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By Critical Ecologies | Critical Anomalies
September 2021

The transnational team would often notate and consolidate thoughts using tools such as Google Jamboard.

Dance dramaturg and writer Nia Agustina glances around the room behind her, saying: “It’s hard to find something here because it’s not my home!” Nia is not in her usual spot at home in the cultural hub of Yogyakarta – she’s in Lampung, a province on the southernmost tip of Sumatra, on a performance tour with choreographer and long-time collaborator Ayu Permatasari. The remaining 11 of us, packed into our Zoom room in tiny adjacent squares, wait with bated breath. Nia finally offers up a small bowl, holding it close to the screen. It is filled to the brim with empek-empek, the classic fish and tapioca comfort food from the South Sumatra region. Everyone peers closely at it, oohing and ahhing. 

“I would like to share this with Fasyali,” Nia continues, “because of our shared culture with Malay culture. Because I think food is one of the ways in which we share culture. I remember when we were in Singapore [for the Asian Arts Media Roundtable], we went to a food court – I don’t remember the name, but I remember food being our way to connect.” Fasyali Fadzly, the recipient of this digital gift and a director and theatre critic based in Kuala Lumpur, beams with delight. 

This was a small object exercise from the first of many weekends the Critical Ecologies Working Group would spend together over the next six months. The 12 of us have embarked on a slow, nascent, and ongoing journey of collective discovery and engagement about what it means to be an arts critic in Southeast Asia. We have done this in the wake of a global pandemic, a crisis of cultural labour and precarity, the multiple failures of local governance and public health, and often the very overwhelming isolation of successive lockdowns in the dense urban spaces in which we live. Dispersed across the Southeast Asian archipelago in the cities of Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Singapore and Yogyakarta, we wanted to figure out the ways in which our practices come together, but how they also diverge from, question and influence each other. These 12 participants are: Max Yam and Sam Kee of Arts Republic (SG), Nabilah Said (SG), Corrie Tan (SG), Fasyali Fadzly (Kuala Lumpur), Pristine de Leon (Manila), Pauline Ysabel Miranda (Manila), Nia Agustina and Ahmad Jalidu of Gelaran.id (Yogyakarta), Michael H. B. Raditya (Yogyakarta), Theodora Agni (Yogyakarta) and Philippe Pang (SG). Click here to read more about them. 

The Critical Ecologies | Critical Anomalies team.
Left to right, first row: Corrie Tan, Theodora Agni, Philippe Pang, Sam Kee. Second row: Max Yam, Pristine de Leon, Nia Agustina, Michael H. B. Raditya. Third Row: Nabilah Said, Ahmad Jalidu, Fasyali Fadzly, Pauline Ysabel Miranda.

Many members of this working group are multi-hyphenates who work across various roles in the arts, including that of educator, researcher, facilitator, writer,  editor, dramaturg and administrator. They work fluidly across art forms and roles, reflecting the evolving role of the “critic” and their place in the arts ecology. There was also a collective desire to embark on work that expands what we understand as criticism, including collaborative writing processes, or facilitating discussions of performance that reorients arts criticism away from a purely textual medium. Central to the working group was also the desire to work and situate ourselves regionally, alongside peers from different communities across Southeast Asia, where we could look to each other as reference points, or for mutual affinities and solidarities. This transnational residency afforded us a digital mobility and communality that the pandemic had otherwise deprived us of.

During our six months together, from March to September 2021, we co-facilitated a series of focus group discussions and sharing sessions. Our first month was spent mapping out our relationship to the concept of “Southeast Asia”, and what we both embraced and resisted about this geopolitical and affective formation of nation-states. We took our time to get acquainted with each other, and how each of us had come to practice arts criticism, as well as the people and platforms who influenced and inspired us, which you can read about here. This spurred discussions about the modes of formal and informal training that arts critics receive, whether they’re independent critics or affiliated with mainstream newspapers. In the following months, we did deeper dives into the following topics: 

• the histories and lineages of criticism in Southeast Asia in the wake of decolonization movements of the 1950s-60s to the present day; 
• “conversational criticism”, a term we coined to think through alternative forms of criticism, particularly discursive practices; 
• reviewing digital and telematic performance and what it means to develop new vocabularies of responding to digital and hybrid performance during a pandemic; 
• the relationships that critics forge with each other, the state, artists and performance-makers, audience members and producers; 
• the performance critic as intermediary and activist, featuring invited guest Katrina Stuart Santiago; 
• care ethics and practices in criticism; 
• languages and translation in the region and how these politics of language and multilingualism inform our critical practices.

