A Double Bill Presentation By Mark Teh (Kuala Lumpur) And Yudai Kamisato (Tokyo/Kawasaki)
(1) Performance-makers Mark Teh (Malaysia) and Yudai Kamisato (Japan) will present their artistic journeys that are intimately intertwined with their personal research into identity at home and abroad. Teh’s interest in interpreting and imagining a nation in the making of Malaysia leads him to create performances that dwell in historical documents and the documentary format with what he calls “frictioning official texts with personal experiences/memories, parallel historical texts, and further research by performers”. Emphasising collaboration, Teh’s strategies of staging histories also mean working with other artists and researchers from different fields. In recent works, such as his The Complete Future of Malaysia series, Teh advocates generative, open-ended research processes “taking form in multiple chapters of installations, exhibition, participatory projects, performances, lectures, etc”.
(2)Through his travels, Kamisato has been fascinated by collective stories of communities in foregn lands that are then historicised. For Kamisato, he presents a lecture on his ideas of what it means to “report”. He suggests three concepts on reporting. The first is the duty of the “alien/stranger” in excavating the deep realities of the local community. In his own words: “the stranger is a stimulus that brings outside perspectives and is a place where locals can get rid of their stresses, and is a device that makes problems visible. I believe that the community needs strangers for keeping itself healthy”. Reporting for Kamisato is also about stories brought about by impressions and memories that cannot be precise. He sees this as “creative reporting”. Lastly, Kamisato brings us to the meaning of reporting that involves the “imagination of the other life,” how life would be in a place not of his belonging.
Artist Profile
Mark TehMark Teh is a researcher and performance maker based in Kuala Lumpur. His diverse, collaborative projects are particularly engaged with the issues of history, memory and the urban context, often taking on documentary and speculative forms. His practice is situated primarily in performance, but also operates via exhibitions, participatory projects, writing, curating, and education. Mark graduated with an MA in Art and Politics from Goldsmiths, University of London, and is a member of Five Arts Centre, a collective of interdisciplinary artists, producers and activists in Malaysia.Yudai KamisatoBorn in Peru in 1982, director and playwright Yudai Kamisato is the head of Okazaki Art Theatre. In 2006, he won the first prize in the TOGA Directors Competition for his staging of Desire Caught by the Tail, a script by Pablo Picasso, and won the prize for the Kishida Kunio Drama Award in 2018 with The Story of Descending the Long Slopes of Valparaíso. More recently, he has been creating works that derive from heightened interest in his own identity and reflect deep insights into problems confronting immigrants and workers, the relationship between the individual and national identity, and communication with contemporary others. He is currently based in Tokyo and Kawasaki.
Performance Schedule
18 July (Wed), 19:00-21:30