If Jérôme Bel is a choreographer for the mind, then Paul Singh is a choreographer of the mind. To watch a Paul Singh dance is to have your brain go on a gentle, guided tour- a behind-the-scenes tour of the very dance he is presenting. Standing in front of you calmly speaking into a microphone, he becomes some sort of benevolent dance wizard, altering and guiding your thoughts with his bewitching gaze and seeming ESP.
Yet Singh isn’t going for hypnosis or illusion; a former Pre-Med student, his methods have more to do with neuroscience. But in the end, Singh is a dancemaker. (And a delightful one at that.) Science may be a point of departure for him, but what really propels his work is a passionate investigation of how one experiences a dance, both as a performer and audience member.
Lately Singh has been experimenting with recording his own voice, and using it to direct dancers or himself on stage. Speaking to you in his mellifluous, calm voice, he follows a stream-of-consciousness path that tickles the imagination, literally. Once he begins to speak, his calm mind games are already taking place. Then, he gives you certain tasks. You are to think of someone you know and to place that certain someone on stage next to Singh. As he dances, his recorded voice asks you to imagine that this person is dancing beside him in unison, in effect taking our attention (and the pressure of performing) away from Singh.
Now he is playing with memory, and how memory isn’t fixed but rather constructed and malleable. Our memory of this person is both influencing and being affected by the dance he or she is doing with Singh. This elicits a variety of responses from each audience member; perhaps envisioning this person is emotional, or amusing. Ultimately each spectator has a unique experience, which, Singh points out, is the case in any performance. He doesn’t want to be the only one having a meaningful experience, hence the name of the work, Privy.
Essentially, Paul Singh is interested in semiotics. In this interactive performance, he wants us to create our own meaning, as well as see (think?) before our eyes how that meaning is constructed. He understands that communication goes far beyond words, and most importantly, that it is a group effort. A strip of yellow or blue paper (pictured in the image above) was taped to the underside of each seat, and in order to understand the missing gaps, we had to read them aloud, together.
Privy, a work in progress presented at DNA’s 2009 “In the Company of Men“, was only about ten minutes long. Yet in that fascinating ten minutes, he manages to embrace your attention (not grab it) and lead it in a gentle, delightful dance.
