Cane (2011)
A re-enactment of Josef Ng’s Brother Cane based on an account by Ray Langenbach
Date: March 19, 2011
Time: 8 p.m. – 12 Midnight
Venue: Defibrillator, Chicago IL
With support from Joey Carr and Adam Van Eeckhout
Presented as part of Performance Art Event: Touch then Push or Pull and Maybe Nothing
curated by Jaeuk Song
Re-enactment of a 1993 performance by Singaporean artist Josef Ng titled Brother Cane based on an eyewitness account by Ray Langenbach. Brother Cane was staged in protest to the entrapment of homosexuals by law enforcement officers in public cruising areas.
Brother Cane resulted in a public debate in the media over obscenity in performance art and led to a ten year restriction of the licensing and funding of performance art in Singapore.
More information regarding Brother Cane is available at Chronology of a Controversy by Lee Weng Choy.
Video Documentation of Part One: (40 mins)
Download the Script for Cane
Photo Documentation:
Part I: Introducing Cane
“Tonight I am re-creating a performance titled ‘Brother Cane’ by Singaporean artist Josef Ng. This performance was staged in Singapore as part of a twelve hour New Year’s Eve event, which ran from December 31st 1993 until January 1st 1994…"
Part I: Laying out the tiles
“15 minutes: Josef Ng, dressed in a long black robe and black briefs, carefully laid out tiles on the floor in a semi-circle. He placed the news cutting, “12 Men nabbed in Anti-Gay Operation at Tanjong Rhu” from the Straits Times (which is Singapore’s National Newspaper) on each tile. He then carefully placed a block of tofu on each tile along with a small plastic bag of red dye."
Part I: Waiting for the 15 minutes of allocated time for the task to pass
Part I: Reading selected words from the article
“1 minute: Josef Ng crouched behind one tile and read random words from the news cutting.”
Part I: Cane Dance
“5 minutes: Josef Ng picked up a child’s rotan. Striking the floor with it rhythmically, he performed a dance, swaying and leaping from side to side, and finally ending in a low crouching posture. “
Part I: Cane Dance
Part I: First strike
“3 minutes: Josef Ng approached the tofu blocks, tapping the rotan rhythmically on the floor. He tapped twice next to each block, then struck the bags of red dye and tofu on the third swing.”
Part I: Post striking, waiting for the allocated time to pass
Part I: Post Clipping of Hair
“1 minute: Josef Ng said that he had heard that clipping hair could be a form of silent protest, and walked to the far end of the gallery space. Facing the wall with his back to the audience, he lowered his briefs just below the top of his buttocks and carried out an action that the audience could not see. He returned to the performance space and placed a small amount of hair on the center tile.”
Part I: Being offered a cigarette
“1 minute: Josef Ng asked for a cigarette from the audience. He was given one…”
Part I: Lighting the cigarette
Part I: “Sometimes silent protest is not enough”
Part I: Stubbing out the cigarette
“…he stubbed out the cigarette on his arm. He said “Thank you,” and put his robe back on.”
Part I: The aftermath
Part II: Durational performance of the labor of cleaning
Part II: Waiting to clean
Part II: Durational performance of the labor of cleaning
Part II: Durational performance of the labor of cleaning
