December 12, 2018

Kampong Bugis might not sound familiar to many Singaporeans, but it is a place filled with history waiting to be unravelled. Bitten: Return To Our Roots is a performance that takes 15 to 20 viewers around sites in the area of Kampong Bugis, opening up an opportunity for them to delve into the area’s past and leaving them contemplating its future. Sites visited include Kallang Riverside Park, the 130-year-old Sri Manmatha Karuneshvarar Temple, and former Kallang Gasworks.

The production was developed over two years by Dr Nidya Shanthini Manokara (NUS English Language and Literature) and theatre-maker Thong Pei Qin. The two main performers, Matsurah Oli and Seong Hui Xuan, play fictionalised versions of the production’s creators who slowly discover their commonalities across the performance. They find out that both their families have roots in Kampung Bugis, while they also have limited connections to the mother tongue of their ancestors.

The site-specific production allows it to break away from the confines of a theatre space, allowing it to explore issues beyond the simple search for identity in the tracing of both characters’ family histories. The choice of an outdoor performance interestingly depicts a colonial legacy of habitually confining performance to the theatre rather than utilising open, communal spaces Asian performances tend to occupy.

Read more about the production here.