GALA

By now I cannot remember if when we began to walk around downtown Singapore it was already nighttime or if it was only close to it, but soon enough the Sun fell and we were moving through a cloudy metropolis with a foggy moon in the sky. Eventually we made our way to a place that I believe was called the Singapore river; beautiful display of lights reflected on the water. Somehow we began to twist and turn between bridges and grass patches. We saw a rehearsal for a children’s performance on the right, and then turned left and found a plaza where people seemed to be setting up for a big event. An art event, completely unrelated to what we were about to do and that we would not see because we were leaving the next evening. Behind the plaza stood the Victoria Theatre. On the left side there was an entrance and a small lobby, cramped with all the people about to watch the show. Somebody gave me a ticket, I lined up, and just like that I was inside. The stage was large, the theater was large; it had two balconies. Somehow we were lucky enough to sit really close to the front, and there we sat and waited in the pre-show noise that is always present before a play. Eventually a screen began to scroll down and most of the theater went silent.

The projector turned on and began to project images of theaters. Just empty theaters, in what was perhaps the strangest, most interesting moment of the play. The screen was large and images ranged from giant, 2000+ seat theaters with a large red curtain all the way to a bunch of chairs lined up in a patch of grass. The moment was not completely silent; some people in the audience kept talking and laughing, loudly enough for everyone to hear. And some people were hushing and swearing at them, the former loudly enough for us to hear, the latter whispered enough to be polite. The sequence of images felt eternal. It gave you time to think. What are they trying to say? “This is theater”? “You are now about to see a play”? “Whoops! We need a bit more time, so here’s a video to entertain you”? Whatever it was, most people in that performance will probably never be sure of the answer. But soon enough the projector was shut off, the screen came up and curtain pulled aside to reveal a deep, barren stage.

An Asian girl, with glasses and a ponytail, no older than 16, came and lay down on down-stage-right a sign that had the word “Ballet” written with marker on it. A classical music piece began to play and she went to the middle of the stage, made a turn that one would expect to see in ballet towards one side, made the same exact turn towards the other side, and then walked off stage through stage left. What followed was a series of people doing the same type of ballet turn, one by one, until the entire cast had done so. Some people were really good and could do three turns in one go; some could barely manage a single turn. The cast presented was also very varied: variations of all ages, from children bellow the age of 10 to middle-aged people; there was a fat drag queen, a black man, a woman on a wheelchair, an Indian girl, a ballet dancer guy, a girl in a figure-skating costume, a guy who seemingly had Down Syndrome, and whole lot of other people, all of them dressed in shiny, interesting, costumes that allowed for mobility. If I had to guess they were around 20. And if I had to guess, they were mostly Singapore nationals. In fact, I knew from before that these were supposedly mostly amateur performers, so I was not expecting anything too big. Watching everyone slowly do a ballet turn was tedious, but bearable. And the audience helped, because every time an interesting character came onstage they had some hearable reaction that added variety to the show.  Eventually they all began to come from behind and they would run and do a leap with their arms out, as one seemingly does in ballet, while running to the other corner of the stage through which they had originally walked in through. Then after everyone had done that, somebody finally stood behind the sign, and flipped the next sheet of paper onto it. And then it said “Waltz.”

What followed was basically the same plan of what had happened in “Ballet” but with various different themes. In “Waltz,” they came in by pairs and waltzed to a different piece of classical music - one that you’ve heard a hundred times in all those corny movies – and then left the stage for the next pair to come, until they had all gone.

Somebody else stood by the sign and flipped the page and now it said “Silent Improv.” Everyone came on stage at the same time and started doing stuff. It was weird. One man kept stomping the floor at a constant beat, and at one point the drag queen began to shout. It was weird, but interesting.

They all left and flipped the sign and now it said Michael Jackson, and, of course, Billie Jean started to play. Back to the “Ballet” format, each one moonwalked from one side to the stage to the opposite one. Some were great, some just walked backwards. The drag queen almost crashed into this lady. That was funny. The drag queen was really funny, he had her mouth open in a very goofy way all the time and had a butterfly make-up in her face.

