Download annex 3 - National Arts Council

ANNEX 3 – ABOUT THE SINGAPORE CONTINGENT AND PRODUCTIONS
Diaspora (Edinburgh International Festival)
Diaspora
By Ong Keng Sen
TheatreWorks (Singapore)
Singapore Chinese Orchestra
European Premiere at the Edinburgh International Festival, 2009
Director and writer
Conductor
Video Installation
Electronic Composer
Lighting Designer
Ong Keng Sen
Tsung Yeh
Choy Ka Fai
Toru Yamanaka
Scott Zielinski
Visual artists
Rabiya Choudhry, Ariani Darmawan, Zai Kuning,
Dinh Q. Le, Navin Rawanchaikul and Tintin Wulia
Actors
Koh Boon Pin, Janice Koh, Lim Kay Tong and
Nora Samosir
About the production
Diaspora is a sweeping, panoramic performance exploring memory, migration, assimilation and the
triumph of the human spirit. Ong Keng Sen's visionary production is an intricate layering of music,
video and live story telling.
First created in 2006, Keng Sen and a group of visual artists searched for real-life stories of
diaspora and displacement. Through the personal stories of Vietnamese Americans, Indonesian
Chinese, Indians in South East Asia, Orang Laut (or sea nomads), Keng Sen explores notions of
home, identity and the dispersion of peoples through war, through birth and through choice.
Diaspora is an evolving performance. In this Edinburgh version, Keng Sen is collaborating with
Rabiya Choudhry, a visual artist living and working in Edinburgh. Diaspora will incorporate Rabiya’s
personal stories and that of her family members. This brings immediate relevance to the Edinburgh
audiences.
This epic panorama of image and sound is underscored by a timeline of Chinese music spanning
2000 years, ranging from mountain songs to contemporary compositions, performed live by the
Singapore Chinese Orchestra (SCO); including Michael Nyman’s composition, “Melody Waves” first
commissioned for a performance by the SCO for the Singapore Season in London, 2006. Alongside
the SCO, will be Toru Yamanaka’s contemporary electronic music.
Ong Keng Sen is Leverhulme Artist in Residence at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the
Humanities at the University of Edinburgh
“Ong Keng Sen is one of Singapore's cultural jewels." – The Guardian, UK
"Ong Keng Sen has a reputation as a maverick talent in world theatre." – The Independent, UK
Performance Details
Dates:
Venue:
Tickets:
More info:
Sat 15 August, 8pm
Sun 16 August, 8pm
The Edinburgh Playhouse
£8 - £30
http://www.eif.co.uk/diaspora
http://theatreworks.org.sg/international/diaspora/index.htm
TheatreWorks
TheatreWorks (Singapore) was established in 1985. It is an international performance company
based in Singapore and is led by Artistic Director, Ong Keng Sen since 1988.
TheatreWorks is an inter-disciplinary performance company, known for its reinvention of traditional
performance through a juxtaposition of cultures, as well as for its cutting-edge productions from the
engagement with artists of different disciplines. It distinguishes itself by encouraging creative
partnerships and artistic risk-taking, pushing the artistic and cultural boundaries, and most
importantly, by embracing and projecting the multiple realities of Asia and beyond.
Dedicated to the development of contemporary arts in Singapore and to the evolution of an Asian
identity through a culture of difference, TheatreWorks is committed towards the nurturing of
professional arts skills by providing residencies, encouraging collaborations and exchanges
between artists. Since September 2005, the company’s home at 72-13 Mohamed Sultan Road is
host to the International Centre of Asian Arts (ICAA) and the Singapore Creative Arts Nucleus
(SCAN). ICAA serves as a Research & Development Centre, a forum, a performance, and a
platform for Asia’s expression and its relationship to the rest of the world, while SCAN is an
incubator for emerging creatives, that includes the Creatives-in-Residence programme and the
company’s long running writing programme, the Writers Lab.
TheatreWorks’ Flying Circus Project, a research and development programme, has become an
internationally known and sought-after laboratory process. Key initiatives include the setting up of
the Arts Network Asia, that encourages and supports regional artistic collaboration as well as
develops managerial and administrative skills within Asia; the capacity-building programmes:
Continuum Asia Project (CAP) in Laos, and the Mobilising Arts Communities project (MAC) in
Vietnam and Cambodia.
