the centre trembles by XUE

XUE's performance-making practice is invested in the development of experimental and transdisciplinary methodologies, rooted in the belief that art is a boundlessly creative and productive force that generates new forms, concepts, and possibilities. In their work, the body-in-motion is the main instigator, operating as an imaging device, carrying shifting sets of relations and affects that imprint themselves onto participatory bodies. The body also functions as an analogical archetype for translating political, conceptual and emotional themes. Their nomadic figures deterritorialise reality across space and time into captivating visual and metaphysical intersections, encouraging phenomenological discoveries and interpretations. Through the design of unique performative situations that play off the relational dynamics of all interlocutors involved, XUE hopes to provoke revelatory experiences that endure in the collective consciousness.

XUE co-runs and founded Endless Return, an experimental rave series and music label which was awarded a T:>Works Per°Form Open Academy Fellowship in 2024. XUE forms one half of the artistic and curatorial duo RAGA with painter Pallavi, organising arts events in Singapore. A dedicated butoh practitioner, XUE is the founder and facilitator of the Singapore Butoh Collective and is currently studying butoh under the guidance of Vangeline (NYC, Vangeline Theater/New York Butoh Institute) and Emiko Agatsuma (JP, AGAXART). 

As a Butoh dancer, XUE has been featured in The Online New York Butoh Institute Festival (2020) and The Online Queer Butoh Festival (2021). In 2022, they performed their work Shadowbloom live in New York City at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn with musical collaborator Mervin Wong, presented by Vangeline Theater/New York Butoh Institute. In 2021, XUE presented their research on their durational performance work SLEEPWALKERS at Dance Nucleus’s Scope #11. Their improvisational butoh piece Tsujikaze was staged at SAINOUSPACE in 2023, under The Sainou Space Stage program. They have performed twice in Indonesia as a featured artist in Solo Butoh #3 (Surakarta) and at ARTJOG STAGE (Yogyakarta) with Gamelan group Saron Groove, at the invitation of gamelan artist Ari Wulu. XUE is currently studying butoh under the guidance of Vangeline (NYC, Vangeline Theater/New York Butoh Institute) and Emiko Agatsuma (JP, AGAXART).

Years of forging his intention allow his process to be bright with speed. In service of resonance, every grain is burnished to the bone. A canoe made of ice. His sounds return to matter. Where footsteps span lightyears. Waves seethe and where the cosmos can glide through an albatross.

Mervin Wong is an artist that is deeply dedicated to the shared experience of sound. His compositions and performances escape the confines of genre to paint deeply immersive sonic narratives. Mervin Wong is also the co-runner of the Singaporean experimental rave collective and music label Endless Return with XUE and their long-time collaborator.