The Vault Lite: “A Whole New World?”

5.00pm
Introduction

5.10pm – 5.50pm
Les autres Latifahs by Ruzaini Mazani
Responding to La Libre Latifah by Aidil ‘Alin’ Mosbit

6.00pm – 6.40pm
Those Who Can’t, Teach: An Interactive Fiction Piece By Lim Shien Hian
Responding to Those Who Can’t, Teach by Haresh Sharma

7.00pm – 7.40pm
Rehearsals for (Im)permanence by Cheryl Tan and Isaiah Lee
Responding to Poop! by Chong Tze Chien
Rehearsals for (Im)permanence deals with themes of death and suicide. Please be advised.

7.50pm – 8.30pm
Bodies in Community by Lim Si Hui
Responding to Breastissues by Ovidia Yu
Bodies in Community features images of post-mastectomy some might find graphic. Please be advised.

8.40pm – 9.20pm
Letters to/from Rosnah by Ke Weiliang
Responding to Rosnah by Haresh Sharma

Register for one or more time slots. Each sharing will be followed by a Q&A with the artist.

“A Whole New World?”

The coronavirus pandemic has jolted the world into a new era. Society has since spoken of the heralding of a “new normal”.

But is it new, or normal? Perhaps the pandemic has hastened a digital revolution. Perhaps it has also exposed in its wake the cracks of our society. But the shift to the digital been long in the making and the underbelly of our problems have always been lurking in the shadows.

How have we faced “new normals” that came before, or imagined a brand new future for ourselves? How has our society dealt with crises and turning points? How have they surfaced in our Singapore Theatre History?

How can we face a whole new world now?

Les autres Latifahs by Ruzaini Mazani

Chosen play: La Libre Latifah by Aidli ‘Alin’ Mosbit

Artist Statement:

My project attempts to reimagine Aidli Mosbit’s La Libre Latifah in the context of nostalgia-making and performance of self. During the lockdown period in Singapore there were attempts by the Facebook and Instagram community to relive a period where “it was all good.” There was a surge of pictures, videos, even Spotify playlists, that remind us of a less stressful time and I find that fascinating.

In Latifah, there aren’t any specifically nostalgic moments except for the diary entry scene. It is because of that scene that I had a hunch that perhaps the play was Latifah’s way of creating her nostalgia despite it not being “warm and fuzzy memories.” It is this idea that inspired me to research and explore further about nostalgia-making.

The play has other performative elements too such as video and songs, and it’s a monodrama. The playing of different characters to me is a way of performing different sides of one’s self. With that in mind, I hope to intertwine the idea of self-performance with the notion of nostalgia-making.

Further Reading

Reflections on Les autres Latifahs

Those Who Can’t, Teach: An Interactive Fiction Piece by Lim Shien Hian

Chosen play: Those Who Can’t, Teach by Haresh Sharma

Artist Statement:

My project will attempt to reimagine Those Who Can’t, Teach within Circuit Breaker-era Singapore. The school is a wonderful place where students learn to laugh, cry, love, and most importantly, grow up, and teachers are integral to that journey. Those Who Can’t, Teach brought the essence of the Singaporean classroom to life with unforgettable characters like Su Lin, Teck Liang and Jali, showing us how the jobs of teachers can be tiring, enjoyable, thankless and fulfilling all at the same time. During Covid times, teachers’ workloads must have suddenly multiplied overnight, having to deal with the logistical nightmare and technical issues that come with coordinating a class of kids for digital lessons. Talking to some of my teacher friends, I realized there were so many stories to tell, and what’s more, every school had their own way of dealing with things. So, I hope to situate the story and characters of Those Who Can’t, Teach into the strange year of 2020 and see how Su Lin and co. would have coped.

Further Reading

Reflections on ‘Those Who Can’t, Teach': An Interactive Fiction Piece

Rehearsals for (Im)permanence by Cheryl Tan and Isaiah Lee

Chosen play: POOP! by Chong Tze Chien

Artist Statement:

How does the relationship between absurdism and alienation, negotiated in Chong Tze Chien’s POOP!, reimagine an afterlife for trauma in post-pandemic Singapore?

