Trilogy of Hearts 《 三心 》was a mesmerizing exploration of presence, guided by Zen Buddhist mindfulness and choreographed with exquisite balance between dance, music, and set design. Under Lee Swee Keong’s masterful direction and technical support from Tan Eng Heng with lighting design and Bryan Chang with visual and sound design, this 90-minute production wove together short artistic presentations with a specific focus on butoh dance, an avant-garde type of Japanese dance theater that embraces minimalist aesthetics for maximalist emotions. Trilogy of Hearts was produced with compositional elegance, inviting the audience into heightened awareness by merging past, present, and future into a singular, meditative consciousness.
Performed at Studio Ramli Hassan atop the tranquil Bukit Tunku, the experience began with a warm welcome from Dato’ Sabera Shaik, the owner of the performance space, and a spread of Malaysian teatime delicacies. Audience members entered a serene black-box space where soft choral music and blue light illuminated a flowing white screen. Dato’ Sabera sanctified the space by reciting a surah, emphasizing healing vibrations through sound.
The show began. Zen monk Venerable Youmin seated before a gong, striking it with perfect consistency. The sonic waves shifted the screen, onto which mirrored images of Youmin were projected, alluding to reflection and impermanence. A dancer, Lee Swee Keong, painted white and clad in a skirt, punctuated this delicate meditation by emerging from behind the screen. Playing the gong with stylized, precise movements, the dancer merged ritualistic elegance with sonic resonance. The Chinese text 《 三心 》 was projected above the dancer, grounding the performance in its central theme of mindfulness.
Throughout the evening, dance, sound, and visual elements intertwined seamlessly. A female dancer in blue, Konoka Hyakuna, performed modern dance phrases paired with Japanese recitation, creating layered shadows on the screen. She burned a page from her notebook in a symbolic act, the crackling paper echoing against the sparse soundscape.
The stage transformed continuously: curtains shifted into shapes—triangles, diamonds, and floating veils—while a butoh dancer, moving with birdlike flight, explored controlled gestures beneath projected tree branches and leaves. Textured sonic landscapes by Aru8 on classical Chinese instruments, specifically the guqin and sanxian, intensified the ritualistic atmosphere, while his experimental plucking, dampening, and striking of the strings paralleled the dancers’ emotional arcs.
A climax arrived as two butoh dancers, Icihara Akihito and Lee, in red skirts, mirrored each other with delicate control, moving with the breath of the guqin’s bowing. The final moments saw Venerable Youmin guiding a meditation, asking the audience to notice the heart and belly, questioning whether the mind rested in the past, present, or future.
The conclusion was profound: Lee, now in a white gown, played the gong with full-body rotations, building to a sonic and emotional crescendo before collapsing into an open, angelic stance. The final echo of choir voices and resonant gong left the audience in a state of stillness and awe.
Trilogy of Hearts was a masterful convergence of contemplative dance-theater. Every element—the dynamic fabric shifts, the sonic meditations, and the precise choreography—evoked a deep sense of presence, offering a sacred exploration of mindfulness in performance. The result was a breathtaking reminder of the transformative power of art to center awareness, beauty, and embodied stillness.
Charissa Lee Yi Zhen (she/her) is a graduate student at Yale University, studying Christian theology, history, liturgy, and art.
This review was generated by Artsee.Net as part of its Art Writers’ Sandbox programme.
Photo credits: Wilson Chang
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