My Body is (Not) My Body

Are you truly in control of your own body?

When actors step onto the stage, does their body still belong to them? Or does it become the property of the character, the director, the audience—or even the system itself?

Stanislavski, Meyerhold, Grotowski, Michael Chekhov, Suzuki... As actors continually embody predetermined roles and narratives, is their body an instrument of free will or merely a vessel of control? When performance becomes an exercise in observation, manipulation, and regulation, where does the actor’s autonomy truly reside?

This bold and boundary-defying piece of experimental theatre strips away the layers of performance to uncover the core questions, e.g. Who is in control? Who is watching? And who is the true protagonist?

My Body is (Not) My Body is directed by Malaysian theatre-maker Seng Soo Ming and devised collectively by the graduating class of NAFA Diploma in Theatre (English Drama). With an open-ended structure, the production interrogates notions of body, power, and agency, while dismantling the myths surrounding artistic training and arts education.