When creating this reverent, ritualistic solo, Hasyimah Harith spent time working with Malay women, to explore their experiences of femininity. Specifically, the piece draws connections between the body and the batik fabric Malay women wear throughout their lives. There is no soundtrack for some time at the start. Harith, standing on a white dais, quietly commands absolute silence from the audience as she dresses herself in four pieces of different patterned cloth. Her tender way of handling the fabric speaks to its powers. She wafts it, and it captures air, shape shifting like an in-drawn breath as she pulls it back towards her. With one piece pulled tightly around her body, clasped closed by her teeth, she dons a further cloth as a skirt, one as a head wrap and one as a majestic lion’s mane of a crown, fanning out around her face, only revealing her eyes as she scrutinises us. 

A score of low, spiritual sounds begins and Harith turns a slow, controlled rotation on the dais. As carefully as she has dressed, she begins to unveil. She drops down prone, pulls the fabric between her legs, arches and braces herself with erotic tension as she plays with the cloth. She drags one piece away from her body as if she is birthing it. It’s a short work, both brief and slow moving, but the reverence with which Harith treats the batik fabrics casts an intoxicating spell. 

Nak Dara, Assembly @ Dance Base, until 25 August, 8.30pm.