THE INCREDIBLE ADVENTURES OF BORDER CROSSERS by Ong Keng Sen, Kaffe Matthews, Chris Lee of Asylum, Brian Gothong Tan, Reckless Ericka, and Francis Ng

“Hypnotised!”

Reviewer: Beverly Yuen
Performance: 17 September 2015

The Incredible Adventures of Border Crossers tells the stories of “Singaporers”, who are defined by the director Ong Keng Sen as individuals who live in Singapore but are not citizens. Most of the performers are not professional actors and they originate from the USA, Asia and Europe. This 6-hour stylized performance installation brings us through the life passage of “Panorama”, “Feast”, “Travel”, Education”, “Work”, “Everyday Life”, “Wedding”, “Anthem”, “Theatre”, “Funeral” and “Spirituality” as experienced by the 20 real-life border crossers. Multimedia images designed by Brian Gothong Tan effectively demarcate the different segments, with repetitive patterns recurring between segments to allow space for reflection.

The performers, with their stylized movements and gestures, clothed in futuristic costumes designed by Reckless Ericka, create a world of surrealism and bring to the audience not just the “past” and “now” of the stories, but a view into the future too. The contradicting elements in the images, sounds and designs also heighten the sense of surrealism in the piece. For instance, the performers do a folk dance in their futuristic costumes; images of hectic life are juxtaposed with the close-up face of a lady who is deep in contemplation.

The simple and creative use of the space, designed by Chris Lee of Asylum, includes four screens, two huge cylinders and a walkway. One cylinder is translucent in which individual performers at times enter to deliver their folk songs or narratives. Another is an outside see-through cylinder which the audience enters and walks up a spiral staircase. People outside the cylinder can view the activities inside, but those inside cannot view the world outside. The audience members who are in the cylinder add to the “realness” of the installation. Lives of the border crossers and audience members are presented concurrently in the performance. As I am inside the cylinder and unable to look out, I only hear the music and sounds, which make me wonder about the “outside world”. I feel trapped. Immediately, I reflect — do the border crossers feel trapped and lost too, when they first stepped onto a foreign land?

Designed by Kaffe Matthews, the recurring and repetitive rhythm of the sounds which comprise screaming, cheering, laughing, machinery sounds, sounds from nature, as well as the fusion of folk and contemporary beats provide a sense of cyclic existence which hypnotises me. Repeated multimedia images and movements from performers further enhance this hypnotic effect, drawing me into a state of meditation.

Overall, it is a transcendental-like performance which brings the audience beyond the mundane realm into the subconscious and prehistoric realms in search of freedom and purification. The performance induces in me a feeling that I am going through a supra-mundane experience and embark on a journey of reflections and transformation within the hypnotic space.