performance

Papa, Romeo, Oscar, November, Echo is a new solo performance by Kenneth Constance Loe as the final iteration of his ongoing research project Bua Cek / 破傘蕨 since 2021. The work is an exploration of tactical language and movement and its interface with the quotidian in an attempt to destabilize meaning and redeploy its potency to the realm of poetics. In the NATO/ICAO phonetic alphabet – widely used in military, aviation, and maritime contexts – Papa, Romeo, Oscar, November, Echo spells out “prone”, a position which in the military involves lying flat on the stomach to offer a stable and accurate shooting position for both supported and unsupported firing, and minimizing the shooter’s silhouette. As an adjective in everyday usage, it means “likely or liable to suffer from, do, or experience something unpleasant or regrettable”. Through a series of choreographic scores based on his own arsenal of body memory, the artist traverses landscapes and coded speech through camouflaged maneuvers.

The performance project Papa, Romeo, Oscar, November, Echo comprises two distinct formats: the performative workshop and the black box solo performance. The performative workshop was developed in the frame of SCHULE@Im_flieger 2025 – Artistic Research Through Slippery Time(s) in Vienna from March to December 2025. The black box solo performance premiered at Rakete Festival at Tanzquartier Wien in Vienna, Austria in May 2026. The piece interweaves their visual arts and performing arts practice onto the stage, combining sculptures, scenography, body memory and movement research.