becoming god

Melyn Chow / Frascati Producties

di 13 jan - vr 4 sep

What happens when you return to a forbidden place from your own history?

Past event

di 13 jan

vr 4 sep

Past event

Only events in our venues
di 13 jan

20:00

Try-out

Frascati, Amsterdam

Frascati 4

Past event
wo 14 jan

20:00

Try-out

Frascati, Amsterdam

Frascati 4

Past event
do 15 jan

20:00

Premiere

Frascati, Amsterdam

Frascati 4

Past event
vr 16 jan

20:00

Frascati, Amsterdam

Frascati 4

Past event
za 17 jan

20:00

Frascati, Amsterdam

Frascati 4

Past event
wo 21 jan

20:00

Frascati, Amsterdam

Frascati 4

Past event
do 22 jan

20:00

Frascati, Amsterdam

Frascati 4

Past event
vr 23 jan

20:00

Frascati, Amsterdam

Frascati 4

Past event
za 24 jan

20:00

Frascati, Amsterdam

Frascati 4

Past event
wo 4 mrt

20:00

Tourlocatie, Utrecht

Frascati Producties on tour

Theater Kikker, Utrecht

Past event
do 19 mrt

20:15

Tourlocatie, Rotterdam

Frascati Producties on tour

Theater Rotterdam

Past event
za 28 mrt

20:30

Tourlocatie, Leiden

Frascati Producties on tour

Ins Blau, Leiden

Past event
wo 8 jul

19:00

Julidans 2026

Frascati, Amsterdam

Frascati 4

Past event
do 9 jul

19:00

Julidans 2026

Frascati, Amsterdam

Frascati 4

Past event
vr 10 jul

19:00

Julidans 2026

Frascati, Amsterdam

Frascati 4

Past event
do 3 sep

20:00

Nederlands Theater Festival

Frascati, Amsterdam

Frascati 4

Past event
vr 4 sep

20:00

Nederlands Theater Festival

Frascati, Amsterdam

Frascati 4

Past event

How do we reclaim the mystical and the unexplainable from our history that has tried to erase or sanitise it? In becoming god, Melyn Chow seeks contact with the sacred other that was once kept from her.

Melyn grew up in a first-generation Christian family in Singapore. She was taught to fear her father's family temple in Malaysia, seen as unclean, spiritually dangerous, a place to be avoided. Any gods beyond the Christian ones were viewed with suspicion and treated as taboo.

becoming god emerges from a desire to explore precisely the space she was raised to reject: an inquiry that pulses with risk, tenderness, contradiction, and a longing to meet the divine on uncertain terms. In a society that has largely lost its sense of the sacred, the performance opens a compelling space for ritual, transcendence, and transformation.

Through live music, movement, and a performative score, composer Lưu Thoại Linh (Animistic Beliefs) and performers Sjaid Foncé and Nazar Rakhmanov join Melyn in a playful, devotional and unpredictable exploration of a forbidden, mystical other.

A key inspiration is Melyn’s uncle, Chow Tek Sen, a Chinese spirit medium (tang ki) who lends his body to the gods. This possession practice, known as 跳童, literally “divining youth” or “danced child”, functions as a crucial framework through which Melyn investigates identity and embodiment.

Docu installation

An important part of the research for becoming god took place in Malaysia, in the Taoist temple of Melyn’s uncle, Chow Tek Sen. Excerpts from the documentary about Melyn’s research are screened every evening in the basement of Verbond Café (Nes 71). The documentary, featuring interviews and Melyn’s solo for her uncle, adds an additional visual and sensory layer to the performance and serves as a bridge between our local context and the one in which Melyn grew up.

The installation can be visited freely before the performances, from 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.

Nomination

becoming god has been nominated for the 2026 VSCD Mime/Performance Award. In its jury report, the production is praised as "a compelling theatrical ritual" that draws audiences into a disorienting and deeply sensory experience from the very first moment.

"Becoming God does not feel like an attempt, but an act: a collective invitation to embrace not-knowing and, perhaps, to discover the divine within yourself."

Duration: 60 mins.
Docu installation each night from 7:00 p.m.
Podiumpas is not valid for NTF & Julidans performances.

Part of

Credits

concept & direction Melyn Chow in collaboration with performers Nazar Rakhmanov, Sjaid Foncé and sound designer Lưu Thoại Linh advisor & end direction Floor van Leeuwen light advisor Martin Kaffarnik styling advisor Sjaid Foncé sandals design Tisha larin x Softrot installation video documentary in collaboration with 邹德盛, 济公 editor Caleb Ming additional sound design Mina Tomic campaign image Bianca Pilet special thanks 邹德盛, 济公, Ruth Borg, Jon Silber, Hidde Aans-Verkade, Pleuni Veen, Paulina Prokop, Loes Schakenbos, Erik van de Wijdeven, ImPulsTanz ATLAS 2025 (Guy Cools) and Club Raum

About Melyn Chow

Melyn Chow (she/her) grew up in Singapore and currently works in Dutch mime, physical theatre, contemporary dance and performance. She studied at both Lasalle College of the Arts (SG) and the Mime Opleiding at the Amsterdam University of the Arts (2022). As a performer, Melyn has worked with dance company RAW Moves (SG) and with creators such as Boogaerdt/VanderSchoot, Marina Abramovic, Nicole Beutler, Davy Pieters, Dries Verhoeven and Susanne Kennedy.

Melyn works within mime, contemporary dance and performance, carrying out research into the ‘female gaze’, sensuality versus shame and the erotic as a source of power. Her research often begins from the body in relation to movement, space and image.

Melyn has been affiliated with Frascati Productions since 2023. Together with Kim Zeevalk, she presented the “mime porn” video installation I happen to be doing this for you (2023) and Shaking shame (2023-2025) here in early 2023.