"Everyone needs to do a Desh." Words of wisdom from all-around visual artist Tim Yip. Been a long but ultimately fruitful Friday checking out the second day of Esplanade’s ConversAsians conference and the nearby Festival Village. Three shows, one talk. Phew. Over at the Durian, the cheeky dude from Hong Kong talked his audience through his creative process working on films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, on productions with theatre giants like Robert Wilson, etc; gave his views about the importance of “image” in theatre; and of the idea of calling what he does “visual design” rather than the standard segmentation into set or costume design. That Desh he mentioned referred to the 2011 autobiographical work by choreographer Akram Khan, which he had worked on and which was supposed to be staged here instead of Vertical Road—until Khan got injured. Well, respected Malaysian choreographer Marion D’Cruz already had her "Desh" way a good two years before Khan had his. After missing the performance in 2010, I finally caught the touching and wise tell-all piece Gostan Forward this morning. So glad I woke up in time to catch this simple-yet-expansive lecture performance that gave us a fun (and often funny) glimpse at this respected artist and her works, situated within the context of Malaysian (art) history. At one point, she brought up her famous Urn Piece—a performance comprising three urns with women in them that apparently grabbed headlines when it was first performed in Malaysia. And how she wants to do one with 5,000 of these urns in some public square in KL. Sounds rather impossible to do, but you have to admit that's definitely gonna be pretty awesome right? Well, she had 35-piece version over at the Village. Now titled Dream Country—A Lost Monologue, D’Cruz roped in collaborators Anne James, Charlene Rajendran, Claire Wong, Natalie Hennedige and Zizi Azah to put together this super extensive project featuring 35 performers (they’d been rehearsing at the site even before the fest began). Inspired by Malaysian playwright Leow Puay Tin’s eponymous piece, this hypnotic piece saw women of all shapes and sizes, of all ages, of varying disciplines, students and theatre pros, coming together with a splash. Lots of it. A surreal, out-of-this-world tableau of heads, arms and legs popping out from the huge urns greeted viewers. Like water nymphs (yep, they were submered at the start), they emerged in their sackcloth dresses, earthy, sensual, primal. Their movements came in waves of ordered patterns and chaos—flicking their wet hair, splashing one another, running around, caressing or lying on top of their clay wombs. They emphatically beat their urns with pieces of wet cloth. They tip it over. Lots of sloshing. And then they lined up and slowly dispersed into the crowd. Not a single word is spoken. Wooosh… There is something truly powerful in seeing such a large assembly of women performers, which in a span of less than an hour conjured up images of archetypes and stereotypes, both mythic and domestic, the gentle spirit and the force of nature. In the words of Cibo Matto, "Viva! La Woman." Plus, how the hell were they able to master and handle working with those goddamn urns, doing everything they do on a wet, slippery surface? I salute all of you lovely ladies (including the one who had been injured during rehearsals and still took part in the show, sitting in one corner).