We’re nearing the end of a no-holds-barred chat with Eng Kai Er at TheatreWorks’ 72-13 space. The petite dancer is preparing for her latest show Indulgence, which opens later this month. This is probably the biggest gesture the emerging dancer and choreographer, one of the theatre company’s new batch of associate artists, has had to make. And by this we mean she has finally spoken up.

“I am looking forward to the day when none of this matters anymore, and when it would be easy for me to talk about the scholarship and No Star without any weirdness in public. I guess this interview is one small step towards that,” the 30-year-old said.

Eng, of course, was referring to one of her ongoing art projects that resulted in much debate late last year: The No Star Arts Grant. She had previously announced she would give personal “grants” to artistic projects out of her own salary. But what would be considered a magnanimous gesture elsewhere was, in the eyes of some, complicated by the fact that it was also in protest of the bonded scholarship system. Eng was a scientist and scholar under the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), and, well, some unkind words about being spoilt or ungrateful were thrown her way.

But the No Star Arts Grant, which has been awarded to eight projects to date, has also been, for better or worse, the latest episode that made Eng mull over her dual identity as dance artist and scholar-scientist. “I’ve spent many years trying to separate the scholar part of me from the arts part of me,” she admitted.

LET’S DANCE

Throughout our two-hour interview, one thing was made clear — here was a woman who, regardless of her day job, lives and breathes dance. Her current projects for TheatreWorks are a testament to this. Indulgence, a collaboration with fellow dancers Bernice Lee and Jereh Leong, was born out of a “desire to enjoy” creating a “slow-ish” dance piece that will include a pole dance, a piano, some bean bags and a pinch of nudity. Before that, she will also be presenting a public engagement piece called Dance-oke next Saturday — it’s like a mass karaoke session, but with dancing instead of singing. (It was also described as “Kai’s idea of an enjoyable dance class where there is no alcohol/club or classroom/teacher involved”.)

Both sound interesting and fun, as if done by someone attempting to make up for lost time when it comes to dance. And in a way, she is. The middle child of a retired lab analyst and a handicraft teacher, Eng recalled catching the dance bug at the age of nine, joining Chinese dance clubs until her junior-college years — and picking up some ice-skating skills along the way, too — even though she said: “I already had the idea I wasn’t a very good dancer.”

Eng’s early awareness of her limitations didn’t stop her, however. And, irony of ironies, it was by taking the A*STAR scholarship that inadvertently opened up a new world for her. In 2003, she received the National Science Scholarship Bs-PhD through-train scholarship. For her undergraduate degree, she chose biochemistry at Cambridge University.

It was in Cambridge where things changed. “I ended up in a place where it wasn’t the end of the world if you cannot raise your leg up very, very high and hold it up very, very long,” she quipped. “At that time, (Britain) had so much support for the arts that it was infiltrating my university.”

LET’S DANCE EVEN MORE

While trudging on with her studies, Eng also immersed herself in dance, taking classes, thinking of choreography and performing wherever and whenever she could.

Her “unique” dance vocabulary also seemed to be accepted. “In Singapore, it was kind of bad that I would skate like I’m doing Chinese dance or do Chinese dance like I’m skating. (In Cambridge), I was in an environment that encouraged my development,” she said.

Eng pursued dance once she moved to Sweden for her PhD — she studied Infection Biology at Karolinska Institutet. She tried starting a choreography group, but it fizzled out. Unfazed, she decided to just create.

“I went to see a bunch of solo shows and figured out that, basically, they’re talking and dancing and talking and dancing. I didn’t see any solo contemporary dance show where one person was dancing for an hour. So I started to also do this dancing-talking thing,” she said.

Around this time, she met a like-minded outsider, a physics post-doctoral fellow from Belarus named Sveta Viarbitskaya, with whom she would create works and perform in places around Sweden. “We were the odd ones — we couldn’t access the dance world, that’s why we ended up working with each other,” she said with a laugh.

THE HOLLAND VILLAGE INCIDENT

But tension had also taken its toll on Eng, culminating in her first encounter with notoriety. While on a holiday in Singapore in 2009, she was arrested for walking around naked in Holland Village with a Swedish exchange student. “I was just living out a lot of difficulties I had with my situation — letting the tension come out in all kinds of different ways. I was trying to dance, was very unhappy at work and just doing crazy stuff,” she admitted.

It proved to be a turning point. She decided to come clean about her unhappiness with her PhD supervisors back in Sweden. “I felt so guilty because I knew I wasn’t really interested, but I also knew it was my responsibility to (continue with my PhD). When I told the truth, they were very understanding and kind and, to this day, I am very grateful to them. I did try my best and, in the end, I don’t think I let any of my PhD supervisors down.”

The Holland Village incident wasn’t a premeditated piece of performance. But a few years later, she had a chance to present one that was: A confessional solo show titled The Prayer at M1 Singapore Fringe Festival in 2012. But her proud moment of coming back as a dance artist in Singapore was dampened by a negative review from The Straits Times.

“It was a moment when I felt so embarrassed and that I had done everything wrong. That I had worked so hard to put myself there and it turned out to be a really bad show,” she recalled. “It did have an impact on me because I could feel that my parents were embarrassed too when they saw the review.”

But being the stubborn dance lover she was, Eng embarked on a European tour, showing The Prayer in Stockholm and at the Prague Fringe Festival, where it was shortlisted for Outstanding Performance Award.

WORKING ON NEW MOVES

Since returning to Singapore in 2013 — armed with a PhD to serve her bond with A*STAR — Eng has immersed herself in the local arts scene and continued to create work. She was chosen as one of the participants in The Substation’s Directors’ Lab incubation programme, through which she developed the piece, Fish. She created other shows, such as The Pleasure Of Eating Oranges (yet another collaboration with Viarbitskaya), which was performed here and in Europe. She also initiated The MRT Project, a fun piece that involved her and a collaborator dancing to music along the North-East line. (She didn’t take a lot of videos, but amused members of the public.)

Eng also took part in the TheatreWorks show Retrospective, a piece by French choreographer Xavier Le Roy comprising personal “retrospectives” by a handful of local dance artists. And it was during the show when she first realised she had to confront her scientist/artist dichotomy, partly because Le Roy himself had a PhD in biology.

For her segment, Eng took off her proverbial mask and related her life story. “Retrospective was when I finally started to feel like one person again, because I started to talk about being a scholar in an art setting. That project was such a cathartic experience and I think I really needed the chance to confess that I was a scholar in the art world.”

She has yet to have that “discussion” with A*STAR (“They’ve wanted to, but the meetings have been postponed,” she said). But right now, she has other things to think about. For someone who just wants to dance, things are getting a little serious and maybe even a tad “professional”.

With her day job at A*STAR, dance projects and that No Star Arts Grant, it’s been a juggling act for Eng. But ultimately, after everything that has happened, dance has finally embraced her back.

“I never expected to be here in this position to even talk about this and say, ‘Oh, what does it mean for my art now that I am starting to be able to do it in this way that I wanted so much?’”

Perhaps now, it’s time for Eng’s art to do the talking.

Indulgence runs from May 20 to 23, 8pm, at 72-13 Mohamed Sultan Road. Tickets at S$10. To book, email indulgence [at] theatreworks.org.sg or call 6737 7213. Rated advisory 16.

Dance-Oke is on May 16, 2pm to 4pm, at 72-13 Mohamed Sultan Road. Free admission. Register by emailing brendan [at] theatreworks.org.sg or calling 6737 7213 with your name, contact details and choice of up to three of your favourite dance music videos.

For our complete interview with Eng Kai Er, visit http://tdy.sg/artssakeblog.