FIGHT! PALAST
My first shoot of 2017 was documenting the M1 Fringe Festival 2017: Fight! Palast #MembersOnly by Peng! Palast.
As with the entire theme of the festival of Art and Skin, the work explores the struggles of the working artists; telling us stories of issues each character was dealing with (think artist) before coming back to their monologue, culminating to a spar on stage.
Besides the play where the performers were punching each other, it was a lot of fun to witness members of the audience destroying an IKEA shelf they painstaking built as the performance was going on. It puts into perspective how easy it is to tear something down despite spending ages building it up. I also enjoyed the simple yet effective lighting design and how they used a laser beam to form a ring on stage for sparing.
As this was a highly interactive play, there was a workshop/ audience interaction segment at the end where the audience makes a potato salad with the performer – yummy! #SoSingaporean. Others could choose to either make a plastered fist of their hand or pick up a bit of kickboxing if they so desire. Yes, it was somewhat overwhelming!
Overall, I had a lot of fun shooting and being part of the festival as the play, in particular, made me think about my struggles as an artist. Yet, I have the best of both worlds as I can comprehend what it means to be an artist from the perspective of an art manager!
Bonus points as my images were published in the newspaper and on blogs; it was an excellent start to the year!
Okay. Okay. Okay okay okay.
Categories: Photo Essay, Leica, Singapore, Work