The Circular Ruins By Raka Maitra

Circular Ruins is a dance performance that explores the concepts of reality as a response to the text “Circular Ruins” by Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges. The short story describes a wizard who retreats from the world to the circular ruins, a location with strong mystical powers. There, the wizard creates a human being while he dreams and he eventually creates a boy. He asks the God of Fire to bring his creation to life. When Fire agrees the boy is sent to a distant temple and becomes famous because he can walk through fire unharmed. The wizard hears of this but wakes up to find the circular ruins ablaze. He walks into the flame and realises that his skin doesn’t burn. “With relief, with humiliation, with terror he understood that he too was a mere appearance, dreamt by another.”

The Javanese and Indian contemporary movement is a response to the story, illustrating the elements of mystery and the strong images from the text. Besur’s voice is like an instrument and will be accompanied by live violin, gamelan and percussion played by Danis Sugiyanto. Even the lighting is almost a “performance” as some of it will be improvised on stage by lighting designer Yeo Hon Beng. Besur’s costume is made out of tree bark and he wears a wooden mask so he looks reminiscent of the walls of a ruin. The text itself is a metaphor for artistic creation and the objective of this dance theatre project is to represent the intensity, truth and humanity of creative work or artistic work on stage.