Astrid Sweeney Ontogenesis Dreams

A being in its seemingly natural habitat embarks on an existential metamorphosis. Disoriented and disassembled, it finds itself falling, sensing, mimicking the movements of plants, machines or insects; a post- or trans-human organism trying to piece together its existence in an ambiguous body.
Ontogenesis Dreams is a hybrid performance and installation by Astrid Tetsche Sweeney, with a scenography by Weixin Quek Chong that blurs boundaries between costume, prop and sculpture, between silicone, seaweed and skin. Developed over five years of collaboration through international residencies (in Singapore, Denmark, Norway, and Belgium), and inspired by the queer ecologies in Octavia E. Butler’s Xenogenesis trilogy, the final (current?) form of the piece challenges the struggle of transformation called for by global and personal crises. It depicts this inevitable and necessary process not only as difficult and tremulous, but poetic and regenerative.
https://www.instagram.com/ontogenesisdreams/
about
Weixin Quek Chong (she/they/他, b. 1988, Singapore) is an artist whose work is inspired by hybridity, metamorphosis and sensorial languages. They draw from communal behaviours, aesthetic and subcultural trends and movements as a way of peeling back layers of societal constructs and finding interconnections between beings, objects, histories and worlds. They have presented work, completed residencies and received awards in major cities across Asia, Europe and Latin-America – from Santiago (Chile) over Seoul (Korea) to London (UK), amongst others. Weixin lives and works in Madrid.
https://www.instagram.com/jadeite.bat/
Astrid Tetsche Sweeney (She/her, b. 1994 Copenhagen) is a Danish/Irish performer and choreographer interested in interrogating movement through stasis, stimulus and isolation of individual body parts. Her recent work questions and distorts the perspective we have on the femme body through investigating forms of motion that could be considered otherly or uncanny. She has worked on film, theatre, dance and other hybrid choreographic projects across the globe (with the Scottish Dance Theatre, in the short film Soft Rio, site-specific performance Weven, among others). Now based in Brussels, she freelances as a performer, outside eye and choreographer, having collaborated with artists like Iván Pérez, Tamsyn Russell, Luke Murphy, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, and Damien Jalet.
https://www.instagram.com/astridtsweeney/
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Created and directed by Astrid Tetsche Sweeney and Weixin Quek Chong
​Choreography & performance: Astrid Tetsche Sweeney
Scenography & sculpture: Weixin Quek Chong
Sound design: Moss Kissing
Lighting design: Ryoya Fudetani
Dramaturgy consultation: Yasen Vasilev
Custom latex wear: Studio FCLX
Video: Dror Shohet
Working process videography & photography: Julio Galeote Carrascosa, Jonas Vandekerckhove
Outside eye: Jonas Vandekerckhove, Francesco Ferrari, Shubigi Rao
Produced by Sheelin Projects
Co-produced by Dansehallerne, deSingel, Nordic Residency Exchange Program
Residencies: Esplanade Theatres on the Bay, deSingel, Holstebro Dansekompagni, KAAP, BIT Teatergarasjen, Bergen Kunsthall
With the support of: Statens Kunstfond, National Arts Council Singapore, Wilhelm Hansen Fonden, William Demant Fonden, Culture Moves Europe (Goethe Institut)
With special thanks to Eastman, Karthika Naïr and Dorte Grannov Balslev
image ©Jonas V