By Corrie Tan (2043 words, 15-minute read) It was January 26, 1907, a Saturday night in Dublin, Ireland. Audience members, rowdy and revolted, were pouring out of the Abbey Theatre after the premiere of playwright J. M. Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World. These riots would continue throughout the play’s week-long run, with the […]
When Your Privates Become Public: From Synge to M1 Fringe Read More »
Tags: A Yellow Bird K Rajagopal Singapore International Film Festival
Production Talk with K Rajagopal on ‘A Yellow Bird’ Read More »
Malaysian political cartoonist Zulkiflee Anwar Ulhaque, known as Zunar, speaks with the New York Times about the dangers of self-censorship, and continuing make art in the face of possible imprisonment.
NYT: A Malaysian Political Cartoonist on Facing His Fears, and Prison, for Art Read More »
By Akanksha Raja (530 words, 5-minute read) Blue Bean Productions’ maiden show Dear Jay was spawned from a series of e-mail exchanges between producer and lead actor Benedict Leong and playwright Euginia Tan, about personal experiences coping with mental illness. They had met while working on the Twenty-Something Theatre Festival in June 2016, him as assistant producer of the
Preview: Dear Jay by Blue Bean Productions Read More »
Duration: 30 minutes Michael Ng, who reviewed the 20th Anniversary production of Family for bakchormeeboy joins podcast co-hosts Kathy Rowland and Matt Lyon in a discussion about the staging history of Family, and the relevance of the play today. Opening music by Caspar Productions. Stream Podcast 7: To download Podcast 7, right-click here and select ‘Save Link
Podcast 7: The Second Breakfast Company’s Family by Leow Puay Tin Read More »
Projek Suitcase 2016: Metamorphosis by Teater Ekamatra 30 Nov – 4 Dec, from 7:30pm In the latest edition of Teater Ekamatra, 16 performing artists or performance makers across disciplines and genres have been invited to stage 8 monologues over 2 days at Aliwal Arts Centre. Exploring a multitude of issues and themes, the festival is
28 Nov – 4 Dec 2016: Singapore Read More »
Talk Prof. Dr. Ghulam-Sarwar Yousof: Kelantan Shadow Play: Some Challenges, 29 Nov, KL Following a brief introduction to the Kelantan shadow play, principally in terms of dramatic content, this lecture will touch upon socio-political as well as religious issues surrounding this genre, questions related to State policies and other factors which, in recent decades, have
28 Nov – 4 Dec 2016: Malaysia Read More »
Thai art platform Onarto explores the late King’s prolific art practice, including sculpture, music and photography.
The Art of Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej Read More »
Meta’s Top Picks in Bali, Jakarta, and Bandung from 28 November – 4 December Meta is a freelance arts administrator and a traveling yogi. She spent 16 years of her life as an art practitioner and the last few years as an arts administrator. Her first love in the arts is dance. She left her heart
28 Nov – 4 Dec 2016: Indonesia Read More »
By Matt Lyon (482 words, 6-minute read) Ayad Akhtar’s Disgraced, a modern tragedy about the fall of an apostate Muslim-American lawyer, is a notable inheritor of the realist theatrical tradition. Sadly, it inherits the worst traits: Ibsen’s machine-cut-jigsaw plotting and Shaw’s parliamentary-debate dialogue. To be fair, Akhtar recognises that his play might engender a “stilted
Low Octane: SRT’s Disgraced Read More »
By Kathy Rowland (988 words, 10-minute read) Spoiler Alert: If you want to enjoy Interchange in all its suspenseful glory, watch the film before you read this review. The 27th Singapore International Film Festival opened last week with the Asian premiere of the Malaysian film, Interchange. Dain Iskandar Said’s third feature is a ‘fantasy noir
Don’t Say Cheese: Interchange Read More »
Culture360’s report on the recent Asiatopia Performance Conference held in Bangkok. Tags: SEA Thailand
Asiatopia Performance Conference 2016 | An open space for sharing Read More »
Umapagan Ampikaipakan catches up with Lionel Shriver at the Singapore Writers Festival 2016 and together they discuss her controversial comments on cultural appropriation and the future of America under Trump.
