BUNNY by Daniel Kok and Luke George

“A knotty experiment with undetermined results”

Reviewer: Isaac Lim
Performance: 18 September 2015

I am at The Substation getting ready to watch an installation-performance by Luke George from Australia, and Daniel Kok (a.k.a. Diskodanny) from Singapore. I know it involves ropes. I know it will get naughty, as the description says it is an attempt at ‘queering’ rope play.

What I hadn’t known is that before the performance, I’d be ushered into a room to sign an indemnity form, and pledge myself to any audience participation. Now this is quite an experiment, with a buzz building outside the theatre door.

“Bunny” is a nickname given to the person being tied in rope bondage, and this show poses the question: What if everyone in the theatre is a Bunny?

Thought-provoking indeed.

The 90-minutes long performance attempts to weave various rope tying techniques with the physical interaction between the performers and the audience members. But more than half the time, nothing is quite happening.

The audience enters the space, and sees George tied up on the floor with little mobility, while Kok is suspended a meter off the ground. For fifteen minutes or so, at random intervals, George will request for an audience member to help spin Kok around. Thereafter, much time is spent, with the help of a crew, to untie Kok.

The entire show, save for a five minutes segment that had the two gyrating to club music, generally involves tying and untying audience members with a variety of neon-colored ropes. This includes tying a man facing down on a table, and than attaching to him a knotted-up vacuum machine and a Hello Kitty soft toy, before placing a CD-player on his back (which by the way, is all there is on stage, apart from a pail filled with ropes).

In the final segment of the performance, as George is busy tying up a female audience in Japanese bondage style, Kok busies himself with connecting audience members with the collection of ropes available, tying some ends to legs, wrists and even legs of chairs. When some sort of a web forms after four ropes are put to use, the performance comes to an end, leaving me with question marks in my head. Then everything is slowly loosened and untied.

The programme stated that the pair of artists have studied the various knot-tying techniques and crafts, such as macramé, Chinese knots and Japanese bondage. However, the entire performance-installation is dry and flat, even the homo-erotic, as hinted by the topless duo in skin-tight bottoms, was a non-starter. There is nary a connection between the performers and audience members.

The theme and devices of this performance have so much potential to challenge mindsets and sexual politics, among many other issues. In the end, it seems to have taken a safe route, and settles for being a bold experiment without any clear results.