11
2019
11 is an experimental performance piece involving 11 pairs of strangers sharing 11 scripts inside 11 confession booths. As 11 stories unfold between 11 sets of fictional characters, 11 relationships unravel ad infinitum. In 2019, 11 ran for a month at the Telok Ayer Arts Club on McCallum Street, Singapore. 11 is a project about holding time between two people, and finding one’s selves.
‘Do you think they can see us?.’
‘Nope. We don’t exist remember?
“With 11, Dawn pushes the envelope on her ability to craft narratives using text and her longstanding fascination with nostalgia, emotion and time – in this instance through the medium of a captivating, first-of-its-kind elaborate performance piece that she instigates using scripts. She masterfully incorporates audience participation and the bizarreness of speed dating in this performance-meets-social experiment, teasing out the tensions, idiosyncrasies and joys of being human in this day and age. One can expect to leave with a hotchpotch of emotional experiences and intrigue that may reveal a new way of seeing themselves – albeit through a stranger or ten.” Nookmag 2018
“That is physically impossible.
Pain is a reflex, like breathing or digestion.
We don’t choose to feel pain, or not feel pain.
We simply do.”
“That’s why you have to help me doctor.
You have to help me feel pain.
Before I seriously hurt myself.”
“The title “11” visually reflects what this social experiment is about — two individuals sharing a binding story or emotion for a brief moment, then moving on. The two lines in the numeral 11 mirror each other, yet stand as two parallel lines that never meet.”
– Dawn Ng, Talk to Strangers in the name of Art, Straits Times, 1 Jan 2019
You will be the first person to speak. Please begin.