TERRA INCOGNITA by Pat Toh

“Digit Fidget”

Reviewer: Gabriel Lim
Performance: 14 January 2015

Zero is the number of steps you remember.

And as you make way to your destination, the walking does not usually preoccupy you.

Maybe that phone your thumb is swiping holds greater importance?

Terra Incognita attempts to delve deeper and make us ponder the meaning of walking and above all, rediscovering ourselves. In this personal piece, Pat Toh plays a woman who confronts the past; the memory of her aging bed-ridden grandfather and looking to connect that to her present state.

Random numbers (of steps taken) became a recurring device; these took the form of voice-recordings; and through the glowing T.V. box. These comprise no more than a reflective period: a time to create our own notion of what walking means to us.

Toh attributes her grandfather for putting the spark in her. And Toh did well in re-enacting, to see and feel through the steps of her grandfather. At times, their respective thoughts blend and resonate as one, and Toh would recite text from her grandfather’s memory. It would have been more powerful if she took us deeper into this journey and allow us to draw out the subtleties between the two.

The significance of the performance rolls out eventually: as she does her aerobic stretches, going through the rituals in preparing for this important task. In her repetitive walking, Toh mocks walking without a purpose (or in this case, an innate one), and the worry of our hastening pace.

Toh demonstrates the fragility of human and the fear of a diminishing purpose in life. She also confronts death, and ruminates on how her grandfather does not wish to die alone. I have to agree with her that people choose normalcy because it promises happiness. But how long can one sit comfortably? A predictable outcome sees Toh accepting the path of paradoxical solitude, and climaxes into a metaphysical revelation, but nonetheless played out well.

Terra Incognita has potential to be a provocative piece with its intriguing concept but it needs to get rid of its superficiality. So what is the big deal with walking? As Toh rolls out the white sheets of paper-made path, in wrapping things up, you have to thread on those uncharted boundaries and find out.