Caught: Goodbye Lin Bo, we hardly knew ye
By Nabilah Said and Eugene Tan (2,500 words, 10-minute read) Spoiler Alert: This review contains major spoilers for the show Caught. Nabilah: I approach the venue for Caught with some trepidation. There had been scant details from the Singapore…
Words in Transit: George Town Literary Festival 2019
By Akanksha Raja (1,715 words, 7-minute read) The George Town Literary Festival returns for its ninth year next weekend (21 – 24 November) with the theme of forewords/afterwords, a decidedly future-oriented focus pertaining to notions of transitions and new beginnings….
Podcast 68: Critics Live! Wild Rice’s Merdeka
Theatre critics Corrie Tan, Nabilah Said, Carolyn Oei and Kathy Rowland discuss the recent production of WILD RICE’s Merdeka / 獨立 /சுதந்திரம், in a critics-led post-show conversation held in front of an audience on 19 October 2019 at WILD RICE’s…
Jelmaan Baharu Teater Tradisional dalam “Hikayat Cendawan Putih”
Oleh Fasyali Fadzly (1,120 patah kati, 6-minit bacaan) Antara pengarah teater yang kurang dicanang dan disebut-sebut dalam pementasan teater kontemporari adalah Sharul Mizad atau lebih senang dikenali sebagai Ejad. Beliau merupakan graduan terawal Akademi Seni Kebangsaan (kini ASWARA) bersama beberapa…
How would you fare in the afterlife? Haw Par Villa: ArtsEquator Edition
Scenario: You are visiting the Ten Courts of Hell in Haw Par Villa. Your friend who likes asking deep questions suddenly asks: how would you fare in the afterlife? You pretend you don’t hear them because it’s your rare day…
Merantau Sejarah/Identiti Selat Melaka: Name Laundering oleh Irwan Ahmett dan Tita Salina
Oleh Fasyali Fadzly (1,150 patah kati, 6-minit bacaan) Jauh perjalanan, luas pandangan. Mungkin itulah prinsip yang diambil oleh dua orang seniman Jakarta, Irwan Ahmett dan Tita Salina apabila mengambil keputusan untuk menjalankan kajian sosial dan artistik selama 10 tahun menjejaki…
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…
This is what succession looks like: The Finger Players
By Corrie Tan (3,800 words, 15-minute read) I. “They are constantly making magic look like it’s very simple.” You could call it love at first sight – the moment Ellison Tan and Myra Loke encountered The Finger Players, they…
A Bigger Party Than Expected: Honouring Rex Shelley at SWF 2019
By Akanksha Raja (830 words, 4-minute read) On 1 November, The Arts House plays host to an unlikely wedding celebration titled A Bigger Party Than Expected, which features “silent disco” dances to an Eurasian folk song, multidisciplinary art installations,…
Translating Homeland: Tanah•Air 水•土: A Play In Two Parts
By Nabilah Said (1,900 words, 7-minute read) In less than a week, Drama Box will premiere Tanah•Air 水•土: A Play In Two Parts, a production revolving around the theme of histories, those that are remembered, and those who are sidelined….
The brutal examinations of “Constellation of Violence”
By Patricia Tobin (561 words, 4-minute read) Constellation of Violence consists of a very simple setup: a giant screen on stage, a historian, two artists and a group of individuals. These elements are combined, in varying degrees, to form…
The Personal, the Humour and the Horror: Interview with Irwan Ahmett
By Patricia Tobin (1,140 words, 6-minute read) The concluding production of TPAM 2019 was Constellation of Violence, a lecture-performance by artist Irwan Ahmett, which focused on the culmination of the Cold War in Indonesia in 1965, from its lead-up…
Say No To Droogs: Teater Ekamatra’s “A Clockwork Orange”
By Faezah Zulkifli (1,020 words, 4-minute read) “ORANG_” The wordplay in Teater Ekamatra’s A Clockwork Orange is no accident. An inventive linguist, author Anthony Burgess, who lived in Malaysia in the 1950s, borrowed the title for his magnum opus from…
Discovering and Re-discovering Kluang: The INXO International Residency Programme
By Akanksha Raja (1,493 words, 6-minute read) It’s almost 4pm as the KTM train I’m travelling on trudges to a slow halt at the railway station in Kluang, Johor. The first thing that catches my eye is Kluang Rail Coffee,…
Seven Views of “Seven Views of Redhill”
By Nabilah Said (1,670 words, 7-minute read) We are in a rehearsal for Seven Views of Redhill. Well, not me – I am just a hanger-on trying to fold myself into a corner of the Chesterfield-like sofa backed up…
The disturbing cruelty of Terre Thaemlitz’s “Deproduction”
