It was 2003. Sand-crusted tanks thundered over scorched desert beneath incandescent skies, as on the other side of the world, thousands were afflicted by a mysterious coronavirus.
The near-prophetic familiarity of those events isn’t lost on composer-painter Mark Chan, who is staging an adaptation of Email & Eternity — conceived around the SARS epidemic and Iraq invasion — at the Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre this coming weekend on Oct 1 and 2.
“All the turmoil yet hope that we would get through the year with things being alright are reflected in it,” muses Chan.
This reprisal’s apt, considering the uncanny uncertainty of both zeitgeists that shudders through the symphonic production performed by a cross-generational orchestra. The latter features cellist Leslie Tan from T’ang Quartet.
A feted musician whose oeuvre glitters with compositions for stars including Andy Lau and Tracy Huang as well as soaring cinematic productions, Chan wears his well-cultivated idiosyncrasies breezily. Picture the exacting artist lapsing into a protracted pause mid-interview to search for a document that addresses my question. And there he is again, issuing a barbed threat against publishing quotes shared ‘off the record.’ Over the pandemic, he began writing a novel set in Shanghai, Seville and Singapore that’s spun with murders and fantastical creatures.
From his perch — an ergonomic stool set before an ink painting incorporated in the show — Chan tells me that Email & Eternity perambulates an airplane journey. Its title juxtaposes the ephemeral nature of modern existence with an instinctive need to chronical profound thoughts, such as those shared among enduring friends. Ruminations that perhaps transcend this generation’s digital babel.
“There are all these woke movements, anti-China or -USA rhetorics and right-wing responses to LGBT issues. Everything gets heightened, exaggerated and thrown out of context because of the internet. I was trying to navigate my way through this by using only acoustic instruments during the performance,” he shares.
Amid the polemics eddying online, the 64-year-old asserts that “it’s important for your own peace of mind to not jump into the fray,” though he makes no attempt to sugar-coat his political views. Take for instance, the sabre rattling between USA and China.
“The fact that USA is polarising the region is a real threat and Singapore is going to feel it directly if there is any conflict. But the US has a track record of fomenting conflict around the world; just look at what they did in IndoChina in the 60s and 70s, as well as Korea,” says the former national swimmer, who was born into a family of swimmers (his sister is former SEA Games champion Pat Chan) before Singapore’s independence.
“I come from a different time, so I have a very ‘live and let live’ attitude about people with different opinions.”
But how does the artist, whose work reflects a fantasia of cultures, feel about the increasingly contentious geopolitical climate that inevitably encroaches spaces such as the arts?
“Life is complicated and you have to allow these complicated parts to live inside you. You don’t have to get them to agree. The current climate is difficult for people because everything has to be streamlined into black or white, right or wrong.”
He isn’t chary of layering diverse influences and has played the sitar, tabla, as well as western instruments.
“As a composer, musician and painter, I must feel free to borrow. There are people who call out cultural appropriation, but honestly if you don’t open up to the richness of other cultures in music and visual art, you are not enjoying the world.”
Videography: Marcus Lin
Photography: Mun Kong
Producer: Cara Yap
Styling: Chia Wei Choong
Hair: Peter Lee using Goldwell
Makeup: Keith Bryant Lee using Shiseido
