→ Design overlaid on screenshot from performance: Daniel Teo (first image)

Screengrabs from the performances (second and third images)

Touch You Later! (2020-ongoing) is an intimate participatory performance that was created specifically for the Zoom platform amidst pandemic conditions. In a world where physical touch and intimacy with loved ones became suspect, much less touch with strangers, what new forms of touch and intimacies might be possible between bodies and objects?  

Touch You Later! draws from Tactility Studies (2018-ongoing), a long-term performance project jointly manifested by theatre and dance artists Chong Gua Khee and Bernice Lee. Tactility Studies is an invitation to audiences to open up their bodies as sites and spaces for performance – to be soft, to wobble, to stretch and uncoil.

In turn, Tactility Studies conjures experiences where touch is both transgressive and reparative, pleasurable and profound. In playing with these tensions, each iteration is deeply responsive to the times and worlds we inhabit, in hopes of generating and expanding new affective discourses around touch and consensual intimacies.

Responses to Touch You Later!

In a time where we were suddenly plunged into social distancing, and when studios and theatres were closed, I was thankful that Touch You Later! provided an opportunity for me to express my desire to be physically close with other people. It consisted of a simple list of creative tasks that made our own rooms seem less simple and boring. Although in my group we were mostly strangers, but we still ended up smiling and giggling and having a good time during the performance encounter. I especially appreciated that in a time where most theatre and dance companies were turning to online classes and streaming past performances, Touch You Later! was a performative encounter that helped us experience our own, and each other’s three-dimensional space, in new ways. As Touch You Later!'s facilitators led us through playing with our lights, sound, movement and the screen, for a brief moment, I felt less lonely.

— Elizabeth Chan, dance practitioner-researcher

I’ve always wondered what it would be like to be in an interactive work without being self-conscious. Touch You Later! as an interactive performance piece succeeded in making me feel so comfortable because we were all secure in our separate rooms and none of us was in a more powerful position of the conventional audience, resulting in all of us being equally vulnerable to one another which brought mutual trust amongst strangers to a deeper level in amazingly double-quick time. Being in all sorts of positions and led to do things I wouldn’t dare venture in a physical space, brought about rich, magical moments shared with newly made friends. This precious shared experience brought me to a space of shared humanity, coming out gradually and then back into reality. It made me wonder if the new god lies outside of theatre, just at its fringes.

— Alvin Tan, Artistic Director, The Necessary Stage

I attended Touch You Later! with my 7-year-old daughter and both of us had lots of fun! My daughter was challenged to navigate and reconcile the "live" and "digital" experiences, and had a blast playing and clowning around. She interpreted the prompts in ways only she understood, which then brought out the kid in me. It was very refreshing for me to be using this meeting platform, that I usually associate with work and dread, in such a creative way. Even though we were all participating from the corners of our own homes, the sense of intimacy and togetherness came through very strongly in the experience.

— Tay Jia Ying, Ex-Company Manager, Drama Box