quidam and seperation

Here are my thoughts on two shows I caught recently: Quidam and Seperation 40. It is not a review or a summary, just some things that crossed my mind.

Circe du soleil's Quidam is an amalgamation of top cultural performances from around the world, repackaged in thematic costumes and performed against a terrific musical backdrop.

One performance that perfectly demonstrates this point was the ce3 ling2 (Chinese yo-yo) act. As a former practioner myself, I'm always interested to see what magic can be wrought from two sticks and a string, and Quidam's mix of tricks and acrobatic stunts was the best I had ever seen. I suspect this is more due to their showmanship than the actual difficulty of the sequence.

They also had two hilarious skits involving 'audience participation'. At the end of the show, I asserted that the participants were planted, while my friend disagreed. I then pointed out that the male performer was taking physical liberties with his 'volunteers' that would probably be a bit risky and offensive if they were not forewarned. To this she agreed - but I was amused to realise that her logic was "if her boyfriend was there, he would be offended", whereas I had thought the lady herself would be the affronted one. Maybe I have an overly conservative view of women in modern society.

Seperation 40 had a really good start and end, but the in-between was rather drawn-out and even painful at times. The first act was set in 200X with the Islamic Republic of Malaya celebrating its 50th Anniversary, while Singapore (now an independant country located in Suzhou Industrial Park) celebrated its 5th year of independance. In the Singapore celebration, the commentator declared, "... and now we will see a display of 120 colourful floats to symbolize 120 of our achievements in the last financial quarter ..." That really cracked me up, talk about hyperbole.

The rest of the show took place in various settings over the past 40 years, and largely fell under 3 different themes: "agree to disagree", "celebrate our differences" and various portrayals of "seperation personified". Of these, one particular sequence that stood out was the dialogue between a Malay mother and her son who was to be executed the next day. Half in English, half in Malay and crackling with emotion, it was very enjoyably piecing together all the meanings from the English bits and the body language.

Finally, the other really enjoyable part was the meet-the-cast section at the very end, where we had the chance to query the directors and actors on why things were and what the hell was going on. As one audience member succintly described, Seperation 40 was more humanistic than thought-provoking in any socio-political sense, leaving me mildly disappointed. After this weekend, they will be heading to KL to perform the exact same thing.