Lian Loke in residence
Reflection on ‘Why You Not Eat’ performance
Publication
08.12.2025
Reflection on Why You Not Eat performance
Festival of Death and Dying 22nd November 2025
Performer Lian Loke
As part of The Living Room Theatre’s Open Room Program, artist Lian Loke has been in residence developing her deeply intimate performance work Why You Not Eat, with dramaturgical support from Michelle St Anne. Drawing on personal memory, cultural lineage, and the fragile negotiations of care at the end of life, Loke uses her residency to explore grief as a visceral, embodied state—one that alters breath, voice, appetite, and presence. The following reflection captures her experience performing a rehearsal floor discovery of Why You Not Eat at the Festival of Death and Dying on 22 November 2025, offering insight into the emotional terrain, physical detail, and imaginative precision that shape this powerful new work.
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Sitting on a white chair staring at the far wall … waiting …
Waiting for the audience to enter and settle
Waiting in the hospital for the doctor
Wearing my mother’s red silk brocade house gown – and red lips
Very aware of my breathing, a contained nervousness, the newness of the material and mode of
performing
Recalling Michelle’s words of encouragement, “Remember one moment at a time, relax into your
imagination and have fun”
Waiting, waiting for the right moment to begin
Building intensity and anticipation in the audience
How I breathe, where I place my gaze, small adjustments of my posture
Catching the eye of the doctor
Jumping up to grab the microphone “excuse me, doctor, excuse me!”
“Can you tell me, is there a link, between grief and starvation?”
Not getting an answer, I sit back down again, back to interminable waiting
The microphone stand draws my attention
I trace with my eyes the undulating line of the cord that ends at the amplifier
A lifeline, a way out, a crutch
Something to hold onto, something to spill into
Finding my voice
Who is listening
(Why you not speak)
Picking up the microphone stand
A heavy load bearing down on my not so strong body
Slowly placing it in another location
I bend down and find my voice in the microphone
“Why you not eat
Why you not speak
Why you not cry”
In my head I ponder, is this too soon for this vocal refrain?
Taking my time, allowing that moment to subside
I step away and look at the microphone
Before reaching out with my left hand to push the microphone in front of me
Circling slowly step by step, the daily routine of care
Cupping the microphone with my hands
I whisper the refrain
Turning to look at Dad on the far wall
As I utter “Why you not cry” …
I pick up the microphone stand and lift it above my head
Then lower it to rest on my shoulders
The heavy burden of caring for a loved one
Whilst watching their slow and irrevocable disintegration
Lowering into a crouch, holding the low squat
Years of Bodyweather training serve me well
Now somewhat entangled with the stand
Stretching and straining to reach the microphone with my mouth
“Why you not eat
Why you not speak
Why you not cry”
I sit upright, realising I had forgotten to speed up the vocal delivery
The rhythm and the repetition
I corrected my mistake for the following two repetitions
And felt that I could have intensified this moment even more
Faster, more repetitions, more urgent, the rising frustration and anger of grief hammering into the floor
A swift switch into the dutiful daughter
But a role switch between parent and child
“I’ve prepared a delicious meal for you … your favourite foods – and fruits”
In a playful, singsong tone, “Mango, banana, rambutan
Longan, lychee, coconut!
Papaya, paw paw, pa-pa?”
Reciting the list of delicious Southeast Asian fruits from my father’s homeland of Malaysia
Discovering the poetry in the alliteration of papaya to papa
And how to use a vocal inflection with “pa-pa?” to express the concern and trepidation of realising
Papa is not okay
Drop microphone hand to thigh
“The shock of losing you
Like a limb ripped from my body”
I silently recite in my head
Holding the numbness in my body
Carefully untangling the lead from the stand
Reminiscent of the cables and bleeps of the hospital ward
I tenderly place the microphone and lead on the ground
The dying body beside me
I scoop it up in a loving embrace
Hands soft and curved as directed by Michelle
Barber’s Adagio for Strings a stirring reverie
Only audible in my imagination
Yet visible in the viscosity of my flesh
Crouching to offer the body of my father to the earth
I lay beside him, cradling his form
And listening to his last breaths
Alone I walk away
A slow solemn walk
Finding myself back at the microphone lying on the ground
My hands pull at the lead
Dragging the microphone along the ground in fits and spurts
A little game to test its readiness
Dangling and reeling it up
To loop around my neck
Transiting worlds in a flash
As hostess I announce to the audience
“Welcome! Welcome to my table.
Selamat datang! Fun Jing! (Foon Yeng)
Welcome”
An echo of the question the doctor could not answer
“Do you think, is there a link,
Between emotion and physiology?
Is there?
Is there a link between grief and starvation,
Is there?”
The light fades as I hold the question in my body
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Lian Loke is an artist, designer, educator and researcher, with the body as the central focus of her interdisciplinary practice. She is interested in exploring how new technologies are impacting on the lived body and its possibilities for expression, transformation and transcendence. Her work explores the creation of body-centred artistic works and human-centred design approaches to interactive technologies and spaces. She combines dance, design, human-computer interaction and the aesthetics of interaction to critique and produce concepts, systems and performances.
