Shamanism meets voguing in choreographer Choy Ka Fai’s fascinating, scintillatingly queer adaptation of Singaporean ritual dance. In this transcendental multimedia voguing dance party led by Norwegian-Thai dancer Sun Phitthaya Phaefuang, a.k.a. Aurora Sun Labeija, shifts between states of ecstasy, trance and drag.
Yishun Is Burning is part of the CosmicWander Series, an on-going project exploring shamanic dance culture in Asia. Inspired by the Singaporean phenomenon of reverencing deities in their struggle against evil, this UK premiere arrives thirty-plus years after the iconic documentary Paris Is Burning. Crossing and blurring boundaries of gender, race and religion, it is a liberating and celebratory attempt to manifest a supernatural dance experience and a bold signpost in the search for one’s own spirituality through movement.
It also features, not incidentally, the galvanising music of the Singaporean-Malay band NADA (Rizman Putra and Safuan Johari) and Chinese drummer Cheryl Ong.
