Kim-Sanh Chau’s 'Bleu Neon' - a solo performed entirely from a squat, a posture rooted in Asian tradition - will be presented at Straddle 2025 on April 10 at Five Arts Centre, GMBB in KL. Photo: Mile Zero Dance
Artistic connections – physical or virtual – nurture dialogue, spark creativity, and expand expression. They're vital for growth in both art and empathy. Yet despite growing opportunities, such connections are often fleeting, limited to brief festival encounters with little space for deeper exchange.
Five Arts Centre bridges this gap with Straddle 2025, a platform for meaningful exchange between artists in Kuala Lumpur and another city. The inaugural series runs April 8–11 at Five Arts Centre’s theatre space in GMBB, Kuala Lumpur.
“It’s similar to other platforms and initiatives that Five Arts has developed such as Tiga, Producers Workshop, MyArts Memory Project, ReformARTsi, and SE Asian Censorship Database, with its focus on expanding space for discussion about Malaysian arts and arts-making,” says June Tan, producer of Straddle 2025, and Five Art Centre member.
"Straddle 2025 provides a space for communication and exchange for the KL arts community with artists from other cities. These exchanges can be in the form of performances, lecture-performances, artist talks, improvisation sessions, and moderated discussions," she adds.
Taking the first step
Straddle 2025’s first iteration, an all-female line-up of dancers and choreographers, features two Malaysians and three Canadians from Montreal.
For Tan, the choice of Montreal as a partner city for Straddle 2025 was a natural outcome of artistic encounters.
“Being in the arts, I never really feel I have the power to initiate options for travel. Most of the time, opportunities crop up and we make the most of them,” she says.
The opportunity came in the form of an invitation to CINARS Biennale 2024, an international performing arts networking event in Montreal.
“I watched 11 shows in four days, which was amazing for me. Montreal had an understated diversity and I was impressed by the resources that went into the arts scene,” recalls Tan.
Tan watched Dana Michel’s Mike, a three-hour piece, and found something contemplative about it while wondering how KL audiences might engage with the work.
She was also drawn to Kim-Sanh Chau’s Bleu Neon for its exploration of South-East Asian identity in a Western city, and found Louise Michel Jackson’s Bright Worms a “sensory explosion.”
These moments of connection sparked a simple invite.
"I asked if they’d stop by KL to perform at Five Arts. I told them three things – we have no money, their show cannot be too complicated technically, and we can only pay with fried rice," says Tan.
Back in KL, the planning continued for Tan.
She had met with dancer January Low, who shared a video of her latest lecture performance titled Pending, presented after a residency programme in India.
“We talked about her being in her 30s, and what it meant for her to find ways to perform the Odissi. I felt this had common threads with Lee Ren Xin’s works like Seksyen 19, Anggota, and Re-Public which interrogate the societal and generational influences that shape so much of our emotional responses,” says Tan.
“I felt all these works had a sense of trying to unburden something,” says Tan.
“And I wondered if we could pull these impulses, feelings, and thoughts together – to bring them closer; to straddle them between cities.”
The unseen labour of dance
Among the five featured performers is Low, whose work is rooted in deep self-exploration. Having spent nearly three decades practicing Odissi, she has come to see identity as something that continuously evolves.
“The process of getting to know myself has helped me articulate my thoughts and questions surrounding Odissi. It has allowed me to observe this art form through my own experience and perspective,” says Low.
At the heart of Low's 'Pending' performance at Straddle 2025 on April 9 is a reflection on the unseen labour of sustaining art without traditional success. Photo: The Star/Low Lay Phon
For her, tradition is not a static entity – it thrives when viewed through fresh eyes, adapting and shifting with the practitioner’s lived experience.
“It has taken many years for me to recognise that the magic is found in all the work that isn’t seen, in showing up every day, in the kindness and respect that you show yourself when no one is looking.”
Low's practice was shaped by virtual mentorship with Guru Bijayini Satpathy, a renowned Odissi dancer and scholar, starting during the 2020 lockdown. What began as a reconnection with Odissi has evolved into a deeply embodied experience of art and life.
“Over these five years, I have discovered a thriving and flourishing practice. I have found deep appreciation and awareness in my body and agency in my practice. Through the physical act of practice, showing, creating time and space for myself, I have not only created space internally but I’ve learned to take up more space externally as well. It feels as if I have embodied practice where my art and domestic life is fully experienced," says Low.
At the heart of Pending is a reflection on the unseen labour of sustaining art without traditional success. Starting young, Low learned the stage can also fuel unrealistic ideas of artistic fulfilment.
“My intent is not so much to challenge but to offer a different entry point into Odissi to create better and accessibility and appreciation of the art form. I’d like for the audience to observe their own habitual gaze of the Indian classical dancer and create more opportunities for dialogue and discourse,” says Low.
Embodying diaspora
In Bleu Neon, Kim-Sanh steps into a world where memory, nostalgia, and imagination blur into one. The performance is a bodily journey, a choreography that does not merely recall but actively constructs a bridge between her ancestral land and her present self.
Central to the choreography is the squat – an unassuming yet powerful posture deeply embedded in the daily life across many Asian cultures. For the choreographer-dancer, this stance is more than just a physical position; it is a repository of memory and identity.
Louise Michel Jackson’s 'Bright Worms', a multidisciplinary performance, pays homage to bioluminescent creatures while imagining a future where humans can generate their own light. The work will be presented at Straddle 2025 at Five Arts Centre in GMBB, Kuala Lumpur on April 11. Photo: Nicolas Blaux
“First, even before I was aware of it, the squat was always a place of comfort, security, and pride for me. It was only later that I integrated it as an Asian reference. When I squat, I see life in Saigon. I see myself smoking with my uncle. I see people drinking their coffee, waiting, resting, or working.
"Then I began to realise the social and economic symbol of it. With Bleu Neon I want to show the strength, resilience, flexibility, and beauty of the squat. That’s how I see my people," says Kim-Sanh in an email interview.
Sound also plays a crucial role in shaping the emotional and thematic landscape of the piece. It is a sonic map of displacement and return, a fusion of past and present. Rap, in particular, takes on almost a spiritual role.
“I grew up in Nichiren Buddhism and chanted a lot in my life. I learned to chant firmly every day in Old Japanese. The rap I perform in Bleu Neon is in Vietnamese and because I do not speak the language, I had to memorise it. I had to create images and stories when I perform it, and I had to believe and have faith in it. So I rap just like I chant. That’s why I call it a prayer. It is a prayer to attain homeland.”
Through movement and sound, Bleu Neon navigates themes of loss of language, sexual objectification, and diasporic identity. The experience of being Asian in the West, of being spoken for or spoken over, is embedded in the dance itself.
There is no need for explicit statements; the body carries the weight of history.
Kim-Sanh’s piece is an intuitive response, an embodied interrogation of what it means to be seen and unseen, desired and displaced.
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