Tiger of Malaya by Teater Ekamatra, 12 – 23 Sept, Drama Centre Black Box In 1943, the Japanese film ‘The Tiger of Malaya’ was released. Based on the life story of Tani Yutaka, a Japanese man who lived on the east coast of Malaya, the film portrayed him as a patriotic agent who liberated the […]
Weekly Picks: Singapore (10 – 16 September 2018) Read More »
NDO – The Vietnamese Culture Week opened at Chaktomuk theatre, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on September 11. The opening ceremony was attended by the Cambodian Minister of Cults and Religion Him Chhem, Cambodian Minister of Culture and Fine Arts Phoeurng Sackona, Deputy Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Le Khanh Hai, Vietnamese Ambassador to Cambodia
Vietnamese Cultural Week opens in Cambodia (via Nhân Dân) Read More »
BoboKL Presents: Cheryl Tan with Michael Veerapen, at BoboKL, 14–15 Sept, 9:30pm Cheryl Tan is a performer better known across the border in Singapore for her performances in musical theatre productions like Forbidden City and Dick Lee’s Singapopera. See Cheryl perform before she gets pulled back to Singapore again! Admission is RM60++ (RM45++ for diners).
Weekly Picks: Malaysia (10 – 16 Sept 2018) Read More »
Duration: 25 mins Chloe C. Chotrani and Bernice Lee discuss the performances, workshops, technique classes and showcases featured in this year’s M1 Contact Contemporary Dance Festival, which spread out over three months from 15 June – 4 August 2018, as well as the Festival’s role in the landscape of contemporary dance practice and audience reception in Singapore. Chloe
Podcast 46: M1 Contact Contemporary Dance Festival 2018 Read More »
The 15th Johor Arts Festival kicked off on 1 September, and runs until 23 September 2018. One of Malaysia’s longest-running festivals, it features a variety of performances, exhibitions, workshops, talks, and activities, ranging between the traditional and contemporary; the loud and the quiet; the lighthearted and hilarious and the moving and poignant. Here are ArtsEquator’s
Johor Arts Festival 2018: Top 8 Picks Read More »
Merdeka State of Mind documentary screenings, at APW, 8 & 9 Sept, 8pm A celebration of freedom of expression in Bangsar, this festival features two nights of timely documentary screenings: the subjects of child brides in Malaysia, and the Orang Asli blockades currently under siege in Kelantan. The director for each film will be
Weekly Picks: Malaysia (3 – 9 Sept 2018) Read More »
Potehi puppet theatre is a traditional Hokkien art form brought to Southeast Asia by immigrants from southern China several centuries ago. Despite originally being performed in Hokkien, potehi came to be performed in the different languages of the region, and is practised around Southeast Asia. Ombak Potehi is Ombak-Ombak ARTStudio’s glove puppet theatre group established
AExGTF Chats: Prof Tan Sooi Beng of Ombak Potehi at George Town Festival Read More »
Duration: 35 mins At SeaShorts 2018, which took place from 1 – 5 August 2018 in George Town, Penang, we caught up with Cambodian film director, screenwriter and producer Rithy Panh, and Park Sungho, programmer for S-Express Cambodia (a selection of Cambodian short films at SeaShorts), who’s also a programmer for the Cambodia International Film
Podcast 45: On Southeast Asian Film with Rithy Panh and Park Sungho Read More »
By Bernice Lee (1300 words, five-minute read) “Asian Festivals Exchange” puts together works selected from two East Asian festivals — Yokohama Dance Collection and Seoul Dance Collection — two works performed by T.H.E. Second Company, and a work-in-progress supported by M1 CONTACT Contemporary Dance Festival and Seoul Performing Arts Festival. It is a very full
“Asian Festivals Exchange” at M1 Contact Contemporary Dance Festival 2018 Read More »
Artist-sharing: Hymen Instinct by Sonia Kwek, at Rumah Attap Library & Collective, 22 Aug, 8pm Performer Sonia Kwek, in conversation with her Malaysian collaborator Lucian, will share documentation and a new script of her solo work Hymen Instinct before the performance goes to the Asia Weekend Theatre Festival in Taiwan. The aim is to have an
Weekly Picks: Malaysia (20 – 26 Aug 2018) Read More »
The opening weekend of the George Town Festival 2018 also saw the opening of the Griffith Creative Arts Room at Wisma Yeap Chor Ee, Penang: a room dedicated to presenting the works of creative arts from the students and faculty of Griffith University, Queensland, Australia. This is the first time a university has been invited
AExGTF Chats: The Griffith Creative Arts Room at George Town Festival Read More »
The SeaShorts Film Festival ran for its second edition as the official pre-festival to the annual George Town Festival from 1st to 5th August in a radical geographical shift away from the Kuala Lumpur home of its parent organisation, Next New Wave. It showcased more than 120 short films scattered over 22 programmes in two
Three Short Films about Women at SeaShorts 2018, George Town Read More »
By Kathy Rowland (1165 words, 5-minute read) Coloured ink on paper. Only a society that polices gender and sexuality can turn ordinary photos into weapons of mass gay conversion. Over the past eight iterations, the George Town Festival (GTF) has built an international name for itself as a gem of a festival – a small,
In George Town, a Proxy War for the Nation Read More »
A white circle 10 metres in diameter greets us on entering the flexible performance space in Loft 29. I stand next to B-boy Erak Mith of Tiny Toones (Phnom Penh, Cambodia). He is locked in eye contact with Aaron Lim of D-City Rockers (Darwin, Australia) directly across the circle and I recognise the calm, unflinching
“Between Tiny Cities (រវាងទីក្រុងតូច)”: De-cyphering Conversation Read More »
