Articles

Gerardo Calagui

Those Long Haired Nights: Filipino film highlights struggle for transgender rights (via SEA Globe)

With its true-to-life representation of transgender sex workers in Manila, Gerardo Calagui’s 2017 film Those Long Haired Nights is not afraid to court controversy. Southeast Asia Globe spoke with the Filipino director about the film and the challenges facing the LGBT+ community in his homeland. Tell me a bit about the film… The story is about three transgender women

Those Long Haired Nights: Filipino film highlights struggle for transgender rights (via SEA Globe) Read More »

Short film fest to send winner to Hollywood (via The Manila Times)

Ten bold and emotionally stirring stories have been selected as finalists the 2nd Viddsee Juree Philippines, a festival of short films that celebrates and supports filmmaking communities in Asia. A wide range of independent filmmakers from different backgrounds turned in their work for selection including more familiar names like Ma. Jhayle Ann Marie Meer and

Short film fest to send winner to Hollywood (via The Manila Times) Read More »

Cambodia Town Film Festival

Cambodia Town Film Festival presents perspectives beyond ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ (via Long Beach Post)

Kilong Ung was just a teenager when the Khmer Rouge overtook his hometown of Battambang in Cambodia. Under the new regime, he and his seven sisters, along with their parents, were forced into concentration camps, where they worked 13 hours a day on a daily ration of two tiny bowls of rice porridge and whatever

Cambodia Town Film Festival presents perspectives beyond ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ (via Long Beach Post) Read More »

dep to ong

How Dép Tổ Ong Goes From Timeless Family Keepsake to Millennial Icon (via Saigoneer)

Back in 2014, amid the weekly cycle of news, a particular image was more striking than most: Doctor and Professor Ngo Bao Chau stood in the middle of a makeshift classroom in a rural village in Thai Nguyen Province while teaching local kids. Chau is a Vietnamese-French mathematician who’s currently based at the University of Chicago, USA,

How Dép Tổ Ong Goes From Timeless Family Keepsake to Millennial Icon (via Saigoneer) Read More »

Faye Lim

Sitting in the ‘gap’: Faye Lim explores body autonomy for children (via Talking Circles)

Faye Lim dances, facilitates, performs, improvises, makes, and mothers. In Singapore, she presents works with the Strangeweather Movement Group, a collective she founded to create and perform dance works at off-stage venues around Singapore. As part of Singapore’s Contact Improvisation (CI) community, Faye has also facilitated jams and workshops in Singapore and KL, and she runs child-friendly

Sitting in the ‘gap’: Faye Lim explores body autonomy for children (via Talking Circles) Read More »

Ambitious Alignments

Book Review: “Ambitious Alignments: New Histories of Southeast Asian Art, 1945–1990”

A result of a research collaboration organised by the University of Sydney’s Power Institute in partnership with the Institut Teknologi Bandung and National Gallery Singapore, Ambitious Alignments: New Histories of Southeast Asian Art, 1945-1990 is a recently published volume of ten collected essays. It is comparable to an archeological excavation, unearthing and resurfacing forgotten, if

Book Review: “Ambitious Alignments: New Histories of Southeast Asian Art, 1945–1990” Read More »

Tuan Le

Q&A: AO Show Creative Director Tuan Le Had a Vision for Performance Art in Vietnam (via Saigoneer)

Some may say that modern performance art in Vietnam looks the way it does thanks to the works of Tuan Le and his colleagues. Almost two decades into a series of smashing theatrical successes across the country, Le invites Saigoneer into the creative power behind AO, Teh Dar, and Lang Toi. About 17 years ago, Le decided to turn his

Q&A: AO Show Creative Director Tuan Le Had a Vision for Performance Art in Vietnam (via Saigoneer) Read More »

Book Review: “Writing the Modern: Selected Texts on Art & Art History in Singapore, Malaysia & Southeast Asia”

In the vast firmament of Singaporean-Malaysian art history, no star illuminates as radiantly as T.K. Sabapathy. An art historian by training, Sabapathy initially began his career in the early 1970s by reviewing art and thereafter spent close to half a century doggedly writing art history into being in our corner of the world. Seven years

