Charemaine Seet

Charemaine Seet was a recipient of Critical Path’s 2020 Responsive Program Residency.

For her Responsive Residency, dancer and choreographer Charemaine Seet was to travel to Singapore to study the movement vocabulary of Teochew Opera for her project #6 Daughter. She was to learn xiaosheng and huadan movements from Teochew Opera practitioner Zenn Lim Soo Hiang of the Thau Yong Amateur Musical Association. The project is a deep exploration of the movement vocabulary of an art form Charemaine grew up with in Malaysia and Singapore.

With the travel restrictions in 2020, this project had to be postponed and modified. Charemaine began to work with Thau Yong Amateur Musical Association via Zoom. She plans to travel and continue to work on this project later in the year.

#6 Daughter became part of Anna Tregloan’s Impossible Project series. You can read more about the project and Charemaine`s interview here.

ARTIST BIOS

Charemaine Seet

Charemaine Seet is a dancer, choreographer and movement educator with a career spanning four continents. She is the Director of Seet Dance.

Now residing in Sydney, she continues her contemporary dance practice which explores a diversity of movement languages.

Zenn Lim Soo Hiang (Collaborator)

The President of Thau Yong Amateur Musical Association, Zenn Lim Soo Hiang joined Thau Yong in 1971. In her first year, the 19 year-old Zenn, played the role of a 90 year-old woman as the matriarch of the “Yang Generals”.

After learning from many teachers and accumulating 30 years of experience, she was invited by the Chinese Opera Institute to perform a gala concert in her name in 2002, featuring her in various styles  of sheng, from the scholarly to the warrior male roles. She has performed in many countries from Germany to Korea and China, and has acted in xiaosheng, wusheng, huadan and laodan roles.