Kenapa Tak Tukar Nama, at klpac, 18–19 Aug, 1:30pm This monologue follows Muslim convert Hoe Mei Ying as she navigates the complexity of identity and faith, and tackles a common question: Why have you not changed your name upon conversion? Yiky Chew plays five characters with various takes on the question, and is a performance
Weekly Picks: Malaysia (13 – 19 Aug 2018) Read More »
Top Picks of Indonesia art events in Jakarta and Solo from 13 – 19 August 2018. Indonesia is celebrating its national day this week. To celebrate the 73rd year of independence, the State Secretariat presents Indonesia Semangat Dunia, an exhibition of the presidential art collections that have been collected since the early years of President
Weekly Picks: Indonesia (13 – 19 August 2018) Read More »
By Chloe C. Chotrani (933 words, five-minute read) Closing the ninth M1 Contact Contemporary Dance Festival is the annual Binary – International Showcase: a double bill by Astrid Boons (Belgium/Netherlands) and Shamel Pitts (Israel/United States). In Vestige, an attempt to empty the body of its humanness, choreographer and performer Astrid Boons pushes the physicality of
By Bernice Lee (1100 words, six-minute read) M1 Contact Contemporary Dance Festival has become a staple of the contemporary dance scene in Singapore. It has used its resources to bring forward voices, particularly from the region, in an act of affirmation. Balancing local and international artists, bringing in projects mostly of an indie nature, this
“Off Stage” at M1 Contact 2018: Communicating Beyond The Stage Read More »
Between Tiny Cities (រវាងទីក្រុងតូច), a two-hander dance performance dovetailing b-boy vocabulary with contemporary dance, was the result of a three-year cultural exchange between Tiny Toones in Cambodia and Darwin City Rockers in Australia. It was presented at George Town Festival 2018, running over the opening weekend of 4 – 5 August. We interview choreographer Nick
AExGTF Chats: “Between Tiny Cities (រវាងទីក្រុងតូច)” at George Town Festival Read More »
This article is the second in a series of essays by students from the Singapore Management University Arts and Culture Management programme. Never had I thought that I would be working with these monstrous little creatures. Yet, there I stood on my first day of work at The Artground (TAG), watching a group of pre-schoolers
Duration: 48 min Matt Lyon and Naeem Kapadia are back on ArtsEquator’s theatre podcast, and with a bang: nearly an hour’s worth of discussion on the Singapore Theatre Festival 2018 which just ended on 22 July. They discuss Thomas Lim’s Supervision, Tan Tarn How’s Press Gang and the verbatim performance One Metre Square: Voices from Sungei
Podcast 44: Singapore Theatre Festival 2018 Read More »
Top Picks of Indonesia art events in Batu, Yogyakarta, Bandung and Jakarta from 30 July – 5 August 2018. If you’re a music lover, you might be interested in the Folk Music Festival in Batu, Jawa Timur. Claiming as the alternative cultural festival, the Folk Music Festival presents music, art, and literature at historical locations
Weekly Picks: Indonesia (28 July – 5 August 2018) Read More »
Singapore & the World — Behind the Game: Exploring History Through Assassin’s Creed, National Museum of Singapore 28 Jul 2018 Singapore and the World is a programme that focusses on the historical and contemporary connections that links Singapore to the world. The exhibition gives a behind-the-scenes look into Ubisoft Singapore’s role in Assassin’s Creed that
Weekly Picks: Singapore (23 – 29 July 2018) Read More »
There is a sublime beauty to Human Flow in how it depicts space, freedom and movement. But it is a beauty that I cannot bear to swallow. For a country whose borders have been closed to refugees since 1996, Human Flow is a passport to places even the Singaporean passport cannot access. Shot across 20 countries,
Ai Weiwei’s “Human Flow” drips through Singapore’s impermeable borders Read More »
This article is republished from the Singapore International Film Festival editorial. It is part of New Waves 2018, an annual series of screenings and dialogues with regional filmmakers. For this third edition of the New Waves series, SGIFF invites participants the festival’s Youth Jury and Critics’ programme to offer an introductory analysis on the four
The World Cup, The Japanese Occupation and Our Painful Inheritance Read More »
Hua (華) Settler Imaginary in Borneo, at Malaysia Design Archive, 19 July 8pm Academic Dr Zhou Hau Liew presents ‘Preliminary Thoughts on the Hua Settler Imaginary in Borneo: Cultural Mapping, Revolutionary Communism, and the Ideas of Chineseness’. This talk rethinks the legacy of communism in Sarawak through cultural mapping. Image: Lanfang Republic Borneo Map, source
Weekly Picks: Malaysia (16 – 22 July 2018) Read More »
By Bernice Lee (974 words, 5 minute read) I caught Astrid Boons between rehearsals in Korzo for Vestige. She’s preparing to restage the work, rehearsing with a new cast member who had thankfully been part of the original creative process. She shares that coming to Singapore is a result of happenstance: Dimo Kirilov, who presented
Astrid Boons: Belgian Choreographer brings “Vestige” to Singapore Read More »
By Kathy Rowland (2145 words, 8 minute read) 2 July 2018 – The receding brown moon on millions of Malaysians’ fingernails are a biological marker of the eight weeks since the end of the Najib administration. These past 55 days have seen stunning institutional changes, monitored by an activist public that almost, almost, makes the
What the Arts in Malaysia Needs: More Transparency, Less Intermediaries Read More »
PRESS GANG by Wild Rice 5 – 15 July 2018 Press Gang is a play presented by Wild Rice as part of the Singapore Theatre Festival. The play brings us into a newsroom that is full of crisis, from a new rumour that is emerging to a battle between power and truth. The play also
Weekly Picks: Singapore (2 – 8 July 2018) Read More »
