Joavien Ng

Background

Joavien Ng Bong Na (b. 1973, Singapore–¹) is a dance choreographer whose works have been presented and commissioned by various festivals and performances in Japan, Taipei, Hong Kong, Seoul, Canada and the United States.² Ng has helped pushed the local dance scene beyond mainstream forms towards a multidisciplinary stage. Through unorthodox dance creations, Ng blurs the boundaries between dance and other art forms such as theatre. Tapping into multimedia art and theatrical elements, she creates her own signature blend of dance theatre, embodying simplicity with injections of dark humour.³

Education and career
Although Ng had studied tourism management, she later realised that she did not want to work in the hotel industry. The self-professed late-bloomer started dancing only at the age of 22. Ng began her dance career as a choreographer and performer in 1997 upon graduation from the Lasalle College of the Arts.⁴ In 2003, she founded Crow Jane, a platform that promotes and facilitates collaborative contemporary works.⁵

Themes
According to Ng’s biography, she “examines the world from multiple perspectives through an experiential framework. Drawing on her own experiences of being simultaneously an Asian and a global citizen, she delves deep into human nature and the construction of one’s identity and its accompanying volatility”.⁶ In Body Swap, which was performed with American choreographer Dani Brown, in which the two exchanged identities, Ng raised the relevance of culture in identity.⁷ A subsequent piece that also explored identity is The Diary of Alice, which was made during Pointe de Point, the 6th Asia-Europe Dance Forum in Lisbon, Portugal. It was selected for further development with residencies in Alkantara (Lisbon) and Rimbun Dahan (Malaysia). Created in collaboration with Spanish choreographer Paloma Calle, Ng explored both real and fictitious meanings behind the name “Alice” in the work.⁸

Philosophy
Ng treats all body movements as a form of art, even if they do not fit neatly within a particular dance style. While she appreciates classical ballet, she finds it harder to innovate within the classical tradition. She is much more passionate for contemporary dance because it expresses how real bodies move, with its natural instincts and clumsiness.⁹ Ng analyses recordings of her personal movements in order to realign herself with basic, innate and raw movements that she has cast aside while learning various dance forms. Not to be restricted to dance and movement, Ng’s choreography takes on a theatrical twist, combining dance movements with props, design and multimedia elements. Her enthusiasm for authenticity and experimentation gave rise to multiple cross-disciplinary collaborations such as Dance Dance Dance (2008) with multimedia artist Choy Ka Fai and the V.I.S.T.A. (Visual Interactive Sound Text Architecture) Lab series (2008) with sound artist Zulkifle Mahmod, writer-performer Ng Yi-Sheng and set designer Torrance Goh, among many others.¹⁰

Significant works
One of Ng’s most acclaimed works to date, Lab was first performed as a solo piece in 2005 for dance company Ecnad’s 10th-anniversary festival called FireBall, and subsequently showcased in the inaugural show of TheatreWorks’ V.I.S.T.A. Lab series. Lab explored how people respond to instinctual movements, with dancers moving heavy wooden blocks and constructing traps out of peculiar objects such as lightbulbs. This interactive piece monitors the audience’s reactions, for instance, by asking the audience to form part of her tableau by freezing in a position.¹¹ Independent dramaturg and producer Tang Fu Kuen commended Ng’s efforts, naming Lab the best dance production in Singapore of 2008.¹²

Milestones and performances
2000: Co-founds Creative Tree, a dance company for young Singaporean children.¹³
2003: Founds Crow Jane, a cross-disciplinary platform for both solo and collaborative contemporary pieces.¹⁴
2004–2005: Her solo piece, Toilet, is chosen for the final presentation in Sparks, Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay’s Creative Development Programme promoting the creation of fresh art pieces.¹⁵
2005: First performance of Lab at Ecnad’s 10th-anniversary festival, FireBall; choreographs and performs Victoria in Taipei, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Seoul and Singapore for the Little Asia Dance Exchange Network, a regional solo dance performance project encouraging cultural exchanges between dancers.¹⁶
2006: Choreographs Dream for the 2nd Fort Worth Dance Festival in the United States and accepted into Creative, a TheatreWorks incubation scheme that provides logistics and financial assistance.¹⁷
2007: Participates in the Asia Contemporary Dance Conference as a choreographer, invited by the Japanese Centre of International Theatre Institute (Tokyo) and choreographs and performs in Dance Dance Dance for TheatreWorks.¹⁸
2008: Lab is performed again at the Esplanade as part of the studios season; Body Inquire is featured in Forward Moves, the Singapore Arts Festival’s stage focused on experimental and process-based works.¹⁹
2009: Body Swap, a collaboration with American choreographer Dani Brown, is performed at Kampnagel Festival (Hamburg, Germany) and the Singapore Arts Festival; creates The Diary of Alice for Pointe de Point, the 6th Asia-Europe Dance Forum (Lisbon, Portugal), organised by the Asia-Europe Foundation and Alkantara.²⁰
2011: Performed in The Diary of Alice for TheatreWorks.²¹



Author
Lee Xin Ying



References
1. “Biography,” accessed 12 October 2016.
2. “About Delegates,” Dance Massive, accessed 11 August 2016.  
3. “Incarnation of the Beast,” TheatreWorks, accessed 11 August 2016.
4. Cheah U-H., “Taking Contemporary Dance Forward,” Business Times, 6 June 2009, 14. (From NewspaperSG)
5. “Flying Circus Project 2009/2010,” TheatreWorks, accessed 11 August 2016.  6. ‘Biography.”
7. Cheah, “Taking Contemporary Dance Forward.” 
8. National Arts Council, Annual Report FY 2009–2010: The Bigger Picture (Singapore: National Arts Council, 2010), 31.
9. “Biography.”
10. A. Chia, “Light, Sound and Forgotten Events,” Straits Times, 13 September 2007, 56; Mayo Martin, “He's Got the Moves,” Today, 28 March 2008, 60 (From NewspaperSG); “Joavien Ng,” V.I.S.T.A Lab Artist Biographies,” (Blog), 1 March 2008, http://vistalabbers.blogspot.sg/2007/11/vista-lab-artist-biographies.html.
11. T. Tan, “Dancer Turns Lab Rat,” Straits Times, 4 September 2008, 57. (From NewspaperSG)
12. T. Tan, “Best Dance Production: Joavien Ng’s Lab,” Straits Times, 28 December 2008, 9. (From NewspaperSG)
13. “Our People,” Creative Tree, accessed 11 August 2016.  
14. Theatreworks, “Flying Circus Project 2009/2010.”
15. “Biography.”
16. Dance Massive, “About Delegates.”  
17. Hong Xinyi, “Creative Choices,” Straits Times, 9 March 2006, 7. (From NewspaperSG)
18. Martin, “He's Got the Moves.” 
19. T. Tan, “Shape Shifters,” Straits Times, 21 May 2008, 59. (From NewspaperSG)
20. Uma Shankari, “Young Shoreographers Make Strides,” Business Times, 1 May 2009, 26 (From NewspaperSG); National Arts Council, Annual Report FY 2009–2010.
21. “The Diary of Alice,” TheatreWorks, accessed 4 November 2016.  



The information in this article is valid as at 2011 and correct as far as we are able to ascertain from our sources. It is not intended to be an exhaustive or complete history of the subject. Please contact the Library for further reading materials on the topic.