jee chan reflects on their work harbor, which premiered in February 2023 at Tanzfabrik Berlin.
harbor begins with me sitting outside the performance space, burning pieces of yellow paper inscribed with two Chinese characters in calligraphy ink: 這里, which translates to "here."
I am burning these paper talismans as a way to invite my grandmother.
這里 are the last two words she wrote for me
when we practiced calligraphy together before she passed away in 2018.
With these words,
I’m telling her this is the place where I would like to meet her.
After burning the talismans, I walk into the theater. Inside, there is an overhead projector, a roll of transparency film, a large, round, two-sided mirror, and an altar with food offerings. I pick up the mirror and dance with it.
I see mirrors as portals.
An opening through which one can access other worlds and dimensions.
Dancing with the mirror is a way for me to find my grandmother,
as well as for the audience to look around the space through this portal.
As the once-distorted sound gradually becomes clearer, I set down the mirror and move to the projector. I pull a long film of transparency through the overhead projector, revealing an English and German translation of my conversation with my grandmother which is heard in Cantonese.
This conversation forms the core of the work.
My grandmother recounts how, as a young girl,
she was forced to flee her hometown of Guangzhou, in 1937
when the Japanese invaded at the outbreak of WWII.
She fled on a boat to Singapore and never saw her family again.
As the sound distorts and subsides, I walk to the altar. I recite a poem I wrote for my grandmother after she passed away. The poem is titled 雲, which translate to "cloud." In it, the cloud tells the reader not to be afraid or saddened if they no longer see it in the sky, because it has transformed into the rain, the snow, the water, a fruit, the soup they drink… After reading this poem, I put on a pair of my grandmother's earrings which rest on the altar.
To the soundscape of the conversation between my grandmother and I, interwoven with white noise, birds, traffic, and more, I invite my grandmother to dance me.
This moment of "being danced" is derived from practices of spirit communication.
How dance is practiced in ritual settings across various cultures in Singapore
and across Southeast Asia where I grew up.
The sound fades and my grandmother departs. I walk outdoors and frantically strike a small cymbal with a stick.
This work evokes the recurring cycles of violence and war that persist globally.
Speaking about this piece in the context of present-day Berlin, it is impossible to ignore
the German government’s support for war in the occupied territories of Palestine.
In many ways, I am glad that my grandmother passed away in 2018.
Within her lifetime, she witnessed and was exposed to countless different wars.
How much violence can one endure before deciding it’s enough?
How does one respond to the grotesque violence of invasion and occupation?
My words lost any power and yet they continued to pour out of me. I still had a voice, even if only a handful would listen.
— Alaa Abd El-Fatta / علاء عبد الفتاح
Published in May 2025. Initiated by Inky Lee.