After that they flipped the sign and it said “bow.” They each came and bowed. Each taking their own time. Somehow, it seemed that the people who were better at dancing were not that good at bowing. But somehow, everyone had a different bow. It was interesting, but honestly, tedious and long, because everyone bowed twice and some people just took their damn time. Still, quite interesting. And the audience clapped for every bow. Good job to the audience for keeping the energy up and the positive vibe.

After everyone bowed, a woman flipped to the next sheet and it said “Solo.” Some strange, music began to play and she began to do a strange dance to it. It was nothing magnificent or physically demanding, but slow and simply strange. The woman danced the whole song, and while we expected the next person to show up and go through all the cast doing their solos, the same woman came out again, flipped the page, and now the chart said “Company Company.” Suddenly the entire cast came out from stage-left, but their costumes were now a mess. One could see that their costumes had actually been interchanged with each other, and none of them were still wearing anything they had worn before (except probably their underwear). Suddenly the same music began to play and the woman stood at the front of the group and started to do the same dance, while everyone else followed, or rather, attempted to follow her movements from behind. It was fun to watch. The audience cheered after this, and each one of the performances that followed. The cheering grew more vigorous with every performance.

After that the order of the performances gets a bit messed up in the memory, but they were the following:

The ballet dancer was actually the second one, and his performance was absolutely amazing. One could truly see the professionalism, beyond the posture and the figure. Everyone else clumsily followed while the audience cheered and awed.

When the lady in the wheelchair came to the front the crowd immediately began to cheer. Then a really happy song that you could picture playing in a kid’s birthday party began to play and she danced really playfully and confidently. Everyone followed with their hands, and with their feet when she used wheels.

The black man danced while some ethnic South Asian music began to sound. The guy popped his eyes out, stuck his head out, and stood in a position which I would later realize is the same as the one Balinese dancers take when doing dances such as the Topeng dance. Once again everyone followed.

The drag queen did a solo, very flamboyant, to one of those nameless female pop-singer songs that give an air of “you go girl!” Just imagine a fat man dancing in the girliest way possible. It was a sight to behold, and the guy clearly was enjoying it.

One of the two little boys (the eldest, by appearance at least) danced to Uptown Funk. It was a bit of an odd dance, with more running around the stage than anything, but it seemed really fun, with all the cast coming out from under the curtain behind the stage and running from left to right.

One of the women in the cast came out with a tray with a bunch of those pink ribbons that you see in the gymnastic events of the Olympics. Half the cast grabbed one and the other half walked off stage. Then the woman took a blue ribbon and they all lay sitting gracefully (or at least she was) on the ground. The “Shut up and dance” began to sound and the light blue ribbon began a mesmerizing dance all over the stage, while a hilarious cacophony of pink ribbons tried to keep up at the back. She was amazing. The song ended, and the other half of the cast came out, took the ribbons, and they did the whole thing again. Nobody was complaining. Everyone was cheering. Amazing performance.

At one point, the guy with Down Syndrome stood at the front with a hand in his back, and the audience was cheering for him. A classical piece of music began to sing and everyone realized that it was in fact a European middle-aged man’s turn. The black guy patted Down Syndrome on the shoulder and the performance carried on. A hilarious “contemporary dance” performance ensued, that involved a lot of motion in the space.

Down Syndrome’s performance was right after that, and some cheery music with a Latino vibe began to play. I thought I could see in his eyes that he was about to cry, but he did a great job of keeping it together and delivering an excellent performance.

By the time the final performance came around the audience’s energy had crescendoed into a party of emotions. We were laughing, crying, clapping, and when the man stood at the front he began snapping his fingers and New York New York began to play everyone was happy. It was an amazing performance and they actually shut down the music and sang “Singapore Singapore” when it was supposed to be “New York New York” and then they all lined up and did the kicking typical to that song and then everyone was happy and then it ended and then everyone clapped and then the curtain came down and just like that, it was over.

The curtain went back up, they bowed, we clapped, and we got up, and left into the night, with Dionysian energy binding us to happiness.