BFM Malaysia: Podcast interview with Lionel Shriver Read More »
Tags: Susan Sentler The Substation
Review of Signs of a Nest with Susan Sentler Read More »
The State of Humanity: An Evening with AC Grayling, 22 Nov 2016, Bobo Kuala Lumpur Our world is in turmoil again: and yet there has also been great progress in the state of humankind over the last four centuries. Can we learn from the past to understand the present, and to solve its problems?
21 – 27 Nov: Malaysia Read More »
Artsy.com’s Frances Arnold discusses the 11th Shanghai Biennale curated by Delhi-based artist group Raqs Media Collective. Tags: SEA
Shanghai Biennale 2016 Ditches Dichotomy between East and West Read More »
Jasmine Curtis-Smith won Best Actress for her role in the movie Baka Bukas, while the gay-themed coming-of-age flick 2 Cool 2 Be 4gotten was declared Best Picture. (ABS-CBN) Tags: LGBT
Two LGBT-themed films win big at Philippines Cinema One Awards Read More »
By Matthew Lyon (480 words, 6-minute read) The Necessary Stage’s Best Of (His Story) is a response to the company’s 2013 monologue, Best Of that detailed a day in the life of a young Malay-Muslim woman. The project of the original piece was to endow a racial stereotype with such verisimilitude that when she fails her
Crisis of Masculinity: Best Of (His Story) Read More »
Thai news portal The Nation reports on Indonesian painter Gatot Indrajati’s win in the 2016 UOB Southeast Asian Painting of the Year competition, based in Singapore. Tags: UOB Painting of the Year
Indonesian artist wins 2016 UOB Southeast Asian art prize Read More »
In the Bangkok Post, Philip Cornwel-Smith shares an overview of the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival 2016.
Healing beauty’s wounds (at the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival 2016) Read More »
By Bilqis Hijjas (1536, 20-minute read) The recent US election has Bilqis Hijjas reflecting on the politics of minority safe spaces and her Southeast Asian identity. In the weeks since the US election, I have had ample opportunity to ponder the nature of social unity and division. Within the broadly Democratic enclave of New York
Safe Space: Southeast Asia Choreolab Read More »
Akanksha’s Top Picks in Singapore from 21 – 27 November 2016 Akanksha is Assistant Editor at ArtsEquator. She grew up in Singapore and graduated from LASALLE College of the Arts in 2014. She gladly invites event recommendations at akanksha(at)artsequator.com, and in the meantime, here are a few shows she’s looking out for this week: Cari Makan by Hatch Theatrics, 24
21 – 27 Nov: Singapore Read More »
Duration: 27 minutes Choreographer and performance makers Susan Sentler and Chan Sze Wei recently participated in the Esplanade’s da:ns lab 2016 workshop, facilitated by daniel kok. Unlike previous workshops, in which processes of making were central, this year’s lab enshrined the viewer’s gaze. We talk with Susan and Sze Wei about their experiences during the three-day
Podcast 6: da:ns lab – What You See Is Not What I Meant Read More »
Meta’s Top Picks in Bali, Jakarta, and Bandung from 21 November – 27 November Meta is a freelance arts administrator and a traveling yogi. She spent 16 years of her life as an art practitioner and the last few years as an arts administrator. Her first love in the arts is dance. She left her
21 – 27 Nov 2016: Indonesia Read More »
By Akanksha Raja (608 words, 6-minute read) Speculative fiction (or spec-fic) is an umbrella term for a number of literary genres including science fiction, fantasy, alternate history, magical realism, and horror. It’s the term for all those movies and books that for most of the 20th century used to be typified as the domain of
SWF 2016 Panel: Southeast Asian Speculative Fiction Read More »
The Philippine Educational Theatre Association’s The Tempest Reimagined (11 Nov – 4 Dec 2016) fuses the survivor stories of 2013′ Typhoon Hainan/Yolanda, which claimed 6000 lives, with Shakespeare’s classic tale of a catastrophic storm and its aftermaths. Read Murphy Report’s interview with Marsha Roddy, the Production Designer.
PETA’s The Tempest Reimagined Read More »
