“Dionysus”: Suzuki Tadashi Brings Vengeance to SIFA 2019
By Kathy Rowland (642 words, three-minute read) Suzuki Tadashi is one of the brand names in the international tour circuit, whose productions have earned critical praise and inspired several generations of audiences. A decade on from his last production in…
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…
Eleven New Elements from the Asia-Pacific Region Inscribed on the List of UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage
Meeting in Mauritius until 1 December, the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage inscribed eleven elements from the Asia-Pacific region on the Lists of UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage. Among them, two elements have been added to…
Joe Sidek: “I’ve never felt more strong”
By Kathy Rowland (910 words, five-minute read) Joe Sidek will not be cowed. “Everyone thinks I’m down and depressed. I’m fine!” It’s been a challenging year for the founder of the George Town Festival. In the foreground: the removal and…
AExGTF Chats: Charlie Lim and .gif in George Town
On the closing weekend of the George Town Festival, ArtsEquator interviewed Singaporean musician Charlie Lim and indie-electronic music duo .gif who were in Penang to perform at China House, along with other Singaporean musical acts including Tabitha Nauser and Yung…
SHIFT (Your Perspective) at Esplanade’s da:ns festival 2018: A Sneak Peek in GIFs
Esplanade’s da:ns festival returns this year from 9 – 21 October. The 13-day celebration of movement features powerful performances from around the world, internationally acclaimed acts and exciting new works. Apart from ticketed performances, the festival offers free programmes, including…
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…
AExGTF Chats: The Griffith Creative Arts Room at George Town Festival
The opening weekend of the George Town Festival 2018 also saw the opening of the Griffith Creative Arts Room at Wisma Yeap Chor Ee, Penang: a room dedicated to presenting the works of creative arts from the students and faculty…
In George Town, a Proxy War for the Nation
By Kathy Rowland (1165 words, 5-minute read) Coloured ink on paper. Only a society that polices gender and sexuality can turn ordinary photos into weapons of mass gay conversion. Over the past eight iterations, the George Town Festival (GTF) has…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
SIFA 2018: Walking death’s footsteps in Zelda Tatiana Ng’s “0600”
0600 is named for the time that executions are carried out. What makes an artist take on the polarising topic of the death penalty in Singapore? Zelda Tatiana Ng has been a fixture in the Singapore performing arts scene for…
SIFA 2018: “OCD Love”‘s Dancing in the Face of Love
By Kathy Rowland (400 words, 3 minute read) “I asked her out six times in thirty seconds.” In 2013, a Youtube video by slam poet Neil Hilborn went viral. In the clip, Hilborn delivers an impassioned performance of OCD, a…
SIFA 2018: The Festival House and The Outdoors
By Akanksha Raja The Singapore International Festival of Arts 2018 takes place at different venues across the Civic District, including Victoria Theatre, its sprawling Empress Lawn, and the Esplanade Theatre. Nestled comfortably between these locations is The Arts House, dubbed…
ArtsEquator’s Picks: TEXTURES, A Weekend with Words
By Akanksha Raja Presented by The Arts House and co-commissioned by #BuySingLit, Textures – A Weekend With Words is an inaugural literary festival taking place from 9 – 11 March, chockablock with performances, workshops, book-themed exhibitions, and over 30 panel discussions,…
Same same but different: ASEAN 50 at the Singapore Writers Festival 2017
By Akanksha Raja (840 words, 8-minute read) “Language is born from imagination, and imagination is what makes language real. Without language, we have no memory: therefore, literacy (the mastery of language) is important. Our sense of language is the most…
ArtsEquator’s Picks: Southeast Asian films at SGIFF 2017
By Meta Setiawan Singapore International Film Festival (SGIFF) returns this year from 23 November to 3 December 2017, presenting an exciting array of films from Singapore, the region and all other corners of the world. ArtsEquator.com is excited to see…
To Biennale or Not To Biennale (Part II)
By Sunitha Janamohanan (2610 words, 30-minute read) 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…
To Biennale or Not To Biennale (Part I)
By Sunitha Janamohanan (2900 words, eight-minute read) This is the first 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 II here. Part…
Faith in Tokyo: A review of ‘Nadirah’ and ‘Family’
by Mio Yachita (1,260 words, 10 minute read) 2016 was a busy year for theatregoers in Japan, and an especially fruitful one for those with an interest in Malaysia. The Kyoto Experiment 2016 (22 Oct – 13 Nov) featured the…
An Atlas of Biennales: International Art Festivals in Asia Pacific 2016
By Akanksha Raja (1200 words, 12-minute read) 2016 has seen a few biennales taking place in Southeast Asia. While we didn’t manage to attend each and every one of them, we’ve been reading all we could find about them. Here is…
Ownself Check: SWF 2016 Lecture, Unwritten Country
By Pavithra Raja (831 words, 5-minute read) On November 5th, acclaimed literary figures Gwee Li Sui and Boey Kim Cheng both spoke on the topic, Unwritten Country, as part of the Singapore Writers’ Festival Lecture series. The softly lit Chamber…
Sundance of Southeast Asia: Luang Prabang Film Festival 2 – 7 Dec 2016
If you’re in withdrawal now that the 27th Singapore International Film Festival 2016 has ended, you have two days left to catch the Luang Prabang Film Festival (LPFF). Founded in 2010 by Gabriel Kuperman, the Luang Prabang Film Festival has…
When Your Privates Become Public: From Synge to M1 Fringe
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…