I’m about to start the second term of my Solo Residency at Victoria University. It is a privilege for an artist to be accepted to a course which I see it a funding for in-kind resources and support – anything an artist needs to pondering on his/her practice such as peer artists and studio space – and eventually financial support as well.

The first term was grueling particularly the exercise to open up and temporarily let go our our habitual mode of creative process.  But during those three weeks, we were given free fully-equipped studio space, twice weekly, to be on our own, to do whatever we feel like, to explore whatever we’re curious about. Each time I go in to use the studio space, I plan a bit, but there’s always something unexpectedly happen – in a very positive sense. I love being on my own to embark on a creative process.

For this residency, I continue to explore meditation as/in performance and creative process. Continuing from my Noh study and my work with C.I.co.+CIFJ in Japan last year, I explore the moment of meditation with movement. In the past four weeks, it turned out to be the “movement of meditation” – I meditate to improvise. I suppose many improvisers sort of meditate with their improvisation.  But I improvise as I meditate. There’s no task set. I don’t think of “how” I would move. No projection of form as I improvise. Only thoughts, information, knowledge, act of pondering internally as stimuli for improvisation. A lot of times I have my eyes closed for 40 minutes to an hour and a half on end. Much of movement emerges from somewhere in my body that I have my synaptic connections available. Some new synapses connect in a wonderful way. Sometimes subtle, sometimes profound.

The movement is hard to explain, it was as if I only had a partial perception of movement, at times quite vague. I found it simpler to just sense the quality of my improvising body along with movement outcomes. At some stage, I will film my improvisation to see what it looks like. But then my movement would be an “output” for the other “eye” which is the camera lens. 

How can the improvisation process be recorded, relived and reflected upon? Something to grapple about...