“Off Stage” at M1 Contact 2018: Communicating Beyond The Stage
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…
AExGTF Chats: “Between Tiny Cities (រវាងទីក្រុងតូច)” at George Town Festival
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…
SMU Series: Down the Rabbit Hole, We Go: An Intern’s Dive into the Realm of Arts for Young Audiences
This article is the second in a series of essays by students from the Singapore Management University Arts and Culture Management programme. By Jesslyn Lim (1325 words, seven minute read) Never had I thought that I would be working with…
Bonn Phum: Cambodian Village Festival
By Sunitha Janamohanan Bonn Phum, the Village Festival, now in its fifth year and attracting hordes of young Cambodians, took place from April 6 – 8 2018, in the grounds of the Kok Ampil pagoda. Founded by Lomorpich Rithy with…
“dead was the body”: Theatre Meets Breaking Meets Therapy
By Akanksha Raja (1500 words, seven-minute read) dead was the body till i taught it how to move (dwtb) is Bhumi Collective’s first production of the year, and just like their two principal works of 2017 – Every Brilliant Thing…
Ai Weiwei’s “Human Flow” drips through Singapore’s impermeable borders
By Tan Jing Ling (1010 words, six-minute read) 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…
The World Cup, The Japanese Occupation and Our Painful Inheritance
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…
Open Calls and Job Opportunities: July (Singapore)
Check out the list below to find out the list of open calls and job opportunities that are currently available in Singapore: Both Sides, Now: Volunteers Both Sides, Now is looking for volunteers to be part of their community engagement…
“Chinatown Crossings”: A Trail of Echoes
By Akanksha Raja (890 words, 5 minute read) Along the bustling roads of Chinatown and the throngs of long-time residents, local visitors and tourists, there’s an invisible, theatrical time machine that comes to life a few evenings a week, running…
Masalah Sastera Di Malaysia Baharu
Oleh Faisal Tehrani (1, 175 patah kata, 9-minit bacaan) Click here to read this article in English. Klik di sini untuk baca rencana ini dalam Bahasa Inggeris. Saya harus berjujur, kita ada masalah dengan sastera kita, dan saya jujur sahaja; saya tidak tahu apakah…
The Problem with Literature in New Malaysia
By Faisal Tehrani (1, 350 words, 7-minute read) Click here to read this article in Bahasa Melayu. Klik di sini untuk baca rencana ini dalam Bahasa Melayu. I have to be honest: we have a problem with our literature, and frankly, I…
Latiff Mohidin’s “Langkawi”: The Within and Beyond
By Gerald Sim (1,500 words, eight minute read) As with any thought-provoking installation, Latiff Mohidin’s “Langkawi” series, on show at Chan+Hori Contemporary, evokes a large range of perceptions from its audience. A cursory survey of his arca dinding will bring to…
Astrid Boons: Belgian Choreographer brings “Vestige” to Singapore
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….
What the Arts in Malaysia Needs: More Transparency, Less Intermediaries
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…
“Framed, by Adolf”: Truth as Shadow-Play
By Akanksha Raja (850 words, six-minute read) In Framed, by Adolf, playwright-director Chong Tze Chien’s fascination with Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust continues from 2016’s Starring Hitler as Jekyll and Hyde, which explored the idea of the dictator as a…
The Art and Consequence of Collaboration: Interview with Vicki Sowry and Jonathan Parsons
Presented by the National Arts Council Singapore, The Art and Consequence of Collaboration with the Australian Network for Art & Technology (ANAT) and Experimenta is a series of presentations that give an insight into the art/technology and art/science sectors in Australia,…
M1 Open Stage + DiverCity: Chiew Peishan and Liu Wen-Chun
This year, with an increased number of international programme collaborators, M1 Open Stage features innovative and exhilarating works by a diverse range of dance artists over two nights. As part of this year’s M1 Open Stage + DiverCity platform at…
27 Artists Grapple with the Fractious Politics of Malaysia (via Hyperallergic)
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Petani Semasa is a significant exhibition on contemporary art about the Patani region of Southern Thailand, that privileges local artists. Currently on display at the Ilham gallery in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the works are deeply complicated, and largely unsettling. Featuring 27 artists, the show never…
Flowing Reflections: “EARTH” at the M1 CONTACT Contemporary Dance Festival 2018
By Jocelyn Chng (960 words, 6-minute read) EARTH opens the 2018 edition of the M1 CONTACT Contemporary Dance Festival, the annual festival organised by T.H.E Dance Company. Now in its ninth year, the festival is a relatively small feature of…
Rainforest Fringe Festival 2018: Top 8 Picks
By Nur Athirah Abdullah The Rainforest Fringe Festival 2018 (RFF 2018) is less than a month away! Not to be mistaken for the Rainforest World Music Festival, one of the region’s best world music festivals, the Fringe is a cool…
The Pontianak Talks Back: Two Women Discuss Monstrous Femininity in Their Art
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…
Art That Moves: Marc Nair
Art that Moves is an occasional series where we ask artists and other creative workers to reflect on artworks, performances or events that were personally important to them. Marc Nair, poet and photographer, is producer of Note for Note: #Skintones, an…
“Fourteen” by Split Theatre: Getting Schooled
By Isaac Lim (810 words, five-minute read) At front-of-house before the doors open, a crew member encourages the audience to walk around the theatre space upon entering, and warns sternly against moving the seats. Neat rows of seats welcome the…
SMU Series: A Dance Spectator’s Perspective On Engagement
This article is the first in a series of essays by students from the Singapore Management University Arts and Culture Management programme. By Natalie Khoo Jia Ling (1060 words, seven-minute read) I’ve caught myself leaving a theatre many times unsure…
“The Singapore ‘d’ Monologues”: And Suddenly I Reflect Upon My Privilege
By Soultari Amin Farid (800 words, six-minute read) “This body… This body is dangerous. It desires, it delights, it delivers, it dances.” On 25 May, I had the pleasure of experiencing a performance of great chemistry between Deaf and disabled…
A surreal “Citizen Dog” sinks its teeth into your soul
By Corrie Tan (1,540 words, eight-minute read) Halfway through The Finger Players’ trippy, darkly comic Citizen Dog, I pause to consider the philosopher Zhuangzi’s anecdote on how we construct our realities: Once upon a time, I, Zhuangzi, dreamt I was…
Cash-strapped BACC counts on friends in deed (via The Nation)
The Bangkok Art and Culture Centre (BACC) Foundation is about to raise its profile as vice chairperson Panya Vijinthanasarn and committee secretary Chatvichai Promadhattavedi seek a meeting with the city’s unimpressed governor, Aswin Kwanmuang, about funding support and sustainable management….
The Second Breakfast Company’s “The Moon is Less Bright”: A New Phase
By Eugene Koh (1200 words, 8 minute read) The Second Breakfast Company restaging Goh Poh Seng’s The Moon is Less Bright is akin to grabbing this behemoth of a national literary relic by its horns and tackling it. The play’s…
Was a Skeptic, Still a Skeptic: A Festival-Goer’s Impressions of SIFA 2018
By Ke Weiliang (2,470 words, 10-minute read) In March 2017, Gaurav Kripalani was officially unveiled as the Festival Director for Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA) 2018 – 2020. I was over the moon, but only because a rare opportunity…
The Journey of the Blood Jade (via Myanmar Times)
A photo exhibition takes the viewer behind the curtain of Myanmar’s jade industry Myanmar jade is one of the most beautiful in the world. It is also one of the bloodiest. One of the best mines is in the war-torn Kachin…