Book Review: “Writing the Modern: Selected Texts on Art & Art History in Singapore, Malaysia & Southeast Asia” Read More »

Excavations

Book Review: “Excavations, Interrogations, Krishen Jit & Contemporary Malaysian Theatre”

By Felipe Cervera (1600 words, eight-minute read) Excavations, Interrogations, Krishen Jit & Contemporary Malaysian Theatre, edited by Charlene Rajendran, Ken Takiguchi and Carmen Nge, is a long overdue resource that sheds light on important aspects of the cultural, artistic, and political histories of Malaysian contemporary theatre—and, by extension, some medullar elements of Singaporean theatre too.

Book Review: “Excavations, Interrogations, Krishen Jit & Contemporary Malaysian Theatre” Read More »

Wild Eye

Veteran Artists Team Up with Younger Generation at ‘Wild Eye’ Exhibition (via The Irrawady)

YANGON — Veteran modernists and younger generations have teamed up to exhibit their works together in Yangon. Twenty-seven modernists are displaying more than 50 works at “Wild Eye” contemporary art exhibition at OK Art Gallery in Aung San Stadium. Their works are either of purely artistic creation or they reflect the contemporary history of their

Veteran Artists Team Up with Younger Generation at ‘Wild Eye’ Exhibition (via The Irrawady) Read More »

“One Two Jaga”: Keberanian Baharu Sinema Malaysia

Penyampaian kritikan sosial atau politik dalam filem-filem Malaysia jarang berlaku melalui suasana yang berani dan mendatangkan ghairah. Malah mengkritik melalui karya secara berdepan seperti sukar untuk dilakukan. Terdapat banyak hal yang menyumbang kepada keadaan ini. Ia antara lain ialah kekangan kebebasan kreatif yang ketara dan banyak aspek perundangan serta peraturan telah menjadi rantai memasung kaki

“One Two Jaga”: Keberanian Baharu Sinema Malaysia Read More »

Cambodian FB users rage over dance ownership (via The Nation)

August 31, 2018 18:20 United Nations’ cultural agency Unesco’s Facebook page has hosted a heated debate between Cambodians and Thais over Bangkok’s proposal for the inclusion of “khon” masked dance on the agency’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list. Social network users across the border have claimed the dance was Cambodian, not Thai, in Facebook comments since

Cambodian FB users rage over dance ownership (via The Nation) Read More »

Podcast 47: TheatreWorks’ “13.13.13” and SRT The Young Company’s ‘The Fall’

Duration : 33 mins Theatreworks’ 13.13.13 and SRT’s The Young Company’s The Fall are the two works discussed in this month’s podcast. Hosts Matt Lyon and Naeem Kapadia are joined by Ann Lee, playwright, LGBTQ activist and PhD-to-be in reflecting on Shen Tan’s ‘13.13.13’, directed by Tan Shou Chen. There were strong feelings all around. Stream

Podcast 47: TheatreWorks’ “13.13.13” and SRT The Young Company’s ‘The Fall’ Read More »

Podcast 46 M1 Contact Contemporary Dance Festival 2018

Podcast 46: M1 Contact Contemporary Dance Festival 2018

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 »

Johor Arts Festival

Johor Arts Festival 2018: Top 8 Picks

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 »

Kisah Pulau Pinang (Photo Credit – JohnK)-803
John K

Ombak Potehi’s “Kisah Pulau Pinang: The Penang Story”: A Slice of Malayan History

By Akanksha Raja (620 words, four-minute read) Ombak Potehi is Ombak Ombak Art Studio’s glove puppet theatre group established in 2015, consisting of young people – all under 30 – producing and performing puppet theatre, having been trained by experts from Penang’s Beng Geok Hong Puppet Troupe. To date, they’ve written and produced three works:

Ombak Potehi’s “Kisah Pulau Pinang: The Penang Story”: A Slice of Malayan History Read More »

Scroll to Top