What the Arts in Malaysia Needs: More Transparency, Less Intermediaries
By Kathy Rowland (2145 words, 8 minute read) 2 July 2018 – The receding brown moon on millions of Malaysians’ fingernails are a biological marker of the eight weeks since the end of the Najib administration. These past 55 days…
Weekly Picks: Singapore (28 May – 3 June 2018)
StoryFest: International Storytelling Festival Singapore, The Arts House, 1-3 June 2018 Come and listen to tales both old and new from Singapore and around the world at StoryFest 2018. StoryFest is back for their second edition this year with the theme…
Malaysian Band To Perform At Europe’s Biggest Electronic Music Fest! (via Eksentrika)
Seven-piece band The Venopian Solitude is set to become the first Malaysian band ever to perform at Sónar! For those who’re in the dark, Sónar is a three-day electronic and advanced music festival which was started in Barcelona, Spain in 1994…
Mayfly Docus: “Die Tomorrow” and “14 Apples” at SIFA’s “Singular Screens”
By Dan Koh (1,715 words, 15-minute read) At this year’s Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA), the two films from Southeast Asia are documentaries, or hybrid-documentaries—just like last year’s three, curiously. Despite the glaring gaps that remain in the funding,…
Rantau Reviews: “Co/exist” & “Private Conversation” in Bangkok
By Alfian Sa’at (1395 words, 10-minute read) In the middle of the black box studio of the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre there is a white rectangle placed on the floor. Above it, a rectangular box is mounted, casting fluorescent…
Same same but different: ASEAN 50 at the Singapore Writers Festival 2017
By Akanksha Raja (840 words, 8-minute read) “Language is born from imagination, and imagination is what makes language real. Without language, we have no memory: therefore, literacy (the mastery of language) is important. Our sense of language is the most…
“from: The Platform” by Chowk Productions: A Running Imprint on the Mind
by Chan Sze-Wei (745 words, 5-minute read) Singapore-based Raka Maitra and her company Chowk are familiar names at the Esplanade’s Kalaa Utsavam and Raga programmes annually. The company is firmly based in classicial Odissi dance and the martial arts of…
Eisa Jocson at da:ns festival 2017: The Body as Archive of Filipino Labour
By Chloe Chotrani (927 words, 7-minute read) To witness the work of Eisa Jocson is an absolute privilege at this point in history. The double-bill pairing up Jocson’s internationally acclaimed Macho Dancer and the new Esplanade commission Corponomy, investigate the…
Xalisco, a place
XALISCO takes place in the ‘liquid realm’ of Magic Realism. A place where I had the freedom to develop a work rich with images and meanings embedded deep within the Latin American physic in a non-linear, magical format. XALISCO is…
Podcast 27: SIFA 2017 Part 1; Singapore Commissions
Duration: 39 mins Elaine Chiew, Naeem Kapadia, Matt Lyon and Kathy Rowland dissect some of the Singapore-led offerings at the Singapore International Festival of Arts 2017: Becoming Graphic, an original cross-genre commission by Sonny Liew and Edith Podesta, Art Studio by Nine…
Open Call for M1 CONTACT Contemporary Dance Festival 2018
Billed for its bold curation, residency programmes, commissioning of local and international works across its several platforms, as well as a smorgasbord of workshops and technique classes, the annual M1 CONTACT Contemporary Dance Festival is presented by T.H.E Dance Company….