Country Archives

Activist Lena Hendry fined RM10,000 over unapproved documentary screening

KUALA LUMPUR: A human rights activist has been fined RM10,000 Wednesday by the magistrate’s court here for screening a Sri Lankan civil war documentary which had not been approved by the Censorship Board. Magistrate Mohd Rehan Mohd Aris sentenced Lena Hendry, 32, after she was found guilty of screening the documentary. Read the rest of […]

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Singapore’s first portable, pop-up theatre goes overseas

SINGAPORE: This month, theatre group Drama Box will be presenting its brand of community theatre to Europe – and it’s bringing its very own pop-up tent, too. After travelling around various estates in Singapore, the company’s portable GoLi – The Moving Theatre is making its overseas debut at the International Community Arts Festival (ICAF) in

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Happy Ending To Beauty and the Beast Controversy in Malaysia

PETALING JAYA: Just like the fairy tale itself, the controversy over Disney’s live-action film Beauty and the Beast will have a happy ending in Malaysia. According to an industry insider, the movie has been approved for release in Malaysia with a rating of PG13 from March 30 onwards. The movie will be shown in its

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10 great modern Southeast Asian films

A rough guide to contemporary cinema from Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines and other parts of Southeast Asia. Southeast Asia is an expansive region that produces diverse cinema, much of which now reaches the international festival circuit. Yet only a relatively limited number of titles receive overseas commercial release, usually based on the director’s prestige or

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MAD Museum of Art and Design shut after owing $1.7m in rent

“Once the home of works by local and international artists alike, the MAD Museum of Art and Design in Tanglin Road abruptly shut its doors earlier this month, The Straits Times has learnt. When ST visited the museum yesterday, a notice by the High Court was on display at the entrance, stating that nothing on

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Overstuffed: Martin McDonagh’s “The Pillowman” by Pangdemonium

By Matthew Lyon (513 words, 5-minute read) I first saw Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman – in which writer Katurian is questioned by police-state detectives about a series of child-killings that mimic the plots of his stories – in Singapore Repertory Theatre’s 2007 production. Back then, I found the play too full of ideas that didn’t

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20 – 26 March 2017: Singapore

Alena Murang: Talk and Performance, 22 and 23 Mar, LASALLE College of the Arts LASALLE College of the Arts hosts a performance and talk by Borneo visual artist and musician Alena Murang across two days (22 & 23 March 2017). On 22 March at 7:30pm, Alena shares stories, myths and analogies of fast-fading tribes – Kelabit,

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Class Conflict: “Those Who Can’t, Teach” by The Necessary Stage

By Marcus Yee (904 words, 9-minute read) The Necessary Stage’s most recent production, Those Who Can’t, Teach makes a strange journey to its eventual arrival as a “play that salutes teachers”. For one, Haresh Sharma’s script distances itself from the conventional narratives of a teacher’s struggle over a difficult student, with the student’s future success

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20 – 26 March 2017: Indonesia

Top Picks in Jakarta, Bandung, Yogyakarta and Bali 20-26 March 2017 JAKARTA Monopolis, 25 March 2017, Black Box Theater Salihara, Jakarta A performance by Komunitas Seni Hitam Putih, Monopolis highlights economic and social issues in Indonesia. These issues are presented through the bodies of the actors in this non-verbal performance. This performance is also the

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Solo Rites: Asian Degustation Menu Causes Indigestion

By Kathy Rowland (529 words, 5 minute read) Solo Rites: Seven Breaths by Jen Shyu, a highly acclaimed experimental jazz vocalist from the US, was staged at the Performing Arts Meeting in Yokohama on 14 February 2017. Shyu, who is of East Timor-Taiwanese ancestry, has spent years conducting research and learning the traditional musical and

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Sydney Festival 2017: Dancing new lives Keith Gallasch: EkosDance Company: Cry Jailolo; Balabala

“Eko Supriyanto’s internationally travelled Cry Jailolo featured in the Darwin Festival and Adelaide’s OzAsia in 2016, in this year’s Sydney Festival and will appear shortly in Brisbane’s new Supercell Dance Festival and Melbourne’s Asia TOPA, a three-month celebration of Asian and South-East Asian performing arts. Also in the Sydney Festival was the premiere of Balabala,

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PETA’s “The Care Divas” and the Ethics of Care

Written by Liza Magtoto with music by Vince de Jesus and directed by Maribel Legarda, The Care Divas revolves around the struggle of five Filipino caregivers in Israel. However, this struggle is a mere background to the real struggle with their sexual identities as bakla (Filipino gay men) in this predominantly Jewish nation. (Read more

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Understanding Haresh Sharma: 5 things to know about Singapore’s premier playwright

5. IF YOU WANT TO UNDERSTAND SINGAPORE, JUST WATCH HIS PLAYS That statement may sound a bit presumptuous, but there’s a grain of truth to it. After all, Sharma has written more than a hundred plays since the late 1980s, many of which have become classics, published in books, taught in schools, and staged and

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13 – 19 March 2017: Indonesia

Top Picks in Jakarta, Bandung, and Bali 13-19 March 2017 JAKARTA Fast Fashion – The Dark Side of Fashion, Now – 9 April 2017, Gudang Sarinah Ekosistem, Jakarta Presented as part of Goethe Institut Indoesia IKAT/eCUT project, Fast Fashion – The Dark Side of Fashion, invites audiences to view the textile and fashion industry, as

