“Private Parts”: Sometimes You’ve Got to Fix What God Gave You
By Eugene Tan (1720 words, six-minute read) This review contains some spoilers of a few of the sight gags and plot points in Private Parts. Private Parts was first performed in 1992, and in this staging, it hasn’t been re-written….
ArtsEquator Turns Two!
ArtsEquator is two years old today! 🎉 Aside from our original reviews, essays, podcasts and visual essays, we’ve also organised programmes to strengthen performance criticism and critical discourse. ✒️ 💬 💭 🎭 👯 🎪 🎨 🎵 🎬 None…
An Interview with Dr June Yap: President’s Young Talents 2018
The seventh edition of the President’s Young Talents exhibition (PYT) opened 4 October 2018 at the Singapore Art Museum (SAM). Since its first presentation in 2001, the platform has presented 38 artists, including this year’s Chen Yanyun, Chong Weixin, Debbie…
Open Calls and Job Opportunities: November (Singapore)
Call for Applications for Southeast Asian Choreolab 2019 We invite emerging contemporary dance choreographers (or performance artists or physical theatre creators) from Southeast Asia to apply for the Southeast Asian Choreolab 2019. This international choreographic laboratory will take place at…
Mirrored Interrogations
By Eunice Lacaste (1000 words, four-minute read) In post-colonial Southeast Asia, the constraint of politically-engaged artworks is not uncommon. One can see the spatial and temporal struggles through telling cases from the region: last July, Seven Decades was a retrospective…
A History of Violence: The Sharp Edges of “Cerita Cinta”
By Nabilah Said (1000 words, four-minute read) The most powerful moment of akulah BIMBO SAKTI’s Cerita Cinta is the end. To be perfectly clear, it is a dream of a production. The six-person ensemble is tight, the design is exacting,…
Foolishness and Enlightenment in “Lear is Dead”
By Casidhe Ng (1,200 words, six-minute read) “You are a madman, and we are but fools,” the ensemble resounds. So begins Nine Years’ Theatre’s Lear is Dead, an adaptation of Shakespeare’s King Lear that borrows from the Chinese opera tradition,…
Truth or Dare with “Lear is Dead”
By Teo Xiao Ting (1,069 words, six-minute read) After a gleaming heap of corpses dissipates into the afterlife and comes back for a closing bow, Lear is Dead ends with the quiver of revelation. But wait, what was it exactly…
“8888 Uprising”: Thirty Years Later
By Sharaad Kuttan (650 words, four-minute read) Despite the flash of contemporary retail – some garish, some tasteful – Yangon’s old-world charms prevail. Today, walking past the crumbling moss-covered walls that advertise the pleasures of late 20th century globalisation –…
Rianto’s “Medium”: Of Journeys, Transformations & Corporeality
By Nirmala Seshadri (990 words, four-minute read) Total darkness. The sound of sleep. Sleep of an eternal sort. Slowly the light reveals a solitary human body conveying a sense of sleep or is it semi-consciousness? Now, the entry of…
“Closer” at Both Sides, Now: What Do We Choose to Remember?
By Loo Zihan (1430 words, six-minute read) “What will we forget? What do we hold on to? What will we remember? What do we let go of?” These were the questions posed by a volunteer in Mandarin to my 67-year-old…
On Taipei Arts Festival with Tang Fu Kuen
By Yuka Sugiyama (480 words, three-minute read) The Taipei Arts Festival (TAF) began in 1998 as one of the main festivals in Taipei to mark the city’s contemporary consciousness through the staging of multiple artistic activities for international and national…
On the Indonesian Dance Festival with Maria Darmaningsih
As part of ArtsEquator’s series of interviews profiling festival directors in Southeast Asia, we get to learn more about Maria Darmaningsih, co-founder and current artistic director of the bi-annual Indonesian Dance Festival (IDF), which was launched in 1992. Its 14th edition…
“Peter and the Starcatcher”: An Invitation to Suspend Disbelief
By Casidhe Ng (1,100 words, six-minute read) The final show of Pangdemonium’s 2018 season, Peter and the Starcatcher is this year’s equivalent of Fun Home or RENT, an exuberant and expensive production intent on ending their year with a bang….
