Frontier Danceland’s “LEAP 2019”: Showcasing the Scholars of PULSE 2018/19
By Jocelyn Chng (930 words, four-minute read) LEAP is an annual platform from contemporary dance company Frontier Danceland, showcasing the young trainee dancers of the M1-Frontier Danceland PULSE Programme. The PULSE Programme is now in its ninth year, and since…
Book Review: “The State and The Arts in Singapore: Policies and Institutions”
By Chin Ailin (734 words, four-minute read) Commissioned by the Institute of Policy Studies of Singapore (IPS) to trace the course of cultural policy in Singapore from the 1950s to the present, The State and the Arts in Singapore: Policies and…
Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan: Between East and West, Heaven and Earth
By Stephanie Burridge (800 words, four-minute read) Sustainability, remaining fresh and engaging is challenging in the present day, content-saturated global world. Lin Hwai-min and Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan are among a handful of contemporary dance companies that have…
“Gold Rain and Hailstones”: There and Back Again
By Carmen Nge (1593 words, six-minute read) It was a Wednesday night and DPAC was packed. It’s just as well the staging of Gold Rain and Hailstones experienced a 10-minute delay because theatregoers kept streaming in well past 8:30 PM….
“orbit” by Ethos Books: the gravity and pull of insignificant destinies
By Nah Dominic (1550 words, six-minute read) “I reached for those insignificant destinies again; the smallest collision of time and incident that throws life out of orbit” – “Stillborn”, Khin Chan Myae Maung A new series by Ethos Books titled…
SIFA 2019: Top Ten Picks
By Akanksha Raja The 42nd Singapore International Festival of Arts returns this year from 16 May to 2 June 2019. In its second year under Festival Director Gaurav Kripalani, it promises a larger smorgasbord of critically acclaimed international performances as…
She Creates: Nine Years Theatre’s “FAUST/US 浮世/德”
By Daniel Teo (1400 words, six-minute read) All eyes are on Cherilyn Woo in her solo directorial debut for Nine Years Theatre (NYT), FAUST/US. It’s the first time in the Mandarin theatre company’s seven-year history that someone other than Artistic…
“Still Life” by Checkpoint Theatre: Art Recreates A Life
By Soumya Varma (900 words, four-minute read) In today’s world of Instagram, blogs, vlogs and reality TV where we gaze at other people’s lives, autobiographical theatre is unique for the intimacy created between the actors and the audience as they…
The #TenYearChallenge: M1 CONTACT Contemporary Dance Festival
Over the past decade, contemporary dance in Singapore has blossomed. One of the most dynamic initiatives that arguably catalysed this growth is the M1 CONTACT Contemporary Dance Festival. Starting out in 2010 as “CONTACT 2010: A Week of Dance”, running…
“A Disappearing Number” at NUS Arts Festival 2019: Approaching Infinity
By Eugene Koh (945 words, five minute read) Part of the NUS Arts Festival 2019, NUS Stage’s A Disappearing Number, directed by Edith Podesta, presents a world of imperfect humans aspiring to fully grasp the wonder of this world. Like…
Programming The Studios 2019: An Interview with Lynn Yang
By Selina Chong (519 words, two-minute read) The Studios is Esplanade’s longest running platform for supporting Singapore’s theatre scene. This season opens at the end of March, and the theme this year is “The weight of a stone in a…
Of Math and Art: “A Game of Numbers” with NUS Arts Festival 2019
By Elaine Chiew (1195 words, five-minute read) ‘A GAME OF NUMBERS’: Elaine Chiew interviews Mary Loh and Professor Victor Tan on the mathematically-themed NUS Arts Festival 2019 believed to be first-ever in Singapore. Organised by NUS Centre For the Arts,…
“Learning”: Memory, Precision, Uncertainty in a 5-hour Durational Performance at National Gallery Singapore
By Jocelyn Chng (440 words, three-minute read) Part of National Gallery Singapore’s special programme Performing Spaces that explores how space can be a “living organism” facilitating encounters between performers and audiences, Learning takes place over two weekends in March 2019….
