Critics Live (on Telegram!): M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2022
Critics Live! is a critics-led programme series created by ArtsEquator to give arts audiences an insight into how critics formulate their responses to performances. In this session, join critics Lee Shu Yu, Matthew Lyon and Naeem Kapadia in a post-show…
SEE WHAT SEE: SEA AT SGIFF 2021
By ants chua, Ruby Thiagarajan and Janiqueel (1,200 words, 4-minute read) In this edition of See What See, we review three films made by Southeast Asian directors and featuring Southeast Asia currently showing at the Singapore International Film Festival 2021…
ANCER Lab 03 Manila: How arts managers are surviving COVID-19
By Wennie Yang (1,200 words, 4-minute read) Pandemic restrictions have put arts and cultural workers and institutions in a bind: choosing between sustaining their missions at times of a global pandemic or ceasing operations altogether. How have Southeast Asian arts…
SEE WHAT SEE: BOYS’ LOVE (BL) DRAMAS
By Lainie Yeoh I grew up in an era where queer films were rare exceptions and it was your holy gay-af duty to watch all the ones you could access. Yes, even if they’re mostly about white people processing their…
Shock Horror: The Southeast Asian monsters we love
ArtsEquator chats with five writers about their favourite horror characters and monsters from Southeast Asian lore and mythology. We then asked two Singapore artists, Natalie Christian Tan and Divyalakshmi, to respond with a custom illustration based on the replies. Singapore…
Performance Making during a Pandemic: Of Innovation, Form and Embeddedness
By Adriana Nordin Manan (1,000 words, 3-minute read) If arts panel discussions are meant to reflect the times, “Critical Responses to Performance-Making in A Post-Pandemic World” positioned itself well: at this stage of the pandemic, it was less about open-ended…
BIPAM 2021: Delight, despair, dialogue and the despot
By Nabilah Said (1,800 words, 6-minute read) I’ve never actually attended the Bangkok International Performing Arts Meeting (BIPAM). This year, the pandemic allowed me to, as BIPAM offered a five-day digital programme full of showcases, talks and other activities. It…
OPEN CALL: Southeast Asian Arts Censorship Documentation
<Deadline extended to 15 October 2021> ArtsEquator invites applications for the position of Researcher for a regional arts censorship documentation and publication project it is piloting. The programme runs from Jan 2022 – Dec 2023. There are six positions available,…
Meeting Point 2021: The cultural worker in a time of social change
By Wennie Yang (2,000 words, 8-minute read) Laptop fully charged, professional Zoom background selected – Meeting Point 2021 organised by Mekong Cultural Hub and its partners took place virtually between 20 to 22 May 2021. Artists, cultural intermediaries, academics, and…
Podcast 87: Southeast Asian Producers
Earlier this year Producers SG launched the Producers SG Directory, an online directory of independent producers and arts managers working in Singapore and around Southeast Asia, which it hopes can become a starting point for future collaborations and projects in…
SEE WHAT SEE (Mar 2021): GENRE FICTION
By Joel Tan Welcome back to See What See! It’s our monthly round-up of interesting stuff by Singapore and regional makers that you can stream right here on the Internet. In this edition, I thought I’d pay a little attention…
10 Things You Didn’t Know About Dikir Barat
Most Singaporeans recognise traditional artforms such as Bharatanatyam, wayang kulit and wushu. However, there are many other interesting forms which may not be as known, especially to the younger generation. 10 Things is a series of three short…
Scene and Heard: Ritirong Jiwakanon, Theatre Designer
(1,350 words, 5-minute read) My name is Ritirong Jiwakanon. And my nickname – all Thai people have nicknames – is Hong. I live in Bangkok. I teach in Chulalongkorn University, in the Faculty of Arts. Actually originally I’m from Yala…
ArtsEquator, Deadline Now
by Kathy Rowland ArtsEquator sometimes feels like a mythical creature. Looking back over the past 4 years, it takes the shape of a unicorn, a joyful improbability. With Covid-19, it can weigh like an albatross, cash flow statements instead of…
Seasons of Love: Southeast Asia-style
It started out as a “small project” amongst friends. Peter Ong, a musical theatre performer based in Malaysia, wanted to do a recording of the song Seasons of Love, from the musical Rent by Jonathan Larson, to create a message of…