More info:
http://www.theatreworks.org.sg
www.72-13.com
www.artsnetworkasia.org
Singapore Chinese Orchestra
A distinctive Chinese orchestra that is fast establishing itself among similar counterparts in the
world, the Singapore Chinese Orchestra (SCO) is the only professional Chinese orchestra in
Singapore. Inaugurated in 1997, the 75-strong orchestra has the patronage of Prime Minister Lee
Hsien Loong and finds its performing home at the Singapore Conference Hall.
Since its inception, the SCO has constantly impressed its ever-broadening audiences by a number
of blockbuster presentations. In 2002, it staged a symphonic fantasy epic Marco Polo and Princess
Blue, as part of the opening festival of Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay. In the following year, it
engaged in a musical and visual conversation with Singapore’s most eminent multi-disciplinary
artist Tan Swie Hian in the Singapore Arts Festival 2003. The orchestra further celebrated
Singapore’s 39th National Day with a spectacular concert – Our People, Our Music – featuring over
2,300 local music enthusiasts at the Singapore Indoor Stadium, which is by far, unprecedented in
this region. As part of the Singapore Arts Festival 2005 and 2006, SCO produced a mega musical
production, Admiral of the Seven Seas and collaborated with the Singapore Dance Theatre in the
opening gala performance Quest respectively. In 2007, the SCO was seen performing as part of the
240-strong combined orchestra, at the Singapore National Day Parade. In the Singapore Arts
Festival 2008, Singapore Chinese Orchestra worked with TheatreWorks to present the
groundbreaking production Awaking, which brought together kunqu opera music and Elizabethan
music.
Touted for its high performing standards, the SCO had performed under invitation at various major
occasions including the World Economic Forum and International Summit of Arts Council in 2003
and the 2006 International Monetary Fund (IMF) Annual Meeting. On the overseas front, the
orchestra toured Beijing, Shanghai and Xiamen in 1998 and Taiwan in 2000. The SCO was invited
to perform in The Budapest Spring Festival, London-Singapore Season and Gateshead in 2005. In
October 2007, the SCO performed in Beijing and Shanghai under the invitation of the Beijing Music
Festival and China Shanghai International Arts Festival, as part of the Singapore Season. It was
also invited to perform in Macau under the Macau International Music Festival, as well as major
concert halls in Guangzhou, Zhongshan and Shenzhen. These overseas exposures had launched
the SCO further into the international music arena.
Dedicated to its vision of becoming an orchestra for everyone and building new audiences, the SCO
reaches out to the masses through its outreach and outdoor concerts at national parks, schools and
Singapore heartlands. As part of the initiative to develop repertoire with Nanyang style and create
its own distinctive music, SCO commissions new works regularly and organised its first music
composition competition in 2006 that focused on incorporating music elements from Southeast Asia
region. It is in this vision that the SCO continues to inspire, influence, educate and communicate
with its music.
More info:
www.sco.com.sg
Singapore Writers (Edinburgh International Book Festival)
The Festival will feature writers Edwin Thumboo, Suchen Christine Lim and Simon Tay, and include
readings and discussions of their works.
Internationalism is at the heart of the Book Festival, and presenting three of Singapore’s finest
authors to Edinburgh will be a unique literary occasion and a rare opportunity for Book Festival
audiences to learn about one of Asia’s most dynamic and vibrant countries. Edwin Thumboo is one
of the pioneers of Singaporean poetry and seen as the unofficial poet laureate of the country;
Suchen Christine Lim is an author and playwright, and winner of the inaugural Singapore Literature
Prize; Simon Tay is an author, poet, essayist and academic, previously short-listed for the
Commonwealth Prize.
Date:
Venue:
Sun 16 August, 4pm
Peppers Theatre
Edwin Thumboo
One of the pioneers of Singaporean poetry, Thumboo edited some of the earliest anthologies of
Literature in English from Singapore and Malaysia, giving writers a collective forum for expression.
Thumboo has authored the following volumes of poetry: Rib of Earth (1956), published while he
was still an undergraduate; Gods Can Die (1977); Ulysses by the Merlion (1979); and A Third Map:
New and Selected Poems (1993); Friends (2003); Still Traveling(2008). Gods and Ulysses won the
1978 and 1980 NBDCS Award for Poetry respectively. The unofficial poet laureate of Singapore,
Thumboo favours national themes, and a role for the poet as the people’s spokesman.
