-text through dance, Dr. Nidya Shanthini Manokara and Jocelyn Chng explore motherhood in its various manifestations – from creating life to producing creative work. Their performance showcase and exhibition are a response to themes of creation and creativity in the dramatic writings of playwrights Verena Tay, Ovidia Yu and Chong Tze Chien.  Photo credit: Daniel Teo

Source: Centre 42 Facebook 

The Vault: Becoming Mother is the third and final presentation in a series dedicated to exploring dance and Singapore play-text. Grounded in their dance practices of bharata natyam and ballet respectively, Shanthini and Jocelyn respond to themes of creation and creativity in the dramatic writings of playwrights Verena Tay, Ovidia Yu and Chong Tze Chien.

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Playing Mothers is an exploration of the concept of motherhood. The play follows seven characters, both female and male, and all mothers in their own way. In a Straits Times article dated 10 Jan 1996, playwright Ovidia Yu said “anyone can mother a child regardless of gender.” Yu took four months to pen the 90-minute play, a commission by the Action Theatre Foundation of New Singapore Plays.

First Staging

Playing Mothers was staged by Action Theatre from 11 to 19 January 1996 at the Drama Centre (Fort Canning). The play was directed by Ekachai Uekrongtham and performed by Irene Lim, Deborah Png, Lee Phing Phing, Christine Chan, Benjamin Ng, Emma Yong and Robert C. MacDougall.

Responses

Straits Times reviewer Susan Tsang was not at all impressed by the production.

Ovidia Yu’s Playing Mothers, which deals with such an emotion-packed subject, is so listless.

[…]

Yu’s ear for dialogue generally is not as sharp as her eye for wit, and her plays often have trouble sustaining a sense of realism. This is usually compensated by her wit, but in Playing Mothers, the sense of character is almost non-existent.

The characters are sketchy at best, and lurch from being caricatures to delivering lectures about family.

Impressive set, but play about motherhood lacks real insight by Susan Tsang. In The Straits Times (15 Jan 1996).

Yu, however, was not fazed by the bad review.

Despite a disparaging review in this newspaper of her recent play, Playing Mothers, she says: “I started receiving mail from people who said they saw and enjoyed the show.

“Some of them were people I knew from reputation but never spoke to before. Much better response than a favourable review has ever got me!”

Two get recognition for dedication to stage work by Koh Boon Pin. In The Straits Times (28 Mar 1996).

The play even received praise over three years after its staging.

That production was Playing Mothers, by Ovidia Yu, which was put on by Action Theatre in early 1996.

It was a memorable experience. And who can forget the attractive and accomplished Christine Chan in her role as Lynn, one of the daughters? She was quite captivating.

So, imagine my surprise when I found that the play had received only tepid praise in a Life! review and had, in fact, come in for considerable flak.

Gosh, standards are high here, I thought. Because I would have given it a rave review.

Standing up to comedy by Ow Mei Mei. In The Straits Times (8 Sep 1999).

Additional Resources

• Playing Mothers can be found in the collection Ovidia Yu: Eight Plays published by Epigram Books. A browsing copy is available in the Book Den.
• The full text can also be found online at the National Online Repository of the Arts.

By Daniel Teo
Published on 12 April 2017

The Vault: Becoming Mother is the third and final presentation in a series dedicated to exploring dance and Singapore play-text. Grounded in their dance practices of bharata natyam and ballet respectively, Shanthini and Jocelyn respond to themes of creation and creativity in the dramatic writings of playwrights Verena Tay, Ovidia Yu and Chong Tze Chien. Find out more here.

The Lunar Interviews is a series of seven monologues in which moon goddesses Chang Er, Diana, and Hina – from Chinese, Roman, and Polynesian mythologies respectively – recount tales of both divine creation and mundane loneliness. The stories touch on themes of creativity, motherhood, and relationships.

First Staging

Singaporean playwright Verena Tay wrote The Lunar Interviews in October 2007 while she was attending the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa, USA. The play was staged the following year on 23 and 24 August as the last in a set of four plays about women by female playwrights called Blood Binds at W!ld Rice’s OCBC Singapore Theatre Festival. It was presented by Magdalena (Singapore) and The Substation, and starred Renee Chua, Elizabeth Gott, and Fanny Kee.

Responses

The Lunar Interviews was generally well received.

Reviewing for The Flying Inkpot, Ng Yi-Sheng commended the play’s poeticism, calling it “modulated, delicious and intense”.

I’m quite a fan of the last play of the set, however. Verena Tay’s The Lunar Interviews (3.5 out of 5) goes beyond its tired premise of presenting voices of various goddesses of the moon and instead becomes an extended poetic essay on the relationship between women and language. My favourite of the play’s seven segments has to be the first, where the three actresses describe the difficult process of textual creation using the dense, visceral imagery of childbirth. I’m also appreciative of the stories of everyday women who talk too much or too little, sandwiching the stories of the goddesses, cementing the lot into a modulated whole that transcended expectations.

Four Her by Ng Yi-Sheng. In The Flying Inkpot (Aug 2008), http://inkpotreviews.com/2008reviews/0821,bloo,ny.xml

Straits Times critic Tara Tan similarly enjoyed Tay’s text, but not so much the production.

Tay’s painstakingly chosen words in an abstract prose had lines such as ‘inseminated into my mind, ideas swim freely in the blood-rich milieu and compete to enter the seed of my imagination’.

The staging, with the three performers Renee Chua, Elizabeth Gott and Fanny Kee flapping and waving long, white shawls with words printed on them, did not help. The flurry of action detracted from the complex, poetic prose.

Family ties re-examined by Tara Tan. In The Straits Times (25 Aug 2008).

Additional Resources

• The Lunar Interviews can be found in the anthology In the Company of Heroes, published by Math Paper Press in 2011.
• The programme and brochure from Blood Binds can be viewed in The Repository.

By Daniel Teo
Published on 12 April 2017

The Vault: Becoming Mother is the third and final presentation in a series dedicated to exploring dance and Singapore play-text. Grounded in their dance practices of bharata natyam and ballet respectively, Shanthini and Jocelyn respond to themes of creation and creativity in the dramatic writings of playwrights Verena Tay, Ovidia Yu and Chong Tze Chien. Find out more here.

Dance practitioners and researchers Dr. Nidya Shanthini Manokara and Jocelyn Chng presented the findings of their research into motherhood, dance and text, in a devised performance, and an exhibition.

A 60-minute recording of the performance in the Black Box can be viewed below:

Here are images from the exhibition, held in the Rehearsal Studio: