VENUS IN FUR | 2022
By David Ives
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“You want funny? You want sexy? Then you’ll want to see VENUS IN FUR.”
Thomas, a beleaguered playwright/director, is desperate to find an actress to play Vanda, the female lead in his adaptation of the classic sadomasochistic tale Venus in Fur. Into his empty audition room walks a vulgar and equally desperate actress—oddly enough, named Vanda. Though utterly wrong for the sophisticated part, Vanda exhibits a strange command of the material, piquing Thomas’ interest with her seductive talents and secretive manner. As the two work through the script, they blur the line between play and reality, entering into an increasingly serious game of submission and domination that only one of them can win. A mysterious, funny, erotic drama that represents yet another departure for the multifaceted David Ives.
— Presented by Bold Moment Theatre
— Directed, produced, and performed by co-founders of Bold Moment, Kristina Pakhomova and Khairul Kamsani.
— License managed by Harmonia Holdings, Ltd. under special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service, Ltd
Director's Note
Venus In Fur is Bold Moment’s second full-length theatre play and what I like to call "juicy theatre material". It’s got humour, kink, characters that are full of flaws, and a skillfully twisted plot. On top of this, this project is a personal milestone in the artistic development of both Khairul and myself.
Venus is Fur is Khairul’s first professional acting work and my first multicast directorial work. It is an exciting yet challenging project for both of us. A challenge that we have taken to deepen our embodied knowledge of acting and directing by culminating the theory and practice into this performance and continuing to progress as artists as well as humans.
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In our company’s mission, we wrote, “Staying adventurous, courageous and bold in everything we do. We believe that nowadays, it’s not enough to be just one identity, be it just an actor, writer, or director. By doing so you are limiting yourself, your working and creative opportunities.”
We are practicing what we preach and we are both super excited to experience theatre from the other side of the stage! In the process, we are going to stay bold, authentic, and fearless, while inspiring our acting students and our audience to do the same.
— Kristina Pakhomova,
Director and Co-founder of Bold Moment
An Interview with Kristina & Khairul
About Bold Moment Theatre
With over 10 years of individual professional practice and collaboration between co-artistic directors, Kristina Pakhomova and Khairul Kamsani, Bold Moment is the trajectory where their courage, skills, resilience, and experience move towards the horizons of acting and performance. With the strong belief that everyone is born to be creative, Bold Moment aims to bring out the creative potential in people through quality workshops and help them express themselves freely via acting, directing, writing, devising and more. Founded by versatile multi-disciplinary practitioners, Bold Moment provides a myriad of workshops suitable for anyone who wants to rediscover themselves. It is also the first theatre company in Singapore that incorporates Virtual Reality in actor training workshops.
Biographies
Kristina Pakhomova
CO-ARTISTIC DIRECTOR, PRODUCER, PROFESSIONAL ACTRESS
At the age of five, Kristina Pakhomova’s destiny was sealed when her mother became a lead actress with a local theatre group in Russia. Watching her mother acting on stage, show after show, created a spark in Kristina that inspired her to make a life-changing decision- one day it would be her on that stage.
She graduated from LASALLE College of the Arts with a BA(Hons) in Acting. Kristina has performed in a number of theatre plays, short films, TV and radio projects as well as producing, directing, writing, and performing in her own work. She is the artistic director and founder of KrisP. Production, a Hong Kong-based theatre and film production company. Now also co-founder and co-artistic director of Bold Moment Theatre and Actor Training (Singapore) with her business partner Khairul Kamsani. Kristina’s life mission is to help people express themselves freely and authentically through creativity. Making bold choices and living to the fullest. She is a true believer that everyone is born creative. But sometimes we forget about it. Blocks, fears, and insecurities take over, they block creative channels, so creative energy is stuck with no way out. This “stuckness” then affects all areas of life. Kristina’s goal is to remind her students that they are already creative, and she can show the ways how they can let themselves be creative.
Khairul Kamsani
CO-ARTISTIC DIRECTOR, PRINCIPAL FACILITATOR
Khairul Kamsani is a theatre director, researcher and acting teacher on PhD scholarship at De Montfort University conducting practice-based research on Actor Training with Virtual Reality (2021-2024). A graduate from the MA Actor Training & Coaching at the Royal Central School of Speech & Drama (2018) after an Assistant Director Residency at Singapore Repertory Theatre (2016-2017). His work as a director, playwright, producer, designer, dramaturg and teacher over the past decade has been across Singapore, Hong Kong and the United Kingdom.
His current thesis Cybernetic Psychophysical Actor Training has been presented at Borderlines VIII: Rejecting, Tracing, Embracing Performance Legacies (2021) by De Montfort University, Leicester, and will be at the upcoming Harnessing a 21st Century approach to Performing Arts: Technology, Practice, Education and Research (2022) by Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts. Khairul is a research team member of Architects of Realities (2021-2022), supported by the National Arts Council Arts x Tech initiative; a collective of practitioners conducting practice-based research into the potentialities that Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality technologies can support, supplement or lead theatre making processes.
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