The first recipient of the NAC's Cultural Medallion for literature in 1979, Thumboo is currently
Emeritus Professor and Professorial Fellow, Department of English Language and Literature,
National University of Singapore, and Visiting Professor, Department of Chinese Translation and
Linguistics, City University of Hong Kong. He is currently working on a volume of poems with
ASEAN settings.
Suchen Christine Lim
Author of four novels, Suchen Christine Lim won the 1992 inaugural Singapore Literature Prize for
Fistful of Colours, currently used as an ‘A’ Level Literature text. Her fourth novel, A Bit of Earth
(2001), and a collection of short stories, The Lies That Build A Marriage, (2007) were short listed for
the same prize. A co-authored play and a children’s book also won prizes. She has also written a
non-fiction work, Stories of the Chinese Overseas (2005). Her first novel, Ricebowl, (to be re-issued
soon in a new edition) captures the critical questioning of a group of university students amidst the
political uncertainties in the early years of Singapore’s independence in the ‘60s.
In 1997, she was awarded a Fulbright fellowship in the University of Iowa’s International Writers'
Program. She has held several writing residencies overseas, including International Writer-inResidence, University of Iowa, University of Western Australia, Moniack Mhor Writer’s Centre,
Scotland, and Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines. She has given readings in Malaysia, the
Philippines, USA, UK, Australia and New Zealand.
Simon Tay
Simon Tay is an award-winning writer of stories, poems and essays, professor and public
intellectual. His first novel, City of Small Blessings, was published in 2008. His book of stories,
Stand Alone (1991), was short-listed for the Commonwealth Prize and highly commended for fiction
by the National Book Development Council of Singapore. His collection of poems, “5”, was also
highly commended for poetry by the Book Development Council. Simon has also written Alien
Asian (1997), a collection of essays about his experiences living and working in America. He was a
writing Fellow at the University of Iowa in 1989 and 1990.
In 1995, he was recognized as Young Artist of the Year by the Singapore National Arts Council. His
short stories and poems have been made into television movies, adapted as plays and included in
the Penguin anthology of Literature from Malaysian and Singapore (2002). His story, “My Cousin
Tim”, has been selected for translation into Chinese, Tamil and Malay for the 2009 Read Singapore
programme.
In public service, he initiated in 1995 Singapore Volunteers Overseas, a program for development
and assistance in other countries. In 1997 to 2001, he served as Nominated Member of
Parliament. From 2002 to 2008, he was chairman of the Singapore government’s National
Environment Agency.
He is Associate Professor of international law and public policy at the National University of
Singapore and has also taught at Harvard Law School. He is concurrently Chairman of the
Singapore Institute of International Affairs, an independent think tank, and a regular contributor of
comments in the national and international media. He lives in Singapore but is in the USA as a
Schwartz Fellow at the Asia Society in Manhattan and to teach at Yale University.
Theatre (Edinburgh Festival Fringe)
Tree Duet is a meditative performance about our continuing entanglement with trees. Accompanied
by pianist Shane Thio, performers Paul Rae and Kaylene Tan combine an intricately interwoven set
of stories and reportage with actions and gestures to create a theatrical ecology of sounds, words
and images.
Eco-performance minus the moralising, Tree Duet encompasses everything from the history of the
Malayan rubber industry to carbon offsetting, the music of Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu to
the 100 year old Bodhi tree at a soon-to-be-demolished Buddhist temple in Singapore.
In exploring how some of the slow mysteries of tree-time persist in the fast-paced life of a global
city, Rae and Tan invent some tree-lore for the 21st Century, and apply it to the vexed relationship
between our all too human obsessions with nature, power and death.
“An intimate and immersive work…it reminded us that the individual belongs to the universal. With
simple text, it meshed the personal, cultural and historical into an expansive fabric meditating on
human existence.” – The Straits Times
“...a stunningly beautiful work of visual poetry that teaches you to look at the world through patient
eyes: just as trees need time to grow, so do works of art - but patience will be rewarded in that act
of something real, meaningful and magical being created before you.” – Flying Inkpot
Tree Duet was nominated for Best Original Script in the 2008 Life! Theatre Awards. Earlier versions
were presented at the Substation’s Septfest 2007, W!ld Rice’s Singapore Theatre Festival ’08 and
the National University of Singapore’s NUS Arts Festival 2009.
