Sypnosis

We are in a new era of performance making. An era of dissolution. Dissolution of genres. Dissolution of generational divides. Dissolution of “I” in creation. With that, we are emerging into an era of commencement. Commencing brave unknowns. Commencing democracy in creative dialogue. Commencing the “We” in creation.

In this August edition of Running with Strippers, we return to our home base. CAKE's home base in a northern suburb, a space where two years ago, at any given time, machines wurrrred putting together sets, and performers and artists were streaming in and out of our doors for rehearsals and exchanges.

When the world stopped, our remotely located home (zen at best) experienced an ultra-remoteness (lonesome at worse). There were less bodies, no sounds of machines, and days of empty deafening nothingness.

But we are rising, just as the world is rising and ETHEREAL MACHINES are blossoming like a wild garden on our premises. This is an edition of Running with Strippers born out of the wilderness, where we have to do something that reminds us and our band of merry troopers why we are who we are and why we keep doing what we do.

Running with Strippers 2021: Ethereal Machines bring together new collaborators and old, artists who have been making with CAKE from the day we laid our foundational stones and practitioners at the beginning of their professional creative trajectories.

Themed on technology and process, the ride begins on the weekend of 21 August with a 24 hr Computational Arts Workshop led by Brandon Tay, held in the spirit of a hackathon with democratic sharing and collaborative learning.

Diving into the weekend of 27 August, Pomp and (Performance) Codes is a durational performance designed by CULT and perfomed by Nora Samosir and Tan Guo Lian Sutton who will be immersed in a living garden as they dig into the roots of performance process.

Geometric structures of light define (W)AVE a physical interactive space, designed by Andy Lim, stev.e and Alina Ling where haptic technology enables audiences to experience light as a vibrating invisible body while enveloped in a sonic cloud.

A Muse. Amusement. A Museum by Rizman Putra and Mark Lim embeds microphones and speakers into the belly of a hand-made wooden pinball machine revealing a dynamic voice that echoes and responds in playful, ricocheting repartee between performer and ‘speaking’ mechanism.

Completing this series of experiments are Zul Mahmod and Shaherfi Sidin as they invite audiences to participate in So Distance a co-op multiplayer game, applying game technology to create the act of collective playing within actual physical proximity, becoming one with the installation in a complete meta-performative experience.

Running with Strippers 2021: Ethereal Machines builds on CAKE's ethos of poly-disciplinary performance experimentation to deepen individual artistic trajectories and forge new dimensions in progressive performance practice.