re:site

CREATIVE PROCESS

re:site is an intimate and immersive audience experience, presented through inter-linking sound spaces. It is a sonic manifestation of spatial changes, and its impact both by and on mankind.

Moving through the performance space, you will see and hear how literary art and choral music bleed, blend and blossom into one another. A symbolism of how activities, intentional or accidental, set the motion for change. This is mirrored in the creative process behind re:site.

We began by inviting Prof Kong to pen a poem, which serves as the source text for re:site. We then worked with students from SMU Literati and SMU Chamber Choir as well as guest artists to write their own poems, in response to Prof Kong’s evocative text. Fragments of these student poems are set to music, and will be presented in different ways by the choir in the sound spaces.

REMEMBERED PLACES
By Prof Lily Kong
(Listen to the poem here)

Soft is the wind that gently brings
Those beloved places on melodious strings
Bygone echoes, an enchanted voice sings
Recalling places as affection springs

Remembered places in the crannies of my mind
Meditative moments rekindle ties that bind
Evoking a time when life was kind
In buoyant breeze bodies unwind

Children’s laughter gurgle from yesteryear
Place memories provoke a joyful tear
Gone but not forgotten, ever here
Tinkling melodic strains that cheer

Tales written into red-bricked walls
Human stories in architectural halls
Ever present, the haunting voice calls
Obliterated site or urban overhauls

City centre, civic life
Reminiscent fragments or heritage rife
Neither abstract nor still life
To save or to demolish a constant strife

A cityscape of design and infrastructure
A rhythmic body is etched architecture
An edifice of words that meanings structure
A multiplicitous city, a lasting indelible picture

Precious are our memories
Our places captured in documentaries
Forgetfulness finds new remedies
Precious are our memories

SOUND SPACES

garden of bells

Student poems:

I.
12pm, the shuffling of feet
echoes through the hallways,
their chatter fading into white noise,
as they fall in step to their next destination,
hustling in this bustling heart of the city.

12am, the shuffling of feet
scrapes across the concourse floor,
the different sounds in the count of eights clash
as their synchronizing steps create a rhythm,
fuelling a burning passion in their hearts.

II.
“Free me, free me”
voices echo
the wind seems to carry
the salt of sweat
the toil of a thousand men
that built this city from the ashes
brick by brick, tower by tower
embedded in stone forever forgotten
a footnote in history

III.
Lights are dimming, laptops shutting, papers rustling into files
Bags zipping up as yawns are heard as students trickle out
Beeps echoing as cards are tapped, with fulfilment or regret
Descending to T-junction, walking towards SOB,
My footsteps ring along the long underpass
Rising up, the path to City Hall littered with lights and cars
The obsidian skies are filled with stars and a hint
of the bright white moon hung behind blocks like bars
Grasshoppers chirp and the wind whispers dewy words
Now our days are done, yet I remember these

IV.
The sounds echo through everywhere, nook and cranny,
Even through the earthen tunnels, more sonorously.
That only sounds like one thing beneath...
It’s the sound of victory, despite being underneath...
The spirit of winning, both above and below ground.
The elation of joy was lost and found.
The thumping in my chest, the swelling feeling there.
It sets me on the path to greatness.
With fanfare, walking through the path everywhere, Climb a stair. Take the leap of faith.
Many more adventures await, only if one dares...

cathedral of light

Student poems:

I.
eight hundred and fifty bricks
lining the walls of the staircase
once part of the old national library
now etched in the walls of the new

bricks of memory, of the past
from nineteen-sixty to two thousand and four
the old national library
now part of this new school forever more

II.
Into the wide blue sky these glasshouse buildings soar,
ten million moving murmuring city lights blind,
the gentle breeze hiding this city’s lore.
Onwards always, tired feet drag on concrete floor,
an arduous present pulls the past from our minds.
Into the wide blue sky these glasshouse buildings soar.
Dream of no red-brick schoolhouses nor
hear the trishaws humming through traffic signs.
This torrential rain drowns the city’s lore.

III.
I sit at the empty void deck
Thinking about the times gone by
The damage on the wall I check
from many soccer balls let fly

Now the space has changed with time
The wall I used and thought as mine
I stare now at the plastered wall
Once damaged from the soccer ball

IV.
The burning brick bakes in the heat
Gritty gravel under my feet
This new skyscraper blooms in my eye
Oh tell me why
Why can’t we just turn back time

V.
Structures may speak
Memories might stay
Rubble and gravel, the sound of the drills loud and shrill
Now out with the old and in with the new

sanctuary of silence

Witness a performance in Singapore Sign Language by local Deaf poet, Lily Goh. Her poem is inspired by Prof Kong’s Remembered Places, as well as her personal memories of being shushed in the old National Library.

Creative Director

Poet

Choristers

Choristers and Contribution Writers

Additional Contributing Writers

Reciters

Presenters

Docents

Deaf Arts & Music Practitioner

Student Production Team

Back Row from Left to Right: Lavanya Arunkumar, Ong Yu Kai, Tajuddin Bin Muhammad Zahid, Jon Tiong Jun Wei
Front Row from Left to Right: Michelle Leong Hwee-Ling, Arul-Dass Abiya Immaculate, Amrutha Varshini Thyagaraj

Credits

Production Team

SMU Clubs