Dates:
Venue:
Tickets:
16 – 22 August, 1130
New Town Theatre (Mysterious)
£5 - £12
spell#7
spell#7 is a Singapore-based performance company that creates intimate theatrical performances
and environmental soundworks. Formed in 1997 by Kaylene Tan (Singapore) and Paul Rae (UK),
the company has developed a distinctive and inventive focus on the ways history, culture and
politics intersect in everyday life and experience. In the on-going ‘Duets’ series, for example, Paul
and Kaylene have created a series of psudo-autobiographical performances about the power of two
in a world of many; Tree Duet is the fourth in the series. In their soundworks, they explore the
relationship between the rambunctious life of the city, and the inner worlds of the people moving
through it. This approach will take a new turn in June 2009, when spell#7 premieres its performance
walk, Dream–Work / Dream-Home, a collaboration with Bodies in Flight (UK) for the Singapore Arts
Festival and In-Between Time (Bristol). Other performances have been more directly interactive,
including Consultation (2005), a dialogue about urban malaise with a single audience member, and
National Language Class (2008), a language lesson with the audience in Mandarin and Malay.
As befits this focus on the daily life of remarkable times, spell#7’s recent works have been
developed over a period of years, and continue to change as they travel and are re-staged. Both
National Language Class and Tree Duet are about intercultural experience, and in form they reflect
the journeys they have made around Southeast Asia. Submitting these regional imprints to an
international context is the next stage in the development of the work.
More info:
http://www.spell7.net/
Dance (Edinburgh Festival Fringe)
Q&A begins with a basic brief. The performer asks the audience: what do you want to see?
At the outset, this question seeks to replace the assumption that the spectator should be a passive
member in a public performance, one whose role is to accept and go along with whatever the artist
instigates. In its place, Q&A experiments with restructuring the choreographic process, granting the
spectator greater authority – the viewer will clarify why he is in the theatre and what he expects of
the artist, and vice versa.
Surely it is the audience’s prerogative to demand? In our world governed by economic logic, the
consumer’s desires are usually prioritised. Would the relationship between the artist and the
audience come up differently if it is arbitrated by the language of economics?
By partly relinquishing the artist’s authority and by encountering the audience even before the
dance piece is made, daniel k’s consultative approach echoes the quirks of democracy and
consumerist culture in trying to create the “perfect” dance.
Dates:
Venue:
Tickets:
25 – 30 August, 1130
New Town Theatre (Mysterious)
£5 - £8
daniel k (Choreographer & Performer)
daniel k studied Fine Art and Critical Theory at Goldsmiths College (London) under a Singapore
Public Service Commission scholarship, and Choreography at the Laban Centre. His performances
have toured Tokyo, Hong Kong and Bangkok. His key works include Melatonin (2002), Melatonin2
(2003), Anaglyphs (2003), MERCURY (2005), MERCURY2 (2006) and Morpheus, which was
featured as part of Singapore Arts Festival 2007. He came in first on the 2007 Straits Times list of
“Faces to Watch” in the Singapore arts scene, which also voted Vermillion (M1 Singapore Fringe
Festival 2007) as one of five best dance performances that year. In 2008, he was awarded the
Young Artist Award (Dance) by the National Arts Council. He is an Associate Artist of The
Substation and teaches in the Art Elective Programme at Hwa Chong Institution (College Section).
http://web.mac.com/diskodanny/diskodanny/data.html
Andrew Lum and New Asia (Edinburgh Mela)
Andrew Lum
Jessica Lu
Joe Jayaveeran
Zubir Bin Abdullah
Ignatius Bong
Wynne Sandosham
Vickneskumar Veerappan
- Guitar (Music Director)
- Chinese Sanxian
- Indian Tabla
- Malay Gambus
- Bass
- Keyboards
- Drums
The 60-min programme features a repertoire that seamlessly fuses rich ethnic elements from the
Indian sub-continent to China, and from the Malay cultures of South East Asia to the chill-out
grooves of the West.
"We are delighted to be a host festival for the Singapore Arts Showcase in Edinburgh in 2009 and
look forward to welcoming Andrew Lum and his ensemble to the Edinburgh Mela Festival this
August. The work of New Asia is exciting, innovative and pushes at artistic and cultural boundaries
in ways that are sure to engage our audiences and artists alike. "
- Liam Sinclair, Director, The Edinburgh Mela Festival
Andrew Lum (Producer • Composer • Music Director)
An award-winning composer, arranger and producer from Singapore, Andrew Lum is the founder of
New Asia Records, specialising in a new genre of Asian world fusion. In 19 years of his career as a
producer, he has worked in Taipei, Hong Kong, London, India, China, Malaysia and Vancouver, and
has collaborated with the renowned in the international music industry including Ryuichi Sakamoto
(who scored for Last Emperor), London Philharmonic Orchestra, Jorge Callendrelli (the orchestrator
and arranger for Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon), Kenny Wen, John Kaizan Neptune, V
Selvaganesh (from the Grammy Nominee group Remember Shakti), and Goh Hotoda (who has
worked with Janet Jackson, Madonna, Prince, etc).
