Reviews Archives

[Online Course] ArtsEquator Introduction to Reviewing Dance

INTRODUCTION TO REVIEWING DANCE by Chan Sze-Wei, Jocelyn Chng and Bernice Lee Course Synopsis: This introductory course offers tools and practical exercises for writing for dance and about dance. We will expand our vocabularies for describing and analysing movement, communicating the inspiration behind dance works, and capturing a sense of audience experience. The course will […]

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Emotional asymptotes in Checkpoint Theatre’s The Heart Comes to Mind

By Ke Weiliang (2,500 words, 8-minute read) Sunday, 7 June 2020 circa 1230 hrs I press the ‘play’ button on The Heart Comes to Mind for the first time. As per director Claire Wong’s suggestion, I grab my favourite drink – a bottle of Teh Botol Sosro, kurang manis -, plug in my earphones

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Coronalogues, pandemic spectatorship (and the critic)

By Nabilah Said and Corrie Tan (5,950 words, 20-minute read) Spoiler Alert: This text contains spoilers for The Coronologues: Silver Linings by The Singapore Repertory Theatre and Long Distance Affair by Juggerknot Theatre Company and PopUP Theatrics. To view this text in its entirety, please read on a desktop. Introduction (Nabilah) It felt like

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Photo: JuggerKnot Theatre Facebook

Is this thing on? Singapore theatre in the midst of a pandemic

By Nabilah Said (3,200 words, 10-minute read) “Boosted by online efforts, support for Singapore theatre through the roof.” That would be a dream headline, wouldn’t it? Bit lengthy, sure – but it would tell us that the theatrical technological shift happening right at this very moment would be worth it. With COVID-19 shuttering live arts

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Ryuji Miyamoto

From dream to dystopia: The cultural critic in the age of pandemic

By Katrina Stuart Santiago (1,000 words, 6-minute read) February 2020 seems like years ago, and it feels like escapism to even go back to that time. To some extent, it’s almost like a dream, where for over a week, one had nothing else to do but to watch stage productions from across the world; the

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Reading in Isolation: Tiffany Tsao’s The Majesties

By Kathy Rowland (760 words, 4-minute read) This review may contain spoilers. Tiffany Tsao’s The Majesties begins with a horrific mass murder. Three hundred guests at the 80th birthday of Irwan Sulinado are poisoned, deadly fungi slipped into the shark’s fin soup by Estella, Irwan’s granddaughter. The guests are all part of Indonesia’s elite Chinese

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Theatre goes online: Call me a purist, I don’t care

By Fasyali Fadzly (2,100 words, 7-minute read) No one would have guessed that the COVID-19 situation would become this bad. The Movement Control Order (MCO) in Malaysia was first ordered on March 18. To date, it has been extended twice, most recently to May 12. This pandemic has greatly impacted everyone, including me, someone who

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Reading in Isolation: ‘Others’ is Not a Race and Interpreter of Winds

By Kathy Rowland (913 words, 4-minute read) Last November, when there was nary a thought for social distancing, and Corona conjured up visions of lime wedges and grimy bars, I reread Rex Shelley’s 1991 debut novel, The Shrimp People. Shelley was one of the literary pioneers featured in Artistic Director Pooja Nansi’s Singapore Writers Festival

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Zedeck Siew / Tumblr

Creature comforts: “Creatures of Near Kingdoms”

By Kathy Rowland (650 words, 4-minute read) Zedeck Siew’s Creatures of Near Kingdoms is fashioned as a bestiary, detailing the appearance, characteristics, and habitats of 50 animals and 25 plants. Why “near”? Because like the auto-combusting Ash Swallowtail and the houdini-ish Travelling Coconut, each magical creature demands less of a leap, than a side shuffle,

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Courtesy of artist

The Space of/for Memory: ”Last Night I Saw You Smiling”

Every space tells a story: the empty prison cell speaks of redemptions, of wrongs that were righted, and to the cynical, more earthly, minds, of miscarriages of justice, and the irrevocability of tragedies and the people who made them; the crowded hospital ward hums, sometimes a baleful tune when a heart attack becomes a full-body

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Podcast 79: Asia TOPA (Part 2)

The following review is made possible through a Critical Residency programme supported by In this latest podcast episode, Nabilah Said and Carolyn Oei discuss various productions that were recently presented at Melbourne’s Asia TOPA: Are You Ready To Take The Law Into Your Own Hands | Hades Fading | À Ố Làng Phố | Dragon

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Podcast 78: Asia TOPA (Part 1)

The following review is made possible through a Critical Residency programme supported by In this latest podcast episode, Nabilah Said and Carolyn Oei discuss various productions that were recently presented at Melbourne’s Asia TOPA: Black Ties | HuRu-hARa | Chinese Square Dancers | The Seen and Unseen | Torch the Place | Metal This is the first of a two-part

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Hideto Maezawa

Eko Supriyanto’s “IBUIBU BELU”: Uncomfortable Questions

As the five women onstage came silently together in a halt, spot lit and wrapped once more in the tenun textile they had first appeared in, there was an initial hush. Ironically, for all the dynamism of the movements and formations we had just witnessed, it was their voices that somehow continued to echo in

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Hideto Maezawa

“No. 60”: Klunchun unmasks the Khon

By Katrina Stuart Santiago (936 words, 6-minute read) The past as a point of reference for contemporary cultural work is not new, and neither is the need to rethink it, reconsider it, or respond to it. Anyone who works in culture after all is inextricably bound to tradition, and to some extent, all major cultural

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Thanapol Virulhakul’s “The Retreat”: Dance, Uncontained

