Tell us about yourself.
“I’m Sonia Kwek and I’m turning 31 in September. I have and have had, various occupations in my life. Currently, I am freelancing/self-employed, and my roles can morph quite a bit based on what the project is. I usually work as a performer, artist, creative collaborator, life model, facilitator/educator, sometimes as a coordinator, producer, writer, editor. My work tends to intersect in the areas of art, creative industries and the non-profit/social sector.”
What was your experience and journey with dance like?
“I don’t have a background in dance! I have a background in drama and theatre. Then I became drawn towards physical theatre, where the emphasis was on physical movement and the use of the body as the mode of expression and communication. From physical theatre, I began looking towards dance, as I was captivated by the blend of athleticism and artistry it encompasses.
My experience with movement arts started late and rather tentatively. The very first time I think I took any kind of dance class was a few passing street jazz/girl style hip hop ones at Studio Wu when I was 13 or 14 years old. It was during the school holidays, and my friend asked me along with her.
Then, at 19, during my gap year, I went for some contemporary dance term classes at Ecnad (a now-defunct contemporary dance company). By then I started to be curious about dance since I wasn’t exposed to it. In my early 20s, when I went to study in Brisbane for three years at university, that was the first time I trained more regularly not in dance but in physical theatre forms (Suzuki Method of Actor Training, Viewpoints) and Butoh, taking weekly classes with Zen Zen Zo Physical Theatre. Between the ages of 25 and 27, I finally had regular consistent formal training when I left my full-time job to study at Intercultural Theatre Institute, a conservatory-style school.
It’s really interesting because in traditional theatre forms, dancing and acting weren’t necessarily seen as distinctly separate skill sets, it’s all part of becoming a performer who knows how to use your instrument (the body) best. This really helped me grow my understanding of movement expression. Amidst the reality of life (balancing time and money), I still try to make time to learn by taking different classes and workshops. I took up pole dancing in the last two years or so.
Currently, I am an associate artist with P7:1SMA, where I also have been lucky to undergo dance training with fellow amazing practitioners. If not, it’s jamming with friends, researching lots from YouTube and exploring on my own.
I started dancing to expand my movement vocabulary, to broaden my understanding of motion and flow, to increase my body awareness and ultimately open up more possibilities of expression. Looking back retrospectively, I think I also started dancing because I was trying to find a way to inhabit my body more fully, the one space I kind of had that was, is, truly my own.
As someone who overthinks a lot, I dance as a way to help me let loose and get out of my head, for my own sanity. Literally, sometimes moving is the one thing that is like ‘hey, you can go on.’”
Would this approach also mean that we can refer to you as a movement artist?
“Actually, I don’t quite identify myself as a movement artist or even as a dancer. I’m not very comfortable with these labels, to be honest.
I am not a specialist, which perhaps explains my rejection of labels or categories thrust upon me. I don’t want to disrespect the amount of craft and dedication of artists who do focus on specialising, like athletes who train for years and years. I think for certain people they feel empowered when they claim certain labels for themselves, but for others, it might feel limiting. This is also something that may shift and change over time.
I feel we should keep being curious about each other’s work and listen to how people want to be called! At this moment, I am slightly resistant to labels as I am still very new in my practice. Movement is one of my mediums that feel more familiar, but I don’t think I’ve made enough work or explored enough to feel comfortable being called a movement artist. My ‘work identity’ is constantly in flux, and maybe there’s also a little bit of imposter syndrome.
A conventional understanding is that a movement artist is someone who creates using the movement of the body as the main medium (a parallel is how painting, sculpture, glass might be the medium of a visual artist), while a dancer is someone who dances, and dance is typically known to be moving to a set sequence of movements (some of these movements might be intertwined with certain music or lineages of history or culture and be categorised into genres and styles). A movement artist would likely come up with the movements and use their own body to express it, while a dancer could either be dancing to someone else’s choreography or both create and dance their own choreography.
Of course, there are overlaps in what they do and this is a simplistic understanding. I feel both are underpinned with body movement as the main form of expression, a non-verbal language. I think the distinction between movement artist and dancer depends on who you ask and for what context.”
In your performance art and work, do you gravitate towards a particular dance form or cultural reference/inspiration?
“As I mentioned earlier, I am not a specialist. I do have certain sensibilities and gravitate towards certain ways of approaching movement. What tends to excite me is finding out why or how certain movements or gestures came to be, sometimes drawing connections across forms, and discovering more possibilities.
I am less interested in codified movement, technical precision and achieving aesthetic standards with the presentation of the body in performance – although I respect people who are doing that. I gravitate towards somatic approaches where the focus is more on drawing from within, your internal sensations and also through the body’s archive and memory, your own individuality and lived experience; to let the body speak.
The biggest influence on me is undoubtedly Butoh. It is often described as a type of dance theatre form, but in fact, its very nature resists definition. It can be hard to call it a form because it is not concerned with formalisation or codification. I feel it is a lot about being attentive to embracing what is already there, to open a type of space for a life force to emerge, to allow your body to be moved rather than just moving.
Tatsumi Hijikata, one of the founders of Butoh, had called it the ‘dance of darkness’ in the earlier years. I do feel that there is something there I identify with. It encourages you to draw from that within yourself, and also the environment, of things already running parallel underneath.
Another master I had learnt from Akaji Maro-san had also said butoh is like ‘empty gravity’. Indeed, I feel Butoh creates a lot of space for people to come in with their own memories and associations while having a dialogue in relation to nature, the primal and the elemental. I love how poetic Butoh is, and unapologetically strange.”
Movement artists seem to have gained visibility and more mainstream acceptance in recent years. What are your thoughts on this?
“Hmm, I definitely feel the rise of social media and this Internet age has given artists more access to visibility. That said, artists have always been experimenting with their forms and mediums, this is not new.
I think the difference is that now artists are able to control their narrative better in terms of what they want to put out there, and are able to communicate themselves to audiences more accurately the way they want. This may then give rise to better attracting and matching them to the audiences who can actually appreciate their work.
Perhaps another reason is that the world we live in is a lot more interconnected today. We are more used to things mixing and intermingling beyond the traditional forms, to seeing variety and variations, and this extends to perceptions of dance too.
As things gain more visibility, what I feel we have to be mindful about is how sometimes the way certain forms of dance or art are portrayed or categorised by bigger powers may cause certain associations to become attached to them, which may be untrue. For instance, how Asian traditional forms of dance are often seen as being less artistic in comparison to Western classical forms of dance.
There is also the stereotype of moving away from traditional to a certain type of eurocentric aesthetic or inclusion of technological medium equating to therefore being more ‘artistic’ or innovative. There is no one way to be artistic, I think it is important to consider what the artist is exploring, what the work calls for and its position in relation to society at large.
Also, gaining visibility and mainstream acceptance is not the marker of success. It’s easier said than done, we can get swept up about this because it can also get really disheartening when a lot of effort is put into the work and then it doesn’t go anywhere or reach anyone.
However, I personally feel certain things need space to grow, exist and thrive on their own outside of the mainstream. Personally to me, what’s more exciting and important is to create more spaces for such diversity to exist and truly thrive. Visibility and mainstream acceptance mean less to me than seeing a systemic change in tangible ways.”
