Looking at Institutions Look at Themselves: NUS Museum & NTU CCA Singapore
By Marcus Yee (1530 words, 20-minute read) “What am I?” asks the museum. “If I am not to be metamuseum, interred within my own history, what do I do?”. —Lisa G. Corrin Amidst the torrential stream of infrastructural expansion…
15 – 21 May: Singapore 2017
Saturday, 20 May, 11:00am @ The Arts House SEMINAR: sgPoems 2015/16 Anthology This seminar discusses the Singapore poetry landscape based on the first publication by the Poetry Festival (Singapore). The anthology showcases poems by finalists in Poetry Festival’s competition over…
15 – 21 May 2017: Indonesia
Top Picks in Jakarta, Yogyakarta, and Makassar from 15-21 May 2017 JAKARTA BBUZZSHOW@JAKARTA, Now – 30 May 2017, Galeria Fatahillah, Jakarta BBuzzShow is one of BBuzzArt’s global traveling exhibitions that provide exhibition opportunities for emerging artists. BBuzzArt is…
Podcast 14: La Cage and Tropicana
Duration: 30 minutes Former Flying Inkpot reviewers Matthew Lyon and Naeem Kapadia get together to discuss Tropicana the Musical and Wild Rice’s La Cage – two glamorous, star-studded, cabaret-themed musicals that opened within a few days of each other within the past month. While one’s…
Dancing Unashamed: ¡Walang Hiya!
By Chan Sze-Wei (945 words, 9-minute read) “There are so many taboos and judgements around our bodies and the politics they carry. Let’s take the leap to talk and dance about tough questions. Let’s be unashamed. Walang hiya.” Over two…
Photo Essay: Backstage Pass to Wild Rice’s “La Cage Aux Folles”
Photography By Zane Gan, text by Sean Ghazi Photographer Zane Gan tracks Sean Ghazi, who plays George in Wild Rice’s La Cage Aux Folles, capturing the camaraderie, rituals and water bottles that keep the show going on. The hit musical,…
8 – 14 May 2017: Singapore
Surviving the Japanese Occupation: War and its Legacies, Former Ford Factory, open all week To mark – not commemorate – the 75th anniversary of the fall of Singapore, there’ll be an exhibition set in the Old Ford Factory, which was…
8 – 14 May 2017: Indonesia
Top Picks in Jakarta, Bandung and Yogyakarta from 8 – 14 May 2017 JAKARTA Europe on Screen 2017 @ Kineforum, 8 – 14 May 2017, Kineforum, Jakarta Europe on Screen 2017 continues with screenings of 33 films at…
Thailand’s Last Movie Billboard Painters
By Philip Jablon (650 words, 7-minute read) Over the past 20 or so years, Thailand’s movie exhibition industry – that is, the collection of businesses and activities involved in the commercial showing of films – has experienced sweeping change on…
Review of “Every Brilliant Thing” by Bhumi Collective
By Akanksha Raja (870 words, 8-minute read) Every Brilliant Thing is a (primarily) one-person monologue of an unnamed narrator (Andrew Marko) coming to terms with his mother’s depression and suicidal tendencies. His effort to reconcile with his mother’s instability takes…
Review of “POP AYE”: A Soul Journey
By Yue Jie (870 words, 7-minute read) Spoiler alert! If you’ve not watched the movie yet, go see it before reading on. Few films deal with animals as a central character, and even fewer have an elephant as its protagonist….
1 – 7 May 2017: Singapore
CHAOS MEMO YELLOWING, directed by Chan Tze-Woon, 4 MAY, 7:30pm, National Museum of Singapore In 2014, an umbrella movement took place in Hong Kong, where young people led the ups and downs of the movement, the occupation of streets by civilians,…
1 – 7 May 2017: Indonesia
Top Picks in Jakarta, Bandung and Yogyakarta from 1 – 7 May 2017 JAKARTA Unit Produksi Berita, Now – 17 May 2017, Dia.lo.gue artspace, Jakarta In this exhibition, Nindito Adipurnomo aims to return to the subjective old way…
“Pallavi in Time” by CHOWK: Seductive Virtuosity
By Chan Sze-Wei (1150 words, 10-minute read) This was one of those rare occasions where I realise that I’m watching an important work of art. A discovery, a risk, a breakthrough, that will influence my aesthetic and many others’ for…
Completely With: Remembering Paddy Chew, Reflecting on Loo Zihan
By Sean Tobin (2150 words, 12 minute read) Recently, I caught Loo Zihan’s second iteration of With/Out at Esplanade Studio Theatre. Zihan’s work is an artistic reconstruction and reimagining of The Necessary Stage’s 1999 play, Completely With/Out Character, based on…
24 – 30 April 2017: Indonesia
Top Picks in Jakarta, Bali and Yogyakarta from 24 – 30 April 2017 JAKARTA About A Woman, 25 April 2017, 7 PM, Goethehaus, Jakarta Goethe Institut Jakarta’s Art House Cinema screens Teddy Soeriaatmadja’s film titled About A Woman….
