JENG JENG JENG: Singapore Theatre Year In Review 2021
JENG JENG JENG…! Year in Review is back! Where did 2021 go? How did the year unravel, and where have we arrived at? In a year where the arts has had to acquiesce to multiple rules, hopeful for a return…
Reframing The Mental Health Discourse ‘With Time’
By Isaac Tan (1,262 words, 4-minute read) CW: Mentions of issues about mental health and suicide. For his directorial and playwriting debut, Drama Box’s resident artist, Chng Yi Kai, wants to reframe the discourse around mental health. This might seem…
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…
Cakap-Cakap: Interview with Jo Kukathas for Air Con
We cakap-cakap (chit-chat) with Jo Kukathas about The Instant Café Theatre Company’s upcoming screening of Air Con, an award-winning 2008 play written by Shanon Shah. The play revolves around the murder of a sex worker near an elite boys school…
The working processes of artists: Grace Kalaiselvi
Theatremaker Grace Kalaiselvi talks about her journey in theatre, the Tamil theatre scene and issues of diversity and representation in Singapore theatre in this video, titled Creating as a Tamil Artist in Singapore, directed and conceptualised by LASALLE students Nur…
The working processes of artists: Bani Haykal
Artist, composer and musician Bani Haykal shares about his video work Trouble With Harmony, created in collaboration with art critic and writer Lee Weng Choy, as well as his other experimentations with text and music. In this video, directed and…
Fragments of History: Loc Vang, the Yellow music singer from Hanoi
By Duong Nguyen Thuy (800 words, 3-minute read) It was perhaps the melancholy of history that was the most palpable presence in the livestream action Fragments of History, which I organised as part of Mekong Cultural Hub’s Mini-Meeting Point held…
Cakap-Cakap: Interview with Salty Xi Jie Ng
In this month’s Cakap-Cakap (chit-chat), ArtsEquator speaks with artist Salty Xi Jie Ng, whose most recent project, Not Grey: Intimacy, Ageing & Being, excavated what intimacy means for older Singapore women (hint: it’s not all about sex!). The digital experience, comprised…
The frenemy’s handshake: The Singapore Trilogy as political theatre
By Clarissa Oon (2,650 words, 8-minute read) My phone vibrated one night, with a notification that Singapore political party Workers’ Party (WP) was premiering a live video on Instagram. Curious, I tuned in – digital and social media being the…
The performing arts industry of Malaysia is drowning
By Joe Hasham (986 words, 2-minute read) As many parts of Southeast Asia are hit by recurrent waves of Covid 19 infections, arts industries across the region face imminent collapse due to prolonged closures and scant state support. In Malaysia,…
Drama Lessons: Key takeaways from the SDEA Theatre Arts Conference 2021
By Sarah Tang The much-anticipated SDEA Theatre Arts Conference came to a close on 30 May after nine days of workshops, masterclasses and presentations by theatre practitioners and drama educators from 14 countries including India, Greece, United Kingdom (UK), Singapore…
Expand, Exchange, and Beyond: A reflection of the Asian Arts Media Roundtable 2021 at SIFA
By Gladhys Elliona It was a laid-back day at the end of April, when I got the email from ArtsEquator informing me that I had gotten into the Asian Arts Media Roundtable (AAMR) at the Singapore International Festival of Arts…
_T0701_ by Zeugma: How power mutates
Nabilah Said speaks to Safuan Johari, Rizman Putra and Brandon Tay of Zeugma on their current show _T0701_ (say “toyol”, it’s much more fun), currently available via video-on-demand at the Singapore International Festival of Arts. The show explores a pseudo-futuristic…
Who’s Afraid of the VOD?: Highlights of SIFA On Demand
Let’s face it. In the early days of the pandemic, we mourned for live theatre. Zoom theatre felt like the next best thing, if not quite the real thing. And yet, that period was also one of great experimentation, and…
8 online programmes not to be missed at SDEA Theatre Arts Conference
The SDEA Theatre Arts Conference is back in 2021 with a fully-online programme, featuring presentations, workshops and masterclasses responding to the theme of Creative Disruption: Exploring New Ground. The conference, first started in 2011, is an international platform for artists,…
Cakap-Cakap: Interview with Serene Chen and Krish Natarajan