Pain and Cauterisation in “Off Centre”
By Casidhe Ng (1, 543 words, eight-minute read) When the play ends (although it never really ends), Saloma sits on stage, alone, even after the house lights have been turned back on, with a look of uncertainty and shock plastered…
To V and S in “Off Centre”
By Teo Xiao Ting (1,103 words, five-minute read) Dear Saloma and Vinod, I first met the two of you seven years ago, when I was 16. I dissected your words, and tried to live alongside you in Off Centre. I…
“A Land Imagined” and The Ghosts We Forget
By Alfonse Chiu (1200 words, six-minute read) The three definitions of the word “ghost” from the Oxford dictionary are as follows: the first, “an apparition of a dead person which is believed to appear or become manifest to the living”;…
What More Ballet Might Be: William Forsythe at da:ns series 2019
By Chan Sze-Wei (687 words, four-minute read) In 1987, William Forsythe created a ballet for the Paris Opera with a young Sylvie Guillem and Laurent Hilaire in the central duet. In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated is a high-octane incarnation of…
Exploring the Past Through the Personal: “Meantime” and “Rojak Romance” at TFOOPFest
By Akanksha Raja (1181 words, five-minute read) It’s 2019 and nostalgia is in the air in Singapore, thanks to the Bicentennial fever that is sweeping the country. Standing out among the plethora of Singapore Bicentennial events is a youth-led initiative,…
Weekly S.E.A. Radar: Environmental Activism and Art; “Artists Respond: American Art and the Vietnam War”; The Fall of Art Stage
ArtsEquator Radar features articles and posts drawn from local and regional websites and publications – aggregated content from outside sources, so we are exposed to a multitude of voices in the region. Here’s a round-up of content from this week,…
C(l)ocked: “Catamite” by Loo Zihan
By Ray Langenbach (1213 words, 5-minute read) In this over-the-shoulder ‘clocking’ of Loo Zihan’s solo performance I see the silhouette of my own head looking on from the side. Having worked extensively with Zihan over the past several years, I…
“Inside Voices”: There’s Something About Malay Women
By Shanon Shah (983 words, four-minute read) I love plays with Malay women characters. Call it my Malaysian Bumiputera baggage, call it internalised Orientalism – perhaps these are two sides of the same coin – but I have long relished…
Experiencing the Ebb and Flow of “yesterday it rained salt”
By Casidhe Ng (1,068 words, five-minute read) In yesterday it rained salt, we are always surrounded by the acoustics of the sea. The beating of waves upon the shore and the receding ebb of the ocean water feels both transformative…
Letters to and from “yesterday it rained salt”
By Teo Xiao Ting (and Nabilah Said) (1,600 words, eight-minute read) Dear yesterday it rained salt, You crept up on me. After I met you that Saturday afternoon, after those initial moments of inexplicable resonance with what you presented —…
“Ayer Hitam: A Black History of Singapore”: On The Edges of History
By Iwani Mawocha (1020 words, five-minute read) The sound of djembe drums filtered out into the courtyard of Centre 42 — the signal to take our seats before the production started. The stage was arranged like the hull of a…
Enter Stage Right: Tay Tong
Tay Tong, or TT as he is affectionately known in arts circles locally and internationally, is one of Singapore’s pioneer producers and arts managers. After 30 years as the MD of TheatreWorks, TT left in April 2018. During his time…
Weekly S.E.A. Radar: Digital Public Art in Hanoi, A Mobile Library in rural Cambodia
ArtsEquator Radar features articles and posts drawn from local and regional websites and publications – aggregated content from outside sources, so we are exposed to a multitude of voices in the region. Here’s a round-up of content from this week,…
The Sensorial Trail: Experience Art through Smell, Sound and Touch at National Gallery Singapore
Art doesn’t have to be for the eyes only. As part of the Light To Night Festival 2019, National Gallery Singapore presents The Sensorial Trail, a series of artworks that draw on your other senses – those of smell, sound,…
“Jogging” To Survive: Hanane Hajj Ali at M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2019
By Stephanie Burridge (800 words, four-minute read) Metaphors abound in this complex work about living, loving and surviving. The broad canvas is a country at war. Jogging falls short of running full out, and this black clad woman has survived…
Music – a propaganda promoting the Khmer Rouge socialist identity (via the Phnom Penh Post)
Shortly after their rise to power in April 1975, the Khmer Rouge sought to change the social identity of the Khmer people. Through forced relocation, expropriation of possessions and separation of family members, the regime sought to eliminate old identities…
After a century of false dawns, the film industry is beginning to rise (via SEA Globe)
The rollercoaster ride of Indonesia’s film industry is currently cresting yet another hill in its bumpy, twisting history. Southeast Asia Globe talks with a feature moviemaker who’s taking a break from the big screen to tell stories for HBO Asia. Indonesian filmmaker…