GOOSE #1 - Lim Lenzo - My Asura

In my childhood experience, I felt empowered when I experience anger. As the youngest child in the family, I felt that I had the least right for myself. Therefore, when I have a chance to show how intimidating I can be, I addicted to it. As I grew up, I realised that the addiction to this sin will cost me opportunities in life and along with it, the people that I care deeply for. The name Asura is from 六道轮回 (Six paths of reincarnation) in Buddhist mythology. Asura is a being like a dark god/fairy (similar to Lucifer the fallen angel).

Taking my anger as inspiration, there are moments where I felt akin to an Asura, perhaps I was even one in my past life. While the work I seek to create stems from the same root of mythology, it branches off vastly thereafter and is purely based on my own unique interpretation of my own Asura, hence the possessive pronoun in the title.

It is intriguing to me that in the Buddhist mythology, the path of being an Asura is considered as 'good'. However the traits that are contained within an Asura like anger and jealousy are in fact, sins, something that we're taught to avoid or manage in our own emotions.

During the process, I got reminded there was one time after being insulted by my brother. I stared at one spot in my home and visualised that spot burns. After many years, my house literally burned. I guess that's the butterfly effect… I only say “SORRY” for this incident during performing this solo piece. And that’s not the only thing that I say sorry for. I am apologising to everything including myself…passive-aggressively. I stomp my bed with my fists and shakes my head aggressively when throwing tantrums.

“Everything Bagel” from Everything Everywhere All at Once. Represents the emotional black hole that was created by me indulging negative emotions. Trapping myself inside the “Bagel”. However, I rationally want to escape from it, but the more I try to escape, the more it leads me to painful memories.

Rattan canes are our childhood memories too. At home and at school, the grown ups use them to punish us when we are not meeting their expectations in academic results, behaviour or etc. On the brighter side, we play with the rattan cane as if they are the weapon from video games or tv shows when our parents are not home. This inspired me to play as a god while holding rattan canes as a weapon to give judgement to myself or my Asura in the piece.
_______________________________________________________
Lenzo, originally from Penang, Malaysia, discovered his passion for dance at the age of 14 through Chinese Cultural Dance within the Phor Tay Ex-pupils Association, where he dedicated three years. In the year of 2009, he choreographed his first piece of Chinese Cultural Dance together with his fellow schoolmates. His dance journey then led him to explore Modern Dance, collaborating on choreography with members of the Phor Tay Private High School’s dance society. At 18, Lenzo formalized his training in Contemporary Dance under the tutelage of Aida Redza. Later, at 21, he further enriched his skills by immersing himself in Ballet at the myDance Station Ballet Academy. In April 2019, Lenzo proudly graduated from Singapore’s Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) with a Diploma in Dance. During mid-2019, an Overseas Immersion Programme led him to the Northern School of Contemporary Dance (UK), where he collaborated with fellow classmate Tan Xin Yen on a reflective duet piece titled "I Like the Difference Between Us" inspired by their three-week experience. Lenzo’s artistic endeavors have found expression in various showcases, including “You Are My Boy” featured in Sigma Dance Collective’s Kaleidoscope 2.0 event in December 2021, “Allelopathy” presented in Emergence by the Singapore Chinese Dance Theatre, and his solo creation “My Asura” highlighted in Kaleidoscope 3.0 in December 2022.
_______________________________________________________
GOOSE is an incubation platform via an open call that supports research process and performance-making. Personalised support is given to artists such as studio usage, mentorship circle, feedback with community and administrative support. Showings are intended to be monthly. Each artist will be allocated a 10-15min slot for his/her sharing and feedback collection. Miao Dance studio will be providing rehearsal space for each artist, up to 25 hours per artist, in the run up towards GOOSE, so long as the studio is not being utilized for other purposes.