By Luke Macaronas (765 words, 5-minute read) Content warning: References to sexual content, situations and violence The final line of Terre Thaemlitz’s Deproduction reads: “Admit it’s killing you, and leave.” It is a neat summary of the work—a deeply nihilistic…
Disturbing behaviour: “Deproduction” by Terre Thaemlitz
By Patricia Tobin (670 words, 4-minute read) Content warning: References to sexual content or situations Deproduction by musician-producer Terre Thaemlitz was released on December 28, 2017 as a multimedia album consisting of audio, video and text. In TPAM 2019,…
KNOTS: An open letter to 艺族 STRANGER
By Ke Weiliang (1,131 words, 6-minute read) Dear 艺族 STRANGER, After spending my Saturday afternoon with you at the Esplanade Theatre Studio, I struggled long and hard to make sense of the titular ‘knots’ that your inaugural play endeavoured to…
Diasporic Dispatches: “The Cardboard Kitchen Project” by FK Co-Lab
By Rebecca Goh (977 words, 6-minute read) We step into the dimly-lit theatre of The Lion & Unicorn, a soft, almost dream-like blue wash over the noticeable emptiness of the stage – save for a skeletal cardboard cut-out resembling a…
Podcast 64: The Orange Production 2019
Duration: 37 min In this latest podcast, ArtsEquator editor Nabilah Said and theatre reviewer Naeem Kapadia discuss the productions We Were So Hopeful Then (written by Ellison Tan and directed by Alvin Tan) and Acting Mad (with texts by Haresh…
Instructions for reheating: “Forked” by The Finger Players
By Nabilah Said (820 words, 5-minute read) In the pre-show for Forked, playwright and performer Jo Tan is warming up, prepping her body. We see her assume the plank position, a fractured toe from rehearsals armoured in a padded thermoplastic…
The working processes of artists: Nam Hwa Opera
In this video, LASALLE students Cherie Tan Yan Zhen and Lee Jia Jing speak to opera performer Chen Yu Zhi from Nam Hwa Opera, a Singapore-based Teochew opera troupe founded in 1963. They discuss what makes traditional and contemporary Teochew…
Crashing realities: “Acting Mad” by The Necessary Stage
By Nabilah Said (747 words, 5-minute read) Content warning: References to self-harm and sexual assault Someone cried. Someone squeezed my hand. Someone felt seen. Someone drank tea. — The Necessary Stage’s latest offering, Acting Mad, pulls no punches. It…
Uncovering the Enigma of Lin Bo: “Caught” by SRT
By Akanksha Raja (1,500 words, 6-minute read) It’s a party … It’s unbridled and free and outrageous. It demands a full-body, full-mind engagement. That’s how New York-based director Ed Sylvanus Iskandar describes Caught, Singapore Repertory Theatre’s latest production, a socially…
Tender notes on violence in “A Notional History” by Five Arts Centre
By Patricia Tobin ( 700 words, 5-minute read) It starts with a song. Faiq Syazwan Kuhiri strums the ukulele and gently sings about hope and the future. For a lecture-performance, A Notional History, a work in progress by Five Arts Centre, is…
Fahmi Fadzil’s “GE14”: The sound and fury signifying everything
By Patricia Tobin ( 700 words, 5-minute read) “GE14 will be the arts festival to outdo all arts festivals,” said performer-politician Fahmi Fadzil. He is referring to the live spectacle: from theatre productions to political speeches, performativity is a constant….
Migrant Ecologies Project: A Grain of Wheat Inside a Salt Water Crocodile
By Lucy Davis (600 words, 5-minute read) Another Chinese tradition, which probably has no connection with the previous one is that the Butterworth cannon belonged to ‘Panglima’ (Warrior) Ah Chong a bravo of the Inter-Chinese wars which took place in the Larut tin…
Transgression, triggers, and the thousand cuts of “Blunt Knife”
By Corrie Tan (2,700 words, 13-minute read) Content Warning: Mentions of a sexual relationship involving a teenager This response contains major spoilers for Blunt Knife by Eng Kai Er and A Doll’s House by Theatre of Europe. Dear Kai,…
Reconstructing the Virtual in “Frogman”
By Shawn Chua (1,088 words, 6-minute read) Having securely fastened the headgear, I am submerged into the virtual world of Frogman. The instructional voice of the Queensland Jury service informs me through an earpiece that I have been selected at…
Pretty Displaced: Staging Sexual Assault in the Age of #MeToo
By Nabilah Said (1,887 words, 7-minute read) Trigger/Content Warning: Discussions of sexual assault I watched two shows in the span of two weeks recently. Besides the fact that they were Singapore plays, they did not, from the outset, seem…