Throughout the course of this residency, we interrogate how postmodern drama, which embodies an incredulity toward metanarratives and linear thought, confronts trauma through absurdism. In estranging realities from expectations, Chong’s work reconciles the rift between an initial position of trauma and a progression toward a future reality which must move on from that traumatic encounter. That is, Brecht’s alienation effect achieved in POOP! reimagines ways of negotiating trauma in post-pandemic Singapore. Through a research process that looks specifically at voices of alterity and marginalised narratives in POOP!, we aim to devise a new work that responds to the negotiation of a new normal in a destabilised world after trauma.

Further Reading

Reflections on Rehearsals for (Im)permanence by Cheryl Tan

Reflections on Rehearsals for (Im)permanence by Isaiah Lee

Bodies in Community by Lim Si Hui

Chosen play: Breastissues by Ovidia Yu

Artist Statement:

While ‘a new normal’ belies tragic, permanent changes in society, I put forth that tragic, permanent changes happen all the time for women. Bodies in Community responds to Breastissues (Ovidia Yu, 1997), which explores the relationship between three women weighing life- and body-altering events: Pregnancy, breast cancer, and breast augmentation.

These bodily changes, whether actively acted upon or passively accepted, come with a community’s judgment, support, and beliefs; whether conscious or unconscious, women’s lives are thus shaped. To me, both the pandemic and this play pose the same question: How does a human body experience change, community, and crisis in the public and private sphere? How do our lives and bodies inform the experiences of others, and vice versa?

Further Reading

Reflections on Bodies in Community

Letters to/from Rosnah by Ke Weiliang

Chosen play: Rosnah by Haresh Sharma

Artist Statement:

Letters to/from Rosnah is a research project responding to Rosnah by Haresh Sharma, a monodrama that revolves around its titular female Malay-Muslim protagonist and her journey leaving Singapore for the first time to pursue undergraduate studies in London. Aside from Rosnah’s very relatable struggle with personal identity in an increasingly intersectional world, I was fascinated by the time capsule-like conversations that happens between Rosnah and the actor embodying her. I was also inspired by Teo Xiao Ting’s response to The Necessary Stage’s 2019 staging of Off Centre, where she wrote a letter addressed directly to Saloma and Vinod after watching the show. It made me dream about the possibility of similar, yet different interactions happening between such a legacy character and audience members.

What if a character like Rosnah time travelled to the present day for x number of days, before returning to the universe that they originally lived in?

What might happen if audience members had the chance to write and receive letters to and from this character during the latter’s stay in the present day?

Is there a future for scattered, physically distanced theatrical experiences that do not require artists and audience members to be a communal physical and/or digital space in real time?

Artist Note:

For this residency, I invited actor/writer Tysha Khan and visual/performance artist ila to experiment with letter writing as a means of interacting with Rosnah. Tysha was prompted to embody Rosnah who stayed in her original 1990s universe, whereas ila was assigned to embody Rosnah who time travels to the present day for x number of days, but has to eventually return to the 1990s.

I am in the midst of exchanging a series of 3 pairs of letters with both Rosnahs. The letter exchange is still ongoing, and is estimated to be completed by end March 2021. View the letters below.

Further Reading

Letters Exchanged Between Weiliang and Both Rosnahs

Reflections on Letters to/from Rosnah

Resources:

Interviews with The Vault Lite Artists

Letters Exchanged Between Weiliang and Both Rosnahs

Artist Reflections:

Reflections on Les autres Latifahs

Reflections on ‘Those Who Can’t, Teach': An Interactive Fiction Piece

Reflections on Rehearsals for (Im)permanence by Cheryl Tan

Reflections on Rehearsals for (Im)permanence by Isaiah Lee

Reflections on Bodies in Community

Reflections on Letters to/from Rosnah

Photos:

The following screengrabs were taken from The Vault Lite: A Whole New World? Artist-in-Residence Sharing held on 26 February 2021. The artists presented their five projects, going over their creative concepts and research process for the length of the residency, as well as taking questions from the attendees.