The Body. The Mind. The Spirit.
A Story by Jade Ow
They rise from the ground, unnatural, twisted by unknown forces, writhing slowly. The only
human persona on stage is performed by lead dancer Maybelle Lek, who watches as the
movements of her fellow ensemble members gradually become more dissonant and chaotic,
the music rising and speeding up in tandem…
And suddenly, a strange and uneasy silence settles among the dancers.
MUGEN is filled with moments of emotional introspection, and it is those visual
representations of the human psychological state that makes it such a fascinating
experience. For director Xenres Kirishima, MUGEN is a statement on the discourse around
mental health in Singapore, as much as it is an insider’s perspective on the trials and
tribulations that an individual battling mental health issues must undergo. MUGEN portrays
this relationship between the individual and the environment beautifully, through the
boundaries of space and unseen forces.
The use of bodies in space to depict the individual and the environment is a central theme
across MUGEN. In one particularly chilling scene, lead dancer Maybelle Lek is surrounded
by the ensemble who swing their limbs uncontrollably, with said limbs dangling off their joints
like string puppets. She tries to stop them, going from dancer to dancer, but eventually she
herself is swept into a massive whirlwind and loses her own autonomy of movement. The
scene culminates in her being pulled downstage, as if she was in a trance, with the
ensemble groping at her body and eventually reaching to strangle her by the neck. Like
tendrils that pull and push the persona forward, they immobilize and manipulate the persona,
as if she were a lifeless marionette. One must wonder if this is a metaphor for how draining a
mental health condition can be.
I sat down with Maybelle Lek for a quick interview during the break to learn more about their
rehearsal process. “The direction I was given was to portray a goddess who must remain
unmoved by the suffering around me - like a Goddess of Mercy (Guanyin) who forces herself
to be apathetic, and to ignore the prayers of the mortal believers,” Maybelle recounted. A
professional dancer with an MA in Contemporary Dance from the Northern School of
Contemporary Dance, Maybelle navigates through the choreography of MUGEN with
practiced ease. In the end, where the lead dancer floats in stasis, carried by an imaginary
wave of darkness, the ensemble dancers regain their humanity and watch as she loses
consciousness in the abyss of mental isolation.
Weaving together portraits of vulnerability and resilience, MUGEN shines in the small
performance space of the ART:DIS Black Box as it transports the audience into a new
dimension where the unknowns of mental health is reimagined into physical experiences,
translated into a visual language through the near-universally understood medium of dance.
MUGEN neither cuts any corners with its storytelling, nor do they attempt to simplify the
complexities of explaining mental health to its audience. Rather, it invites its audience to
understand through various metaphors - a half-full glass and a half-empty glass, a person
being pushed, pulled and pummeled in all directions - and it wins its audience over by
stirring emotions that one would not even have thought of as real.
And after all, that is what MUGEN set out to accomplish: By legitimizing mental health,
MUGEN creates a safe space for dialogue, understanding and eventually, acceptance.