Open Stage

Open Stage returns in 2025 with two triple bills at the Esplanade Annexe Studio, alongside a special spotlight performance at ArtScience Museum. Featuring artists whose long standing relationships with the festival have shaped contemporary dance in Singapore, this edition reflects a continued commitment to artistic growth. Selected from various festival platforms over the years, these returning artists present works that deepen ongoing creative inquiry—where ideas evolve, practices expand, and past works are reimagined with fresh perspectives.

Programme A

(26 & 27 Jun 2025, Thu & Fri, 7.30pm)

Mothership by Pat Toh (Singapore) and Jenni Large (Australia)
Mothership is a collaborative piece exploring themes of resilience and adaptation. Mothership investigates the body’s capacity to respond to environmental and psychological challenges. Developed during a residency at Assembly 197 in Tasmania, Australia, and later presented at Dance Nucleus’ VECTOR#5 in Singapore, Pat and Jenni engage in fitness protocols that prepare for unforeseen challenges, offering a profound commentary on adaptability and survival.

Mothership was supported under the Dance Nucleus’ ARTEFACT Creation Residency in June 2025.

A time within time, 공존 by Adele Goh (Singapore) and Kwon Hyuk (South Korea)

This duet contemplates the fluidity of time and memory, reflecting on moments of stillness and flux within personal and collective histories. First presented as part of 2020's cont·act, A time within time, 공존 serves as a poignant reminder of the disorienting nature of the pandemic, capturing the distorted passage of time and the resilience required to endure it. The work invites audiences to reflect on what we’ve lived through and how those experiences continue to shape our perceptions of reality.

Miss Shape by Cheng I-han (Taiwan)

Lai Hung-chung first presented his work, Watcher, performed by his dancers Cheng I-han, Chien Shun-liao, and Chien Lin-yi, in 2017. Since then, he has started his own company, Hung Dance. Miss Shape is a solo work by the dance group’s rehearsal director and core performer Cheng I-han. The work delves into a deeply personal exploration of identity and resilience, framed through the lens of a woman's relationship with the concept of “shape,” reflecting on societal expectations the “right shape” and the “wrong shape”. Using popping techniques and moments of stillness, the choreography portrays the rhythmic pulse of life and the impact of external pressures.

Programme B

(28 Jun 2025, Sat, 3pm & 8.30pm)

Give What Gives You by Chiew Peishan (Singapore)

In Give What Gives You, Chiew Peishan explores the different notions of giving, delicately treading between giving and receiving. This redevelopment of a duet, which premiered in 2023 as part of a . part presented by Frontier Danceland, endeavours to give weight to the intention behind each act of giving. Peishan’s signature approach of blending autobiographical fiction and inventive representation invites audiences to reflect on the subtleties of this everyday act and the potential emotional complexities it entails. She will be performing this duet with former senior dance artist from T.H.E Dance Company, Ng Zu You.

Cercle by Olé Khamchanla (Laos/France)

Cercle is a solo by Olé Khamchanla that embodies the crossroads of the cultures with which the choreographer dialogues, borrowing from the West and the East, from the gestures of the street or from those of the classical arts. In Cercle, Olé pushes the limits of what his dance is today, to explore a new energy and a universality in gestures. The festival is thrilled for this work to materialise in Singapore now, after the initial plan to present the work at cont·act Contemporary Dance Festival 2020 was cancelled due to the pandemic.

Together, Yes? by Ross McCormack (New Zealand) and New Zealand Dance Company

Together, Yes? is a striking new duet by Ross McCormack, performed by Ross and dance/performance artist Olivia McGregor. Pulling focus on the intricate relationship between the curator and the artist—where power, influence, and negotiation collide, and shifting between the abstract, emotional, and political—Together, Yes? unravels the tension between production and commodity, questioning the transaction of responsibility between those who make and those who shape. Set within a strategic playing field, the work moves through a game of battle and outcome—where shifting pressures create rebounds, and meticulous organisation becomes an art form in itself. With Ross’ signature blend of precision, theatricality, and dynamic physicality, Together, Yes? offers a sharp and layered examination of the forces that shape contemporary art and performance.