“No. 60”: Klunchun unmasks the Khon
By Katrina Stuart Santiago (936 words, 6-minute read) The past as a point of reference for contemporary cultural work is not new, and neither is the need to rethink it, reconsider it, or respond to it. Anyone who works in…
Thanapol Virulhakul’s “The Retreat”: Dance, Uncontained
By Amitha Amranand (1,350 words, 5-minute read) Thai dancer-choreographer Thanapol Virulhakul is certainly not the first artist to wonder whether art could become more of a part of our daily life nor to attempt through his art to make it…
International Women’s Day: Inspiring Women
By ArtsEquator For International Women’s Day, ArtsEquator asked 11 women arts leaders in SEA to tell us about a woman who has inspired, supported or mentored them on their arts journey. Their stories recall mothers, bosses, Hollywood directors and an…
8 Must-Visit Arts And Culture Festivals In Singapore In 2022
It has been a whirlwind 2 years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This pesky virus has wreaked havoc on many Singaporeans’ travel plans, including ours. With uncertainty continuing to loom over the travel bubble agreements between the various Southeast Asian…
Progress at work: “Forward Shift” at da:ns festival
By Bernice Lee (1,507 words, 7-minute read) Forward Shift, a new platform for works-in-progress within Esplanade’s da:ns festival, begins with much fanfare. Members of the public were treated to three performance experiments featuring artists whose artistic and audience development have…
BACC: Whose art centre is it anyway?
By Siriwat Pokrajen (1,180 words, 6-minute read) Anyone following the news about the Thai art scene must have already known about all the rough storms the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre (BACC) has been sailing through in the past couple…
Podcast 61: The Media Landscape in Thailand
Duration: 20 min In our latest podcast, Thai theatre critic Amitha Amranand gives a comprehensive overview of the media landscape in Thailand, discussing the impact of the political and legal system on the arts and the paradoxical freedom that arts…
Asian Arts Media Roundtable 2019: When Asian Critics Meet
By Akanksha Raja and Ke Weiliang (1,444 words, 6-minute read) The inaugural Asian Arts Media Roundtable (AAMR) took place between 24 to 25 May 2019 at LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore. Organised by ArtsEquator, the two-day gathering of over…
ArtsEquator’s Top 10 Picks at the Performing Arts Meeting 2019
Established in 1995, the Tokyo Performing Arts Market (TPAM) was created to be a platform to network Japanese artists with producers and funders. 24 years later, TPAM has expanded in scope and purpose, to include live performance, panel discussions and…
Padmini Chettur’s “Varnam” and Pichet Klunchun’s “I Am A Demon”: An Instructive Contrast
By Bilqis Hijjas (975 words, four-minute read) If you have ever felt that classical Indian dance is too melodramatic – if you have ever rolled your eyes at a dancer’s fervid abhinaya, or a poem narrator’s extravagant diction – or…
On The Level with Theatre Students of Taiwan and Thailand (via The Nation)
A new Taiwan-Thailand drama school collaboration is as delectable as pineapple tarts. One of the joys of attending a student theatre work – when it’s not the typical graduation project for which many of the aspiring artists have to do…
Biennale seen posing challenges for artists (via The Nation)
The Bangkok Art Biennale beginning on October 19 will have as its theme “Beyond Bliss”. The event puts the Thai capital along cities around the world, from Berlin to Beijing, that host biennials, bringing together creative minds to construct their…
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…
“Pratthana: A Portrait of Possession”: Of Politics and Desire
By Amitha Amranand (1225 words, six-minute read) Everyone is always watching and being watched in Pratthana: A Portrait of Possession, the latest play by Japanese director Toshiki Okada. The play begins with a Narcissus-like image—a young man gazes into the…
Who pays for art? (via Bangkok Post)
Should museums be funded by the state or by private sponsors? The question looms large with the current problems at Bangkok Art and Culture Centre (BACC), the largest publicly-funded art gallery in the country — and with the rise of many…