RAW Moves Reimagines Presentation of Their Works Through Short Films2 min read

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Contemporary dance company RAW Moves has launched a digitalised performance of RawGround: Reference, featuring 12 short films released over twelve hours. The curated mini-marathon looks to nurture dialogue through enquiry and examination, and will be conducted by artists and non-practitioners investigating diverse subject matters.

It will feature original research, performances, and recordings by Akanksha Raja, Aneesha Shetty, Chok Si Xuan, Christoven Tan, Edward Tan, Lee En Jie, Matthew Goh, Melyn Chow, Stephanie Yoong, Timothy Tan and Titisa Jeamsakul (Ice).

The performances are available for streaming online on rawground.sg from now till 13 December, 11:59pm.

For many of us, our memories are one of the greatest treasures we possess. Be it collecting photographs, writing, creating art or engraving it deeply into our minds, we make certain that our memories and the emotions they carry always function as references to us.

References are the frameworks through which we develop several different facets of our lives – ourselves, others, the past and the present. It is through the dictates of our referential frameworks that we are able to make meaning of and participate in personal, cultural and national discourses.

Has our sentimentality surrendered us to an intangible industry where emotions are managed through digital captures from personal ‘Like’, ‘Visit’, ‘Share’, amongst other wants and needs? What value does our nostalgia for the past add to or take from our lives? Is it simply the act of reminiscing or is it also a potent tool to be wielded?

This vignette of 12 works touches on ‘Inclusivity’, ‘Empowerment’, and ‘Sensing’ – all of which interrogate various points of references including memory, heritage, culture, and technology. ‘Inclusivity’ seeks to understand the challenges faced by the underserved and minority groups in Singapore. Works on this theme are curated to performatively represent the challenges and needs of people of different cultural identities, classes, and abilities.

‘Empowerment’ seeks to understand our sense of self and what makes us, us. It questions the various means through which our characters and personalities come to be defined. Visiting topics covered include the inculcation of vigour, self-affirmations, and acceptance.

‘Sensing’ seeks to understand the different spaces we live in – technological, historical and the immediate space we inhabit, by dissecting them. In this examination, the senses we use in navigating these spatial landscapes are questioned, exercised and laid bare.