©Jejak tabi Exchange 2018-2021
“Jejak-旅 Tabi Exchange: Wandering Asian DONE/COMPLETED/READY FOR UPLOAD Contemporary Performance” proposes the need to map, network and understand the dynamic of international presentation of the work by contemporary artists from or in Asia.It is meant to be an intimate platform for contemporary performing artists in Asia to share, exchange and explore critical ideas and practices in the framework of connecting two particular cities/contexts through a set of critical questions.
This exchange platform is also an effort to distribute contemporary performance knowledge and know-how within and across various modest-sized Asian cities. We aim to start building various performance stories, records and eventually historiographies of Asian contexts, identifying the interlinking as much as the disconnections of such nodes. The project was borne out of our urgent observations and responses to the current developments of contemporary performance in the Asian region.
The platform was founded by three curators/producers Akane Nakamura (Tokyo), Helly Minarti (Jakarta/Yogyakarta) and How Ngean Lim (Kuala Lumpur/Ballarat, Australia), with How Ngean resigned after completing the first edition in 2018. In 2020, Masashi Nomura (Nagano) joined the curatorial team, bringing Naha connection onto the table, the city he lived in for years until recently. For every chapter/city, we collaborate with certain organizations/collectives based in respected cities in curating the program.
Jejak-旅 Tabi Exchange is designed to travel across cities in Asia. The inaugural edition in 2018 paired Yogyakarta and Kuala Lumpur, setting off the lingering question of tradition vis-a-vis modernity in contemporary dance and theater; shedding the light on similarities and differences, shared histories and divergences between two contexts. For the 2020 edition, we intended to connect Roxas City (after detouring from Bacolod City, both in the Philippines) and Naha (Okinawa, Japan). Due to global pandemic, the Naha edition has adapted a virtual version (December 2020) whilst the desire to stage its live version in 2021, remains in the pipeline. The 2020 edition aims to connect Roxas City (part of Visayas archipelago) and Naha City (Okinawa) by reviewing the colonial past that informs today’s struggle and activism as articulated in different modes of theater and performance in the respective archipelagos. The process is still unfolding as this text is written in November 2020.
Jejak-旅 Tabi is a multi-disciplinary programme that re-introduces established Asian artists with international reputation alongside showcasing emerging ones.
It includes (and not limited to):
All these serve as tools to unpack the shared practice as well as any dis/connections within specific localities.
