“These arms used to be wings;
Where were the muscles that could have carried me over continents?”
We speak of a bird who’s lost in the sky.
tapping on bone is an excavation of the stories we tell ourselves as we evolve — the realisation that growing up isn’t all it’s cut out to be. Reaching each milestone as we age has always seemed like something to celebrate. Why does it feel like we are moving in circles, still?
The play unravels fraying ideals of what it means to have “made it” in life, and the expectations that tailor our rib cages – making it harder to breathe. Grounded in personal history, and entirely devised, it dissects the rituals that bind us through a fusion of surrealist performance and explosive physicality. We invite you to escape with us on flights of the imagination.
Tender, poetic, and immersive all at once, tapping on bone is a dream of finding closure, driven by the incessant rhythms beneath our skin.
Note: This production was first staged as (Singapore) Girls in 2018 as part of She’s a Great Way to Fly, a programme conceptualised and produced by Tan Kheng Hua in conjunction with The Substation. tapping on bone is the creators’ response to the original play four years after.
