Image credit: Lau Xuan Kai

There are times in life where we are forced to face who we are and who we want to be. These moments are so complex that making sense of them, sometimes, requires a different form of expression than words.

The arts are often used to explore emotions, gain self-confidence, deal with stress and grow self-awareness. Two recent events by NUS Centre For the Arts, in particular, promote this introspection. Dreamtalk (4-5 Sep) took the viewers on a journey to discover and embrace our inner worlds. Pantang (18 Sep & 2 Oct) is a retelling of Singaporean ghost stories, asking us to confront our fears of the unknown.

We sat down with the creators of Dreamtalk (Ranice Tay) and Pantang (Gavin Low) to explore these themes further.

Who do you think a dreamer is?

Tay: One of the questions structured into Dreamtalk is this: do we truly know who we are? In that vein, the Dreamer is a number of things, both in life and in the work. In a sense, it is the inner child within all of us, which we must continue to nurture as we grow up. At the same time, it is our ego – the part of ourselves that fantasizes, indulges in the illusions we have about the world and the self. As we move through life, we have a choice as to which ‘Dreamer’ we want to eventually become.

What do you believe is the source of our fears?

Low: I think, as human beings, fundamentally, we all fear the unknown and our mortality. We are constantly trying to explain the world, to find the “truth”, and to control the world around us. Because what we don’t know can kill us.

And Science has served us well. But there are limitations to Science. Science can only explain phenomena that are empirical, i.e. repeatable and measurable. Hence, Science cannot explain where we come from, and what happen to us when we die. We want to know what happened to our loved ones when they die. We want to know if there is an afterlife for our consciousness, and what awaits us. That is why people turn to religion and faith for answers.

But how do you prove the existence of God or the Devil? Lack of scientific proof does not mean lack of existence. And there, I believe, is the part of the source of the fear.

How did you capture the inner dialogue between the dreamer and her dreams in Dreamtalk? 

Tay: Dreams are elusive. Sometimes, they jump, they fly, they speak in riddles, or phrases, or ancestral tongues, or through forgotten memories. Sometimes they happen in a flurry of images. Dreamtalk hopes to make space for all these different characters to exist, and you may realise the piece, at first, bears a semblance of linearity (what we like to call ‘story or narrative’), before gradually becoming more eccentric, more unpredictable. It’s as if we are talking about dreams, and slowly, we become dreams ourselves. The inner dialogue happens through this process of embodiment.

Why is storytelling an effective way to address our fears?

Low: We love stories because we are hardwired to respond to stories. It’s essential to our survival as human beings. Back then (and even now), the world is a very dangerous place, and from these stories come the knowledge on navigating the world. We learn how to survive from stories of others who did not. Hence, stories are not just guilty pleasures, but also lessons embedded in them.

It’s not so much that storytelling addresses the fears of the supernatural. But we need and desire these stories because they are the unknown, and hence they are to be feared. So, ghost stories instinctively function as cautionary tales.

Participate in these events

Pantang will air on Zoom on 18 Sep and 2 Oct. To register, please visit: bit.ly/EMCC-Pantang

While Dreamtalk has ended, you can still join this map of dreams where participants share the dreams they have had around Singapore. Please click on “Add Marker” to add your dream!