By Amitha Amranand (1,350 words, 5-minute read) Thai dancer-choreographer Thanapol Virulhakul is certainly not the first artist to wonder whether art could become more of a part of our daily life nor to attempt through his art to make it more so. It is difficult to see that attempt in The Retreat, or to even

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Nguyen The Duong

À Ố Làng Phố: Less trick, more treat in Vietnamese bamboo circus

The following review is made possible through a Critical Residency programme supported by By Nabilah Said (730 words, 6-minute read) You go into a circus performance with certain expectations. You want the big shebang, the SPECTACULAR SPECTACULAR. The physical feats that no average person can do. Cirque du Soleil has come to define the hallmarks

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Pia Johnson

Dragon Ladies Don’t Weep: Brilliance Is Margaret Leng Tan

The following review is made possible through a Critical Residency programme supported by By Carolyn Oei (638 words, 5-minute read) Note: This review may contain some minor spoilers for Dragon Ladies Don’t Weep by Margaret Leng Tan. ONE: “Music; this is where the counting belongs.” In Dragon Ladies Don’t Weep, Margaret Leng Tan –

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Courtesy of artist

Hades Fading: Modern-day Ancients

The following review is made possible through a Critical Residency programme supported by By Nabilah Said (708 words, 5-minute read) In Hades Fading, Eurydice has a memory problem. She can’t remember where she comes from. The books all tell her something different – her mother was a water nymph, no, a wind nymph or was

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Sarah Walker

Are You Ready To Take The Law Into Your Own Hands: Tongue Scrapes Against Cheek

The following review is made possible through a Critical Residency programme supported by By Nabilah Said (670 words, 5-minute read) I watched Are You Ready To Take The Law Into Your Own Hands by Sipat Lawin and Friends on 26 February 2020, 34 years almost to the day of the People Power Revolution, which toppled

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Gregory Lorenzutti

Metal: An Improbable Alchemy of Dance And Heavy Metal

The following review is made possible through a Critical Residency programme supported by By Carolyn Oei (762 words, 5-minute read) I am not a fan of heavy metal music – or heavy metal anything – so I took my seat in the Playhouse, Arts Centre Melbourne, with trepidation. I was there for the world premiere

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Podcast 77: Fika and Fishy by Patch and Punnet

In this latest podcast episode, Nabilah Said, Matthew Lyon and Naeem Kapadia discuss the recent production of Fika and Fishy by Patch and Punnet, the collective’s first production for the year about the friendship between a dog and a fish. Trigger/Content warning: Allusions to domestic/sexual abuse Nabilah Said (NS): Hello everyone, welcome to the

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Dancing with the Demons: “The Son” by Pangdemonium

By Naeem Kapadia (914 words, 4 minute read) Everyone tells us that a person battling mental health issues should seek professional help. But how exactly does one find the means to get the help they need? When confronted with a loved one who experiences such issues, how does a family unit react and figure out

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Jeff Busby

Torch the Place: Shedding the Dead Weight

The following review is made possible through a Critical Residency programme supported by By Nabilah Said (800 words, 5-minute read) The first thing one sees upon entering the Fairfax Studio in Arts Centre Melbourne for Torch the Place is a huge mountain covered in cloth, and an old piano. The dutiful eldest daughter in a

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Claudia Dian

The Seen and Unseen: A Search For Self

The following review is made possible through a Critical Residency programme supported by By Carolyn Oei (638 words, 4-minute read) “Embracing life means embracing every element of dualism in it. Embracing the good and the bad, the happy and the sad, life and death,” writes Kamila Andini, director of the spiritual dance-theatre, The Seen and

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NEON

Wretchedness and absurdity: Thoughts on Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite

I watched Bong Joon-ho’s award-winning film Parasite later than most people I know, and after many people had told me I had to see it. It is indeed, as everyone promised, amazing. My first reaction to art I admire is often a sort of professional envy: artists at their best can achieve what social scientists

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Crispian Chan

Between Worlds: Café Sarajevo, ATARA and No Place

By Nabilah Said and Germaine Cheng (1,580 words, 7-minute read) What does it mean to be between worlds? To behold yet not belong? Three works – Café Sarajevo, ATARA and No Place – presented as part of M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2020 ask these questions, of their audience and of themselves. Café Sarajevo, bluemouth inc.

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Arts censorship: At the end of the day, this is not new

By Kathy Rowland (1400 words, 8 minute read) Balai Seni Visual Negara Malaysia (Balai) is once again accused of censoring artists’ work. The victim this time is noted visual artist Ahmad Fuad Osman, who was honoured with a mid-career solo show at Balai, At the End of the Day Even Art is Not Important (1990

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Garth Oriander

Tangled and tackled: Black Ties at Sydney Festival 2020

The challenges of fusing and representing more than one culture while planning and executing a memorable wedding are well-known to us in real life and in fiction. Movies like My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002), The Birdcage (1996) and Top End Wedding (2019) have explored the themes of love, family, loyalties, tradition and change successfully

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Guido Gonzalez

A sound collaboration: 宿 (stay) at Sydney Festival 2020

There is a huge difference between watching a great piece of theatre with a beautiful original score, and experiencing a process that gives equal importance to all the creative aspects, including sound. Experiencing the work-in-progress presentation of 宿 (stay) was probably the first time I fully grasped this difference. Presented as part of Sydney Festival

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André Chong

Podcast 74: M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2020

Duration: 30 min Matt Lyon, Naeem Kapadia and Nabilah Said discuss three productions at this year’s edition of the M1 Singapore Fringe Festival – Contemplating Kopitiam & Kampong Wa’ Hassan by NAFA and Oliver Chong; A Tiny Country by Attempts; and Secretive Thing 215 by Lemon & Koko. M1 Singapore Fringe Festival ran from 8-19

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