24 – 30 April 2017: Singapore
Of Fear & Faith: An Original Showcase of Short Plays, 29-30 Apr, Haque Centre of Acting and Creativity Haque Centre of Acting and Creativity introduces their very first Devised Theatre Collaborative Showcase: Of Fear & Faith. Multiple stories intertwine to become…
Review of Tropicana, The Musical: Memory Malfunction
By Felipe Cervera (910 words, 9-minute read) Theatre is a memory machine. Its engines run with dialogues and recollections, fuelled by the invisible streams of thought and emotion that run in and out, through the minds and bodies of the…
Singapore International Festival of the Arts 2017: An Enchanted Swan Song from Festival Director Ong Keng Sen
By Akanksha Raja (770 words, 9-mintue read) The 2017 edition of the Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA) returns with the theme “Enchantment”. It is the fourth and final edition helmed by Ong Keng Sen as Festival Director, and presents…
Review of ‘With/Out’: AIDS, Archives, Activism
by Ng Yi-Sheng (1450 words, 10 minute read) The year was 1999, and I was an awkward little eighteen year-old virgin, still sweating my way through National Service. I’d only recently become involved in the Singapore theatre scene, and in…
Dogged Delirium: “Petty People” by NUS Theatre Studies
By Akanksha Raja (760 words, 7-minute read) Petty People marks the culmination of the undergraduate course for the graduating class of NUS Theatre Studies 2017. The play begins with a quadriptych of scenarios strung together by the enigma of a…
17 – 23 April 2017: Singapore
School of Contemporary Music Festival 2017, 7 – 30 Apr, various timings and venues Held as part of The LASALLE Show 2017 at the end of the academic year, this graduation showcase presents the college’s music students performing at the…
17 – 23 April 2017: Indonesia
Top Picks in Jakarta, Bali and Yogyakarta from 17 – 23 April 2017 JAKARTA Pesona Sastra Jawa, 18 April 2017, 3:30 PM, Bentara Budaya Jakarta Javanese Modern literature is losing popularity and readership. Many Javanese authors had switched…
‘Hope (Harap)’: No Hope in Contemporary Hell
By Kathy Rowland (728 words, 8 minute read) Teater Ekamatra’s Harap opens with its five characters frozen in the shadows, standing on low plinths. Taking centre-stage is a series of monochromatic, indeterminate images, projected on the backdrop and over their…
10 – 16 April 2017: Singapore
When Space Dissolves into Luminosity; Where Flowers Bloom Amidst Rocks, iPreciation Gallery, 15 April – 29 April 2017 iPreciation presents an exhibition comprising works by 10 Singaporean artists, which spans different mediums ranging from sculptures, paintings, prints and mixed media, and seeks…
10 – 16 April 2017: Indonesia
Top Picks in Jakarta, Bandung, Yogyakarta, and Malang from 10 – 16 April 2017 JAKARTA Duet of Amplified Sewing Machine, 9 April 2017, 7 – 9 PM, Gudang Sarinah Ekosistem, Hall A2, Jakarta Can a Singer sewing machine…
Art that Moves: Brendon Fernandez
Art that Moves is an occasional series where we ask artists and other creative workers to reflect on artworks, performances or events that were personally important to them. This week, actor Brendon Fernandez tells us about a production he saw as…
Who’s Normal Anyway?
By Akanksha Raja (920 words, 9-minute read) Normal opens with a dreary, dull morning assembly at Trinity Girls’ School, immersing the audience in a mise-en-scène that is all too familiar to anyone who has been through any part of public…
Garin Nugroho’s ‘Satan Jawa’ Flirts with the Dark Side
By Nuraini Juliastuti (1124 words, 12 minute read) Satan Jawa (Garin Nugroho, 2017) a silent movie, in black and white (inspired by Nosferatu and Metropolis), had its world premier with the ‘live’ performances of Gamelan Garasi Seni Benawa and the…
3 – 10 April: Singapore
28.8 by Teater Kami, 7-8 Apr, Aliwal Arts Centre Written and directed by Adib Kosnan, this play targets a specific audience of young men and women who can relate to the challenges that living in Singapore poses to them financially. The…