Incarnation of The Beast

Every tragedy begins with conflict until you start suffering, torturing and feeling hurt.

A big thank you to TheatreWorks for bringing us the production of Incarnation of The Beast produced by Joavien Ng, who has finally return to the performing scene after 3 years of absence and getting 9 individuals from different social backgrounds to come together to perform this moving piece.

Joavien Ng

The show begins with a silent atmosphere, with each of the 9 performers posing in different gestures of a perfect sculpture, walking from one corner to the other, just like a catwalk show. The atmosphere was very peaceful until the performers started to gather in pairs or groups, where conflict and violent was involved.

Everyone began with different movement, speed, action and direction. Slowly the mass form as they roll along the pathway until the grotesque took over, where each of the performers used physical means to push and support each other till their limits.

When it came to the finale, each of the performers repeated their specific action until the lights were on and door was open. The audience begin to feel awkward among themselves as they were in doubt on whether to leave the venue or not. The performance reached its ending when the last of the audience left the performing space.

It was a really moving piece that presented all sorts of feelings. I would like to give praise to the performers, who have put in so much effort. It was not easy for the performers to perform the story that they wanted to tell through body movement as they all were not expertise in this area and only had 2 months to come up with a piece. 

A moving piece like Incarnation of The Beast that is presented only through the use of body movement without any other visual elements, is certainly challenging for the audience to focus on the physical movements used to reveal emotions from each performer. Personally I felt the suffering and pain portrayed in the performance, especially when the performance was about to come to the end because the performers are doing an action repetitively, which can be both physically and mentally exhausting for them. One example can be seen is that when they are sweating profusely and feeling very breathless while performing the piece.

I believe this performance has allowed the audience to understand further in depth about the concept of tragedy which will touch your heart deeply, while feeling the sense of awkwardness when facing such tragedy.

The is a draft of my reflection for this show. The final edition has posted on TheatreWork's Ambassadors’ Blog (https://tworksambassadors.wordpress.com/2015/10/28/thoughts-on-incarnation-of-the-beast). I would like to personally thanks to Tan Guan Lin for the words editing. TheatreWorks' Brendan Tan and Michelle Kee for giving the opportunity to helping out and watching the show.

All photos posted here are taken from https://incarnation2015.wordpress.com/gallery. For more information about the show, please visit https://incarnation2015.wordpress.com.