In the latest of our Cakap-Cakap series, ArtsEquator chats with Serene Chen and Krish Natarajan who star in Singapore Repertory Theatre (SRT)’s new play, The Sound Inside, written by by award-winning playwright Adam Rapp. The Sound Inside turns the spotlight…
A few walks-with: Vel Vel: A Sonic Walk and more
By Vithya Subramaniam (1,961 words, 8-minute read) We’ve taken more walks these days, haven’t we? Walking isn’t new to us. There hasn’t been a time when we were not walking. But this simple universal act has found new meanings over…
Pelesits And Where To Find Them: A conversation with NADA and Teater Ekamatra
By ila Many of us grew up with ghost stories. For some of us, it’s very much part of our belief system that we share the world with other presences. (If you’re interested, I wrote a speculative text about the…
A predestined fate: Nine Years Theatre’s Oedipus
By Patricia Tobin (665 words, 4-minute read) The story of Oedipus is undoubtedly known to all. From the classic Sophocles’ play to Freudian theory, this Ancient Greek myth has bled into our cultural consensus over a few millennia. Yet, Nine…
Cakap-Cakap: Interview with Charlinda Pereira and Rebekah Sangeetha Dorai for subTITLED 1.0
ArtsEquator chats with producer and production stage manager, Charlinda Pereira and actress, Rebekah Sangeetha Dorai about their upcoming work subTITLED 1.0 by Bridging The Gap (BTG). The play tells the intertwining stories of three women, an activist, an arts intern…
Festival Forum: Meeting-In-Progress at National Gallery Singapore
Where can we find each other? And where do we go from here? Happening on Saturday, January 23 2021, Festival Forum: Meeting-In-Progress discusses ideas, processes and ways forward in this new year of not-so-new normals. Both an agitation and undulation…
Cakap-Cakap: Interview with Koh Wan Ching and Andrew Sutherland
In this new series of ArtEquator Cakap-Cakap (or in other words chit-chat), ArtsEquator sits down with director Koh Wan Ching and playwright Andrew Sutherland to chat about “creative romances”, random internet finds/memes and how things are going with their upcoming…
The top ArtsEquator articles of 2020
Below is a list of the top 10 ArtsEquator articles in 2020, in random order: An Elder Millennial’s Guide to Classic Singapore TV & Movies by Joel Tan Published on: 20 Aug 2020 “Purists are undecided on when exactly…
Did you want more sleep?: weish knows people are tired of livestreams
For artist weish, who is one-half of electronica duo .gif, this has been an intense year creatively, and one of increased self-scrutiny. Her most recent project, Did you want more sleep?, combines sound, visual and text, and references the artist’s…
Year In Review: Singapore Theatre 2020 in statistics
The statistics below are based on data gathered by Ke Weiliang and Centre 42, as part of Year in Review, an annual discussion and round-up of the performing arts in Singapore taking place on 19 December, jointly presented by Centre…
Year In Review: Tracing SG Theatre Together
ArtsEquator and Centre 42 jointly co-present the fourth edition of Year in Review, an annual discussion and round-up of the performing arts in Singapore. With the theme “Tracing SG Theatre Together”, this event will attempt to tackle the mess that…
Podcast 84: Traditional Arts: Dikir Barat, Kavadi Attam and Nanyin
ArtsEquator speaks to Lyn Lee, Nirmala Seshadri and Soultari Amin Farid about Nanyin, Kavadi Attam and Dikir Barat and the study and practice of traditional arts in Singapore. This is a follow-up on ArtsEquator’s series of animated videos “10 Things“,…
(Episode 2) What’s in a Scene – Nothing by Cake
‘We are all but moving shadows and all our busy rushing ends up in nothing’ In this episode, Natalie Hennedige and Siti Khalijah Zainal unpack a scene from Cake‘s Nothing and talk about the process and the inspiration behind the…
(Episode 1) What’s in a Scene – 《大狗民》Citizen Dog by The Finger Players
In this episode, Liu Xiaoyi and Oliver Chong unpack a scene from The Finger Players 十指帮 ‘s 《大狗民》Citizen Dog and talk about the set design, costume design and more. Inspired by Liaozhai, Citizen Dog is an absurd tale of desires in their…
Harrowing and sublime: Topography of Breath 2.0 by Pat Toh
By Chan Sze-Wei (739 words, 4-minute read) In grainy close up, we see segmented views of one woman, fighting to breathe with every fibre of her sinewy body. She grunts, writhes, sweats, hyperventilates. Her body multiplies by video effect but…