Sonicbrat
(Singapore)

Performance with Lim Chin Huat, Lim Woan Wen

Biography
“Chance, conversation, Improvisation... ’sonicbrat’ is the ambisonic brainchild of Darren Ng. As a believer in poetic imperfection, most of his music are performed and recorded on the fly without multi-tracking.”
Darren is a Singapore-based sound artist and music composer whose electroacoustic sound-bites have established him as one of the most sought after sound designer and music composer/arranger in the local theatre and art scene, whose works have been compared to Erik Satie, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Martin Denny by international music reviewers from UK (WIRF: Ken Hollings), USA (Bluesbunny) and Hongkong (Hompy). Trained in classical piano, he has ventured into the digital realm of sampling, Musique Concrete, acousmatic music, digital and analogue synthesis; bringing a new sonic experience for his listeners.
He graduated from the National University of Singapore with a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre Studies and Philosophy. He has been active in the theatre and sound art scene for almost a decade. To date, he has had eight nominations in total for his works and had won the coveted award of Best Sound Designer at the 6th and 8th Straits Times Life! Theatre Awards 2006 and 2008 respectively; and had an Honourable Mention for Special Achievement, for Best Sound in the 5th Straits Times Life! Theatre Awards 2005.
Darren is the first sound artist to be commissioned by Asian Civilisation Museum (Empress Place) to sound design for the closure of Journey of Faith, Art & History from the Vatican Collections (2005). He was also commissioned to design a permanent sound art Installation for the new National Museum of Singapore (NMS) in 2006 - which is now a key feature exhibition in the living galleries for the next five years (food gallery). Subsequently, he is commissioned to design sound installations for NMS seasonal exhibitions. He has also performed with Singapore Symphony Orchestra (SSO) and Singapore Chinese Orchestra (SCO) as a synthesizer player and had sound designed for National Day Parade 2007.

Lim Chin Huat, ECNAD Artistic Co-director and Co-founder, he is Singapore 2000 Young Artist Award (dance) and Professional Artist Grant 1999 recipient.
As one of Singapore’s most prolific choreographers, Chin Huat’s choreographic works are highly visual, with a multi-disciplinary approach. He has involved collaboration with Singapore and overseas artists from USA, Canada, China, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Hong Kong and others. Up to dated, he has created more than 30 full-length choreographic works, include site-specific projects.
Arts festivals such as 35th Belgrade International Theatre Festival, Singapore Arts Festival 2002, New Zealand Festival of Asia (2001) and Asia Interaction, Indonesia (1999 & 2002) have selected his works. He also conceptualizes special events and is a designer for dance and theatre productions. Some of his corporate commissioned works include Mercedes-Benz Asia Fashion Award 2006, ArtWine Festival 2005, Ophthalmology Conference and Leonard Watch Launch.
Chin Huat was commissioned as a choreographer for Singapore National Parade 2007 & 2008. Besides working as a choreographer, he is designer for dance costume and staging, who is always conceptualizing for Singapore dance and theatre creations.

Lim Woan Wen
A nocturnal being with an acute interest in light and darkness, Woan Wen received the inaugural National Arts Council (Singapore) Arts Professional Scholarship in 2001 and was trained at The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. She started as a backstage volunteer a little more than a decade ago, during her varsity days at the National University of Singapore, before developing a passion for lighting design. To date, she has lit over 80 theatre, dance and cross-disciplinary projects and has earned herself a double nomination for Best Lighting Design at the 8th Life! Theatre Awards 2008 in Singapore. She bagged the title in both 2006 and 2008. Her work has brought her to places such as China, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Spain and Taiwan and she has been the associate lighting designer of local puppet theatre group The Finger Players since 2004.

top

About the performance "QUIESCE"
In search of a liminal space Sonicbrat (processed piano and sound art) + Lim Chin Huat (movement) + Lim Woan Wen (light)
A music and sound performance by sonicbrat (Darren Ng), supported by movement interpretation by dancer Lim Chin Huat and emotive ambient light show by lighting designer Lim Woan Wen. Three national award winning artists from Singapore get together to explore the ideology of “liminality” as they present to you their personal take on space, time and emptiness. A minimalist performance that fuses Asian aesthetics and philosophies with multi-disciplinary art forms, QUIESCE is a diegetic performance that questions the rift between personal and cultural dissociations.
Project Summary: "Liminality is a psychological, neurological, or metaphysical subjective, conscious state of being on the "threshold" of or between two different existential planes. Those who remain in a state between two other states may become permanently liminal."
QUIESCE is an exploration into “liminal spaces” through multi-disciplinary expressions. Expositing gaps, silences and spaces as thresholds between what is before and what comes after, immersing in the state of betwixt and between.
A quiet collaboration of sound/music, movement and light, three artists gather to explore the notion of space, silence, emptiness and inactivity; of displacements, juxtapositions and ambiguity… in search of a liminal space.
Length of performance: 60 min

Contact:
http://sonicbrat.wordpress.com

---------------------------------------------

Artists
Nannue Tipitier (Thailand), Kyoka (Japan/Germany), Daito Manabe (Japan), Stereotyp & Cee (Austria) feat. AraByrd (Malaysia), Sonicbrat (Singapur), 8gg (China), Heri Dono (Indonesia), Tri Minh & DJ Kruise (Vietnam), Elsa Okazaki (Japan/Austria), VJ Azz (Taiwan/Austria), Nuphlo (India/UK), Constanze Ruhm (Austria), Coconami feat. Ferdl Schuster (Japan/Germany), Klangküche (Austria), Pinie Wang (China/Austria), Belki (Russia), Albert Rivkin (Russia), DJ Kulisch (Austria), Ganzha (Kazakhstan), Park Modern (Russia), ANTIPHoDES (Russia), Elisabeth Penker (Austria), Susanne Rogenhofer (Austria), Tran Vu Van Anh (Vietnam), Eun Jung Yim (South Korea/Austria), Ami Han (South Korea/Austria)Hilery Tsui (Hong Kong/Austria), Jun Yang (China/Austria)and others