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Toy Factory’s “Prism” refracts social reality

By Akanksha Raja (630 words, 6-minute read) Penned by writer Goh Boon Teck, Prism was conceived in 2003 under a commission by Japanese theatre company Kageboushi, to become a grand-scale million-dollar touring production with performers from six Asian countries, featuring a variety of Asian artforms (such as martial arts and gamelan music). Essentially, Prism tells

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13 – 19 March 2017: Singapore

The Vault: Becoming Mother, 19 Mar, 4pm, Centre 42 Dance practitioners and researchers Dr. Nidya Shanthini Manokara and Jocelyn Chng investigate motherhood in its various manifestations – from creating life to producing creative work. Grounded in their dance practices of bharatanatyam and ballet respectively, Shanthini and Jocelyn respond to themes of creation and creativity in

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Staircase artwork by Singaporean Priyageetha Dia depicts a reverse-Midas scenario

“And leaving gold in a public area–of course it would be bait. Not so much for thieves, but the ensuing discourse, already overdetermined, of whether it was authorised, legal, permissible, safe. MP’s and Town Council officials weighing in, sandpapering the gold with their pronouncements more than the slipper-soles of the residents who actually use the

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How Sensitive is this Banner Artwork by Pangrok Sulap, Really?

Earlier today Malaysian landscape architect, Ng Sek San uploaded several images of Pangrok Sulap’s artwork, a collective of woodcut print pieces that had been removed from an exhibition for being err… too sediyes. To read the rest of this article click here. Tags: censorship

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Belasungkawa Rohani Yousoff: Pentas, Kelas dan Kertas

Oleh Shahrul Mizad Ashari dan Fasyali Fadzly (774 patah kata, 10 minit bacaan) Rohani Yousoff atau lebih senang dipanggil dengan Kak Ani bagi penggiat teater merupakan salah seorang tokoh teater terpenting negara. Sumbangannya tidak terhad dalam bidang teater praktik tetapi juga dalam bidang akademik. Beliau yang merupakan rakan seangkatan Ahmad Yatim, Faridah Merican, Rahim Razali

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Kochi: the City and its Biennale

Don’t all Biennales compete with the cities they are sited in? It’s certainly true of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale in Kerala, a state located on the south-western coast of India. Set largely in the increasingly gentrified Fort Kochi, the biennale also takes on the additional name of a first A.D. port identified in Greco-Roman and Tamil

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Cosmologizing Social Evil in Dulaang Up’s “Faust”

Dulaang UP’s current production, Rody Vera’s Filipino adaptation of Faust, directed by José Estrella, at once seeks to stay true to the spirit of and attempts to contemporize Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s famous Manichean drama that was resolutely rooted in the Romantic vision of its own time.

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Warming Up to Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s ‘Fever Room’

In many of Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s films, the membrane that separates dream from reality is a porous one. In Syndromes And A Century, snatches of dialogue are repeated, with slight variations, as if to recreate the sensation of déjà vu. In Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, a long lost son returns

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Podcast 11: Cloud Gate 2, “A Triple Bill”

Duration: 21 minutes Dance practitioners and educators Stephanie Burridge and Susan Sentler discuss Cloud Gate 2‘s A Triple Bill, including the interplay of music and choreography, references to Martha Graham’s aesthetics, and the many ways bodies can “carve the architecture of a space”. Cameo mentions of other dance groups and productions in this podcast review

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6 – 12 March 2017: Singapore

Family Secrets – A Date With Friends 2017 by The Necessary Stage, 10-12 Mar, Esplanade Theatre Studio The Necessary Stage’s Theatre for Seniors presents Family Secrets, a double bill of well-loved plays by Cultural Medallion winner Haresh Sharma, about two families encountering change through illness afflicting their senior members, and how they rise above the challenge

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Learning how the art world works with Sarah Thornton at Art Fair Philippines

Learning how the art world works with Sarah Thornton at Art Fair Philippines Read More »

The Phnom Penh Post Guide to the Cambodia International Film Festival

For the first time, this year’s edition will be held in the spring, where Eloy expects it to remain in coming years. The lineup is an intoxicating mix of local and regional films, with Western offerings sprinkled throughout, as well as a celebration of local music, arts and dance. Because of the range of films,

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6 – 12 March 2017: Indonesia

Top Picks in Jakarta and Bandung 6-12 March 2017 JAKARTA Of Horizon Landscape, 6 March 2017, 7 PM, Hall B – Gudang Sarinah Ekosistem, Jakarta Of Horizon Landscape is a performance art by artists involved in the 69 Performance Club, a study platform for performance art created by Forum Lenteng. A landscape can be

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Graffiti and Street Art Thrive In a Rundown Phnom Penh Neighborhood

Graffiti in Cambodia has not historically been very common, but that’s changing fast due to the city’s relatively young and increasingly urban and networked population. While many tags are done by people passing through or immigrants who live here, locals are discovering the joys and thrills of tagging as well. Nowhere can you see this more

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Dancers Gather

Singapore-based dancer-choreographer and scholar Stephanie Burridge is anxiously awaiting the proofs for her tenth book, but she’ll find time to fly into Canberra for a big dance summit.

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To Biennale or Not To Biennale (Part II)

This is the second of a two-part essay on origins and rise of biennales within the context of Malaysia’s aspirations for a world-class international visual art mega-exhibition. Read Part I here. Part II Increasing scholarly focus has been directed on the biennale trend over the past two decades, along with the rise in prominence of

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