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A group of movement artists translates forms of expression through unexpected mediums, reasserting that the desire for sincerity and passion is truly a path worth taking, as pieces from the Ermenegildo Zegna XXX Spring/Summer ‘22 collection — the Chore Jacket and Triple Stitch sneakers — reiterates that very mission.
Clockwise from top left to right: Noah, XUE, Kansh, Sonia, Josh.
Movement fatigue is one of the hallmarks of a life lived today. For most of us living in densely populated communities, the social atmosphere one is born in often determines various customary patterns in which we were taught to use our entire body as an instrument for speech. While it might go unnoticed, physical actions, taught from an early age, were enforced on us as postures of conduct that one had to manage and control to best convey different degrees of emotional action. These gestures, from the way our hands should move as we speak to the shoulder shrieks one would make as a reaction to bad news, are largely universal in society — as any indifference would immediately warrant deviancy to true physical communication.
In Singapore, a community of like-minded individuals have formed spaces to proliferate the sheer extent of physical expression using their bodies. Through a series of workshops, exhibitions, and performances — together with an exchange of disciplines — their experimental articulation challenges ways in which one can explore various notions of being. Sometimes lucid, aggressive, confrontational yet pure and slow, these varied physical forms are imagined as immaculate reproductions of internalised feelings that centre on breadth while peeling off the constraints associated with pre-ordained structures and polish in contemporary art.
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Xue, on the practice of movement:
“Movement is life, the purest expression of one’s being. One of the most common misconceptions about whether one can be a movement practitioner is that one must have a strong or perfect body. A lot of the time people will think you have to be athletic, or that you need to have a lot of dance training. That there is some gold standard of what is good or worthy of being seen. But I think everything about the body is sacred. So I think movement is just about cultivating a state of consciousness, of opening ourselves up to a fuller sense of being alive — our entire being is already in motion after all.”
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Kansh on how movement enables them to better express their identity:
“I was dancing hip-hop in school which exposed me to the dance scene. As I started exploring my own movements, I wanted to learn and unlearn the forms that I did with Hip-Hop, it was different from hitting just the beats and following a certain genre of style that is hard to deconstruct. I have always been drawn to more experimental elements and I was eager to do something that was genre-less and fluid, much less of the structured vocabulary I was used to. Not following a certain system or structure — I think that is the basis of my existence. To learn movement on top of other forms of identities, on top of who I am, just being Non-binary and brown, movement was an important way for me to break that. It was a breakthrough to be able to bend my identities in my own way.”
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Josh Suarez on the essence of the form:
“The way I see it is, music is aural, and the body is visual — and I’m targeting a specific sensory organ. We glorify a lot of music, but the body and its visual aspect can be a sensory experience alone itself. With how I practice, movement is a dance for life. I am a fashion designer. I use a lot of world-building in my work, so clothes seem to fade out into these worlds that I create. I am also a Butoh practitioner like XUE and we train together. It is, to me, peak expression and just as important because it is also about reclaiming the spaces in our own bodies. You would associate words to that idea of the nuanced — feminine if I held my pinkie up — but the form blurs that.”
Sonia Kwek on the beauty of movement as a universal language:
“People want to move — I think our bodies naturally desire that, our cells are already always moving. It is important to break away from the idea that there is only one way to move. And that’s what I think makes it exciting — that there are as many unique ways of expression as there are people. How we express movement and how we express our bodies can help to open up different ideas of beauty, ideas of embracing differences. Movement is not a competition. There is no right or wrong way to move. It is a space to discover who you are, who you want to be. That is why I am particularly drawn to practices like Butoh. It allows individuals to tap into our own body memory, images and sensations, of what touches our soul to find ways of how to move — it is very intimate and personal. At the same time, when you express it, it becomes shared, and might even move someone else.”
Noah Diggs on the flexibility and range of movement:
“What I normally do is much more arranged and composed as I am a composer. It is very cerebral and taxing — you do not get to move at all. And I am so bad at it. I am such a jittery person, so movement is always something that I have always done. I move around a lot, so the first professional movement was with XUE on this piece in 2020 with a bunch of other people, we did this performance for almost four hours long and there was formal no choreography or movement rehearsals, no steps you have to follow — and that was really great for me because I’m terrible at working with something rigid and fixed. Personally, it is kinda like a compulsion when I come into a space, what’s inside of me right now or what’s happening to me outside and then whatever happens just comes out of my body. It is almost like puking but every part of my body is puking — instead of just your mouth but your whole body. I can not really stop it.”
Photography Mun Kong
Creative Direction Izwan Abdullah
Styling & Reporting Manfred Lu
Grooming Sha Shamsi | Makeupartistinc. using Dior Beauty
Hair Fadli Rahman | Makeupartistinc. using KEUNE Haircosmetics
Photography Assistant Hizuan Zainal
Styling Assistant Lance Aeron
All Clothing & Accessories Ermenegildo Zegna XXX
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