Daniel Kok
But one artist, resolute in his beliefs in the constitution of Europe, wishes to marshal the community towards a sense of unity. Who better to play the Cheerleader of Europe than the neutral Asian? Hailing from the economic miracle city-state of Singapore, he is Left and Right, East and West, In and Out and shake it all about. The performance
promises a utopic finale, complete with confetti.
Everyone must be happy in the end.
Choreography / Performance : Daniel Kok
Dramaturgy : Jorge Gonçalves
Text : Daniel Kok, Sergiu Matis
Producer: Tang Fukuen
Supported by: APASS, Nadine, WorkspaceBrussels,
PACT Zollverein Essen
Special Thanks to: Peter Stamer, Pierre Rubio
Abstract for Cheerleader of Europe
Cheerleader of Europe is a solo project through which I pin down my position as an independent Asian artist in Europe and develop a methodology of brokering a dialogic relationship with the European milieu I now call home.
I see the artist/performer as an agent of conflicting ideologies, putting various positions into play alongside or against each other, in order to mirror the audience as a pluralist community. I have been looking for ways to collect qualitative data, map out inter-subjective relations, facilitate collaborative discussions, as well as instigate ways of seeing that require multiple perspectives at the same time. In such a model, the solo artist/performer needs to see himself as an agonistic Self (Mouffe), that is a figure of pluralism, in order to foster a radical democracy in the theatre. To achieve this, the artist as well as the audience must be acutely aware of the systemic control and manipulation at work when the crowd is brought together by a shared desire to belong and coalesce as a community.
Thanks to a series of conversations with artists, festival programmers and other cultural workers since my move to Berlin and Brussels, I am by now fully aware of the impact of the Eurozone crisis on the creation, production, distribution and circulation of the performing arts in Europe. (What an inopportune time for an Asian Artist to relocate to Europe! A little ironic too!) In a time when arts festivals and organisations experience dramatic funding cuts and take to co-productions as a coping measure, artists and audience alike have to rethink the idea of cooperation and their overall modus operandi.
Nevertheless, it must be said that Cheerleader of Europe is not just an emancipatory project. I do look upon the utopic notions of the work with skepticism. This charming, seductive cheerleader that I envisage is also a figure of power, a benevolent but manipulative dictator; a not-so distant relative of the neo-liberal capitalist who sells freedom as a feel-good notion and grants limited choice so that in the end, it is he who benefits the most and laughs his way to the bank. How do I resolve this duplicitous character? How do I work for all of us sincerely, devotedly while at the same time sell us out? Who better to play this role than a Singaporean?
Interview with Elke Van Campenhout
Interview with Rahel Leupin
Daniel Kok
The Cheerleader kickstarts my series of performance works on cheerleading. This is a short solo performance that was commissioned by the Esplanade Theatres By The Bay (Singapore) for its 10th anniversary celebrations in 2012. Singaporean choreographers were asked to make a short work that pays tribute to someone. I invited LOW Kee Hong, then former General Manager of the Singapore Biennale and Singapore Arts Festival, and former Deputy Director at Arts and Community at the National Arts Council of Singapore to play the cheerleader.
The text was co-written by Sergiu Matis (Berlin), Kee Hong and I. Here, Kee Hong pays tribute to the Singaporean public before he leaves Singapore permanently.
"KNNBCCB" is an abbreviation of a well-known profanity in the Singaporean Hokkien dialect. It means "F*** Your Mother's Smelly C***".
Choreography: Daniel KOK
Performer: LOW Kee Hong
Costume/Media Design: Dusan PEJCIC
Special Thanks: Sergiu MATIS
VIDEO OF THE CHEERLEADER (LOW KEE HONG)