Growing up Everywhere and Nowhere in “Peter and the Starcatcher”
By Teo Xiao Ting (1,300 words, seven-minute read) What does it mean to be a child? Specifically, what does it mean to be growing up, to be young, in this milieu? While set in the sepia of 1885, Peter and…
“xhe”: Caught Between a Square and an Octopus
By Loo Zihan (1460 words, six-minute read) To preface: a statement to disclaim. Artist-choreographer-dancer Daniel Kok and visual artist Miho Shimizu remind the viewer in an artist statement[1] for xhe that any response to the performance is always already inadequate,…
“Until the Lions” by Akram Khan Company: What About the Lioness?
By Jocelyn Chng (1160 words, six-minute read) Until the Lions, a work that premiered in 2016 at the Roundhouse in London, is presented as one of the main (Centrestage) programmes at the 2018 Esplanade da:ns festival. The Akram Khan Company…
“Invisible Habitudes”: Postcards From a Choreographer’s Journey
By Chan Sze Wei (1090 words, five-minute read) T.H.E. Dance Company turns 10 this year and Invisible Habitudes, a da:ns festival commission, reads as an eclectic postcard of the artistic signature of Kuik Swee Boon. The company, and Kuik himself,…
Open Calls and Job Opportunities: October (Singapore)
Check out the list below to find out the list of open calls and job opportunities that are currently available in Singapore: IMPART Awards 2019 Open Call for Submissions Calling all Singaporean & PR Visual Artists and Curators: The IMPART…
Coda Culture: A Space for Freedom
As told to Akanksha Raja In the latest instalment in our series covering independent art spaces in Southeast Asia, ArtsEquator.com spoke with artist Seelan Palay to learn about his practice, his inspirations, and his journey setting up the independent alternative…
“Hijrah”: In Between Body and Gender ‘Migration’
By Michael HB Raditya (1018 words, five-minute read) Read this review in Bahasa Indonesia. Baca review ini dalam Bahasa Indonesia. Rianto, 37, has attracted public attention with his Lengger Lanang dance performance. This dance is a type of dance from Banyumas that…
“Hijrah”: Tubuh di Antara dan Migrasi Gender
By Michael HB Raditya (1000 words, five-minute read) Read this review in English. Baca review ini dalam Bahasa Inggeris. Sejak kemunculannya, Rianto Manali (37) telah mencuri perhatian publik dengan tari yang ia pertunjukkan. Adalah Lengger Lanang, salah satu jenis tari dari Banyumas…
SMU Series: More Than Just Managers, Enabling the Arts
This article is the third in a series of essays by students from the Singapore Management University Arts and Culture Management programme. By Carissa Lim (1480 words, four-minute read) The arts has always been a significant and cherished part of…
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…
Podcast 49: “Tiger of Malaya”
Duration: 30 mins ArtsEquator’s theatre podcast host Matt Lyon is joined by guests Naeem Kapadia and Charlene Rajendran to discuss Teater Ekamatra’s Tiger of Malaya, which was written by Alfian Sa’at and directed by Mohd Fared Jainal, staged at the…
“The Misinterpreted Futures of George Town 2068”: Missing Futures
By Akanksha Raja (960 words, four-minute read) Prior to stepping into the mystifying world of The Misinterpreted Futures of George Town 2068, I was curious and fascinated by that science-fictioney title, coupled with the exciting premise of a performance with…
Podcast 48: Interview with Bilqis Hijjas
Duration: 32 min In this month’s dance podcast, host Amin Farid chats with Malaysian dance practitioner and writer Bilqis Hijjas on wide-ranging topics from her roles as president of MyDance Alliance and director of the dance programme Rimbun Dahan, to her thoughts on the…
“Tiger of Malaya”: The Body Remembers What the Archive Cannot
By Corrie Tan (2,080 words, 10-minute read) Spoiler alert: this essay discusses certain plot points about Tiger of Malaya in detail. The Drama Centre Black Box, on level five of the National Library, is bracketed by floors and floors of…
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…