Fighting the Evil with Evils

Coalition amongst several Asian festivals has recently enhanced the circulation of trendy European contemporary dance companies in the East. The most prolific auteur amongst the chic Belgian set distributed across Asia to date, Wim Vandekeybus had scored cookie points with his Singapore Arts Festival debut in 2001, and so returned this year to a tune of 75,000 Euro co-production spike, including a two-week residency.
In the premiere of “Puur,” he surprised no one by simply reiterating his hallmark: a dancing body of surplus temerity.

A brand coined 20 years ago, over-pirated by wannabes, and little-renovated by the doyen himself. Granted, his eye on human darkness remains admirably thick, if ever-murky.
The issue on stage was terror and genocide, inspired by parables about infanticide, danced by a 13 multi-national cast, delineated through speech narrative and short film. Bamboo poles in white and black demarcated security zones and battlefields. Pillows, ropes and pebbles were tools to enact killing and symbols of faith. Structurally cross-media, “Puur“ typified Vandekeybus‘ grafting of consciousness and texture. The braiding was slippery and non-chronological, occasionally stilted, ...