Project SALOME
Salome is a larger-than-life character who has from time immemorial horrified and fascinated all. Who is SALOME in our contemporary times, who attempts to transform their position of no-power into some kind of power?
Based on English playwright Oscar Wilde’s symbolist play from 1891, SALOME fights to be free from the systems of morality and patriarchal power which have imprisoned them.
Keng Sen Ong collaborates with Berlin-based performance artist Michael(a) Daoud, to navigate the edges of documentary film, and Singapore actor Janice Koh, to occupy social media with a love at all costs. Set in an unexpected installation by Heman Chong with the energising rhythms of composer Kaffe Matthews, they jointly contemplate the SALOME complex from diverse directions.
The film “Becoming Salome” feature the character Bolbola who’s based on a documentary portrait of Michael(a) Daoud, and their life story of how they escaped from Syria and basically walked from Athens into Hungary. They arrived finally in Europe and Berlin.
“By creating the drag personality of Bolbola, Michael(a) is able to counter the harsh realities of being a defeated asylum seeker in the all-powerful European Union. In particular, the film proposes an ending after the head falls.”
The Film team:
Writer & Director Keng Sen Ong
Starring: Michael(a) Daoud as BolBola
Cinematographer & Editor: Camille Lacadee
Art Director: Shahrzad Rahmani
Sound Editor & Designer : Gabor Csongradi
Lighting Designer: Joseph Wegmann
Associate Art Director: Alice Faucher
Costume & Make Up Designer: Michael(a) Daoud
Original Artworks: Michael(a) Daoud
Sculpture of Head: Quirin Baumler & Michael(a) Daoud
Live Music: Kaffe Matthews
Executive Producer: T:>Works
Photo credit :Ceren Saner
Commissioned by Singapore International Festival of Arts 2022
The Miracle Of The Unconscious
The work concerns itself with internal and external exile, historic queerness in religions and cultures with a focus on Arabic cultures, to enter into an open conversation with the audience in order to decolonize history and question social constructions.
The Miracle Of The Unconscious places the focus on what accompanies us on our migratory journey and on the legacy of the past that it trips over. It aims at shedding light on the relationship between the body in relation to our gender.
Performed at PANKE Culture as part of PAF CLOSING - Performing Arts Festival Berlin CLosing Event 2022
I Will No Longer Live In My Mother’s Shoe
“I Will No Longer Live in My Mother’s Shoe” is an Artistic protest against capitalism, sugar coating, and passed traditions in interactive actions as a form of empowerment and resistance through walking in the connection streets between “Opernloft” and “No Pasaran” to examine them as a radical form of solidarity between working classes and lefties movements.
Long duration and Site-specific performance. Dur: 02:30:00 . Y2021
The work was performed at STAMP Symposium 2021 Hamburg, Germany.
Supported by the Fonds Darstellende Künste, the Altona District Office and the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.
Between The Lines!
1961 early August, more than 1000 East Germans were using the S-Bahn each day as an escape route into West Berlin.
In 2015 over 1 million Syrians took the railroad as a compass to follow by foot from East to West Europe.
“Between the Lines!” Focuses on displacement as a narrative in both 1961 and 2015 by using collected stones from Berlin’s railways to shed a light on the understanding of our body as a “home”, emphasizing our mind as an “exile”.
Long durational performance. Dur: 03:00:00.
The work was performed at CoCulture as part of ‘ACROSS BORDERS: BODY & SELF’ exhibition, Berlin 2021.
Organized and Supported by Counterpoints Arts London,UK
NOISY W.MELONY
An approaching entity, lost in the land of confusion. One asks here, who are they approaching and for what? Do they need to let go of themselves upon entrance or will you let them practice “them”, secretly? How about they demolish 123 fragments of their being? Will that do it for you? Supposedly they drop their value by 1912, by 1948, by 1967, by 1987, by 2000, by 2021, or by 1,233, by 1,948, by 23,000, by 46,367. Will you be satisfied with that?
Long durational performance.04:00:00.
Year: 2021. Artist in residency
Performed at ZK/U OPENHAUS Berlin
michael(a) Daoud 