While the initial six-month period of our residency has concluded, the group has decided to continue meeting up once a month in the spirit of what one might call “arisan” in Indonesia, or “kutu” in Malaysia – where each of us will take turns to offer up a topic of discussion or reflection each month and lightly facilitate each session on a rotational basis. The group hopes to build on the conversations we’ve had, and experiment with ideas and concepts that each member has introduced. Our six months together has offered us a space to pause, to be quiet, to write alongside, to witness, and to work through the griefs but also the delights we’ve lived through over the past year. As the group continues to develop and grow, we hope to open up a few of our future sessions to invited guests and members of the public as we practice ways of being together, even apart.

For now, we’d like to offer you this playlist that formed the soundtrack to our residency as we worked on collaborative digital platforms together. We each contributed several songs to this list, and we hope you enjoy listening to it as much as we enjoyed compiling it.

By Corrie Tan, Residency Coordinator
September 2021

Screenshot of “Mapping Sensing Reflecting” on Day 1 of Critical Ecologies’ Co-Lab Residency

As part of a mapping exercise in April 2021, the Critical Ecologies working group listed out the various critics, writers and/or practitioners who mentored them and influenced their growth, as well as those whose work they had read extensively and were inspired by. This piece is a condensed and edited version of the exercise, which sought to explore and reflect on the personal lineages and histories of the working group’s varied practices of criticism.

Click on the arrows to read more about each member’s inspirations

By Critical Ecologies | Critical Anomalies
September 2021

The transnational working team for Critical Ecologies | Critical Anomalies “connecting” through the screen.

In this Q&A segment, the team got to ask (and answer) a set of 2 questions from their fellow members. The first round of questions were more casual, with the follow up questions a bit more specific and conceptual.

Sam: How do you maintain a sense of lightness in your writing/review?

Nia: As long as I remember, I rarely wrote heavy writing or reviews. It’s just simply because I don’t have enough knowledge to do that… hahahaha. My discursive vocabulary is also really basic, still working on that! So, writing in the sense of lightness mostly because of my limits. So far, this is also great in the sense of bridging and dialogue with the public and artists. But of course, not enough for more discursive platforms and academics.

Sam: How do you balance the amount of academic “evidence” to substantiate what you’d like to argue for or against later in the review? 

Nia: The second question is the tough one. I don’t really think about the balance actually, but mostly just put the academic evidence whenever needed. But mostly when I write I always imagine myself talking to those artists. Sometimes it gets me surprised that one review has a lot of academic references because this artist sometimes talks to me in person with a strong academic base and the other one without any, because when we meet, we always talk in a reflective way. That’s why I prefer to write about artists that I know in person, it’s fun to imagine that while writing.

Nia: What’s your favorite side food/snack for coffee, and why?

Pau: Chocolate chip cookies or cake (any kind!) are the best, for me. When it’s available, I also like pairing my coffee with a Philippine delicacy called piaya (unleavened flatbread filled with muscovado).

Nia: What scares you the most when working in the art scene, and why? 

Pau: One thing I worry about a lot when it comes to working in/with the art scene is if my understanding of a work and its context is enough. I’m scared I might end up oversimplifying their intention or their work’s theme in an attempt to make the art more approachable for my readers.

Pau: How many times do you watch a show/performance before you critique it? Are you a “once is enough” type or do you watch multiple times?

Michael: I never believed in love at first sight, but performing arts proved me wrong. I can be in love because of watching a performance with or without reason. And I believe the magical things that make me think about the power of performance. So I do not need to watch a performance twice or more before I review it, or I can say that I am a type of “once is enough” for watching a performance. Oh, I know other reasons why I am the type of “once is enough” for watching a performance, hehe, because I always bring my journal. So I will write every interesting or important thing in the performance hehe. The journal helps me to remember, interpret, and analyse the performance.

