Devised by Singapore dance company The Human Expression (T.H.E) in collaboration with the Seoul International Dance Festival (SIDance) from South Korea, Stre@m, a new video-on-demand platform with a focus on Asian digital works is now up and running.
Stre@m was created in response to the slew of digital work that has been created in the past few years. Speaking at the platform’s launch on March 11, Kwik Swee Boon, founder and Artistic Director of T.H.E observed that, although dance for the camera, screendance or whatever it is called has been around since the middle of the 20th century, there is no doubt that the pandemic has brought about a huge increase in the momentum in digitalising performance. Stre@m, he hopes, will at least allow some of the work being made to be better documented and act in part as an archive of our times. “We also want to use this as a starting point to help the development, presentation, connection and dialogue between artists,” he said.
one of the short films now available on Stre@m
Co-hosted by T.H.E’s cont·act Contemporary Dance Festival (the platform will The platform will also host digital works from this June’s festival) and SIDance Festival, with the Indonesian Dance Festival and Bangkok International Performing Arts Meeting (BIPAM) as partners, Stre@m will present some of the works that have emerged in this process of adapting, redefining and digitising, in doing so reflecting on the experiments taking place in what might be termed the emergent hybrid, physical-virtual space.
This year, Stre@m will focus primarily on work from Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and South Korea, but he hopes more Asian countries will join next year.
The service includes recorded stage performance, screendance, documentary. Works run from full-length pieces to short works of just a few minutes, and will be available for a year. There are artist discussions too. Prices are exceptionally reasonable. Nothing available costs more than US$8 to watch, with the short works free.
Stre@m is supported by the National Arts Council of Singapore and Arts Council Korea.
Check out what’s available at streamdigitaldance.com.