"Openings" 

The Alliance Francaise of Singapore welcomes you to an interdisciplinary performance, "Openings" creates a vibrant dialogue between East and West—particularly between France and China—through a shared artistic language.

At the heart of the project lies a series of linocut prints. Inspired by their lines, textures and gestures, the artists will lead audiences through four distinct stages, unfolding as a powerful narrative journey: oppression, resistance, transformation, and rebirth. Each stage will be brought to life through a selection of engravings, allowing the visual world of the prints to resonate across movement, sound and calligraphy.

Throughout the performance, a calligrapher will engage deeply with the forms and gestures found within the linocuts, translating their essence into Chinese calligraphy. Abstract, symbolic and poetic, this live reinterpretation does not seek to illustrate the original works, but to transform them into a new and deeply personal expressive language.

A traditional Chinese dancer and a contemporary dancer will share the stage, creating striking contrasts and unexpected resonances between their distinct movement vocabularies. Their performances will be accompanied by music performed live, alternating between traditional repertoire and fully improvised passages that connect the different chapters of the piece.

Openings is conceived as a space of encounter between cultures, artistic disciplines, inherited traditions and contemporary creation. Through the meeting of engraving, dance, music and calligraphy, each element influences and transforms the others, inviting audiences to experience an ever-evolving journey from oppression to rebirth.

Ryan Lim 

Ryan Lim is an undergraduate at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, National University of Singapore, pursuing a Bachelor of Music in Music, Collaboration and Production.

An active performer in Singapore's Chinese music scene, Ryan served as Concertmaster of the Singapore National Youth Chinese Orchestra (SNYCO). He joined The TENG Ensemble as an erhu player in 2021 and was awarded the Mapletree–TENG Academy Scholarship in 2019 and 2021 in recognition of his musical excellence and potential.

Beyond performance, Ryan is an active arranger and collaborator, creating works for mixed ensembles that bring together Chinese and Western instruments, with a particular focus on the erhu. 

Tan Chee Lay 

Associate Professor Tan Chee Lay received his PhD in Oriental Studies from Cambridge University. A recipient of the Young Artist Award, Singapore Youth Award (Culture and the Arts) and numerous literary awards such as the Singapore literature prize, he is currently Assoc Dean at Graduate Studies and Professional Learning, NIE, NTU.

A founding member of the multilingual Poetry Festival Singapore and the Singapore Student Bilingual Literary Award, he is a prolific writer of various genres and has published almost 40 books of academic writing, poetry, children’s picture books, short stories, and prose.