Atop the 4,000 sq m of flora in Woodlands Botanical Gardens, an arts performance as unique as its diverse performers was held by the performing arts company Maya Dance Theatre (MDT) on April 25.
“Temporary Bodies” was MDT’s free-admission, multisensory arts festival, featuring dance, poetry, and signing, all themed around collaboration to combat climate change and respect Gaia, or Mother Nature.
MDT, founded in 2007, aims to advocate for inclusivity and other social issues through culturally-fusion performances. For example, in their dance programme, they combine bharatnatyam with other contemporary dance forms to create their own style.
Some of the performers at this event were part of MDT’s Diverse Abilities Dance Collective (DADC), where people of all abilities, including those with disabilities, can learn to dance.
The 100-step journey to the gardens would have been a daunting challenge, but any exhaustion was whittled away by the company’s own pied piper or rather fiddler, Kailin Yong, playing tunes to guide audiences up the stairs.
However, in keeping with accessibility measures, chairs were placed at various checkpoints on the hillside journey. MDT’s artistic director Kavitha Krishnan, 54, said she was so happy that audiences were committed to making the climb.
“There was an attendee who just had major surgery on her leg, and she still climbed up with her brace on. It made me realise that people are very keen to be a part of nature and the arts,” she said.
Finalist for The Straits Times’ Singaporean of the Year 2025, Ganesh Kumar, is the botanical garden’s caretaker, the very thing that earned him his award.
“All art forms were born in nature, so what’s more beautiful than to have the arts surrounded in nature?” said Mr Ganesh, 41. He also said that having more events like these will help him justify accessibility changes to NParks.
The closing act, “Confluence”, featuring a collaboration among the dancers, the poetry storyteller Hemang Yadav, and fiddler Yong, stood out for celebrating human connection.
The audience couldn’t stop smiling and grooving to the fusion beats and charisma radiating from the stage.
Another performance featured senior dancers using ribboned fans, remaining mainly seated throughout the dance until its final segment.
Ms Kavitha’s own mother-in-law and aunt were among the performers, as well as 85-year-old Dexter Tei.
Besides the dances, there was also singing by Mr Arshad Fawwaz and walk-by stagings of poetry performed by DADC members.
Ms Weng Jiaying, 35, a dancer living with Down syndrome, performed the poem “The Moon Princess” by Catherine Joan Devadason, a poet who also lives with the same disability.
Noting her interest in continuing these kinds of events, Ms Weng said: “Performing there is very tough, very hot, but we don’t give up.”
“Once we saw the audience happy, we felt great,” she added.
The event concluded with guests taking home seeds to start their own small garden efforts as part of “The Gaia Community Garden Project”.
“It’s an ongoing journey for us to be mindful of our impact on the earth, just one event doesn’t celebrate success,” Ms Kavitha noted. “We can celebrate that we came together to remember that if humans have to continue, then Gaia has to be around.”