As a composer, he has scored for the TV mini-series AlterAsians, which won the Finalist Award in
1999 and 2000 in the prestigious New York Festivals. One of his compositions, New Asia, was the
Top 10 in the World Music Category of the International Songwriting Competition. This composition
was also awarded the Honourable Mention in the Billboard World Song Contest in 2005. Several of
his compositions have been used by the highly successful 12-girl band from China, which has sold
more than 2 million copies in worldwide.
Back home, Andrew’s compositions have won the COMPASS Best Contemporary Instrumental
Award in both 2006 and 2007. For his outstanding achievements in the international music scene,
he was also awarded the COMPASS Wings of Excellence Award in 2006. His music is used by the
Singapore Tourism Board for its overseas promotion campaigns, most recently being the Singapore
Season 2007 in China. Andrew’s debut album “Matter of Time” was reviewed as one of the top 10
world music albums by the Asian Wall Street Journal in 2005, and has been on the playlists of
many carriers including Singapore Airlines.
Jessica (Chinese Sanxian Artiste)
One of the finest Sanxian player in China & currently an artiste under the New Asia Records label,
she has performed worldwide in events including STB Singapore LIVE! 2001 in Sweden, MIDEM
2001 in Cannes France, Asia-Europe Music Seminar 2001 in Lyon France, WOMAD Singapore in
2000, International Monetary Conference in 2001 and Volvo World Music Festival 2000 in Malaysia.
Jessica is the first Sanxian musician in the world to revolutionize the playing of this instrument by
performing standing. Most recently, Jessica has been selected as one of the 6 Nike Women in their
International Nike Women (Asia) campaign launched in July 2004.
Joe Jayaveeran (Indian Tabla & Percussionist)
Joe began playing bongos at the tender age of 9 before he was formally trained in e Tabla and
other traditional classical Indian percussion 4 years later. This firm foundation of the Indian
percussion subsequently gave him the opportunity to be a member of the Singapore's premier
percussion band Tribal Tide, where he expanded his knowledge on African and Latin rhythms. His
adaptability on the various modern and ethnic percussions brought him to Seoul Drum Festival
2000 in Korea, WOMAD 2000 in Singapore, Singapore Arts Festival 1999, Heineken Green Room
Sessions 2001, Heineken Jazz Festival 2000 and invitations to play with regional and international
artistes such as Gypsy Kings, Ramli Sarip, Jacky Cheung and Bobby McFerrin.
Zubir bin Abdullah (Oud/Gambus Maestro)
Since 1980, Zubir has been actively involved in the traditional malay music. From local radio
programmes to music performances countries such as Malaysia, Brunei,Jakarta-Indonesia, Manila,
Thailand, Sydney and as far as the Middle Eastern- Saudi Arabia, Korea, Japan, India, Sicily- Italy,
Holland, Belgium and the Malay Archipelagos. Zubir is no stranger to prestigious events. The
advantage of his multi talent in playing various musical instruments is being sought after by many
professionals. Though he prefers “Oud”( Arabic guitar) as his musical companion, that was his
breakthrough to events such as the Singapore Art Festival, WOMAD, Bintan Zapin Fest, World
Malay Art Fest, World Music Convention, Jakarta Fest, National Day Celebrations and many more.
With the heavy rotation of his schedules, he had the privilege of working with regional artists and
composers in the music industry. Well- known names such as Anita Sarawak, Noraniza Idris, Kit
Chan, Mark Chan, Art Fazil, Coco Lee, Iskandar Mirza Ismail, Sadli Ali, Reduan Ali, Lobo and many
more. With his outstanding participation and long history in the Malay cultural standing, he is also
lectures at the National Institute of Education/ NTU in the field of Malay Traditional Music.
The above musicians will be accompanied by Wynne Sandosham on Keyboards, Ignatius Bong on
Bass and Vickneskumar Veerappan on Drums.
More info:
http://www.newasiarecords.com/