Pau: Have you ever felt like you’ve overanalyzed a show/work? Or do you believe there’s such a thing as overanalysis of art? 

Michael: Yes, I have experience of overanalysing a show. It happened when I worked as a freelancer at a local newspaper 8 years ago. There was a local performance from East Java that performed the traditional form of their dances. So simple, and their intention not for contemporary dance or reveal the representation, but only presentation. And I did overanalyse that performance with the neglected discourse. After that, I realised not every performance we should review. Sometimes we just need to watch, relax, and enjoy it.

Michael: After watching the show, are you the type of critic/researcher/writer who goes home immediately or finds friends to talk about the show before you criticised the show?

Nabilah: I don’t have a preference for one or another, but I think it depends on my state of mind after watching the show. Sometimes it affects me quite profoundly, and I feel the need to go home immediately but maybe also take a walk to try to process how I feel. Sometimes I find that I want to preserve my thoughts about the play, without checking in with others and “tainting” my own perspective. I think this usually happens when I have to review more mainstream shows – I am quite impressionable, so I want to avoid changing my mind too easily. For other shows, especially those I don’t need to review, discussions with friends tend to be very crucial and is part of the entire watching experience.

Michael: Have you ever made a typo in your critique? What’s the unique experience? 

Nabilah: Haha, I think so but I usually catch myself before it goes out! I tend to obsess, overthink and re-read my reviews to prevent this from happening.

Nabilah: What’s the most difficult review you have had to write? 

Jali: Hi Nabilah. Hmmm difficult questions… I’ll answer in Bahasa Indonesia… Saya sebenarnya tidak banyak menulis, hanya pernah mencoba beberapa kali. Hal tersulit adalah mengulas karya saya sendiri… Jika mengenai karya orang lain, saya merasa “sense” terhadap seni visual saya buruk dan basis pengalaman karya saya adalah teater drama (teater dengan teks/dialog). Maka saya merasa sulit ketika mencoba mengulas sebuah pertunjukan tari atau teater tubuh yang tanpa dialog.

[Translation: Hi Nabilah. Hmmm, difficult questions… I’ll answer in Bahasa Indonesia… I actually don’t write very much, and I’ve only ever tried it a few times. I think the hardest thing is reviewing my own work… When it comes to other people’s work, I feel that my “sense” towards visual arts is pretty bad, and the basis of my work experience is the theater (particularly theatre with text/dialogue). So I find it really difficult when trying to review dance performances or physical theatre that doesn’t have dialogue.]

Nabilah: Do you think there’s such a thing as “bad” art? Why or why not? 

Jali: Bagi saya, seni adalah cabang aktivitas ekspresi manusia, sama seperti sastra, musik, teknologi dan lainnya. Jadi tentu ada seni yang “buruk” menurut saya. Tetapi seringkali saya tidak berani mengungkapkan itu di depan publik, sebab saya sadar bisa jadi itu hanya pengaruh subyektifitas saya saja.

[Translation: To me, art is a branch of the activity of human expression – just like literature, music, technology, etc. So there is definitely “bad” art, in my opinion. But often I don’t dare to reveal this in public, because I realise that it might just be the influence of my subjectivity.]

Jali: Do you still remember your very first review? When and what performance did you review?

Corrie: My very first review for The Straits Times in Singapore was back in 2006, so 15 years ago. Wow. The performance was a collaboration between Deaf performers Ramesh Meyyappan (Singapore) and Lars Otterstedt (Sweden) called The Art of War, where they took on stereotypes around masculinity and the performativity of social norms and rituals gendered as “male”. I only remember fragments of the show now, but what remains with me is the precision and dynamism of their mime and performance work.

Jali: Have you watched many Indonesian performances? What is your favorite Indonesian performance until today?

Corrie: Interestingly enough, my encounters with Indonesian performance have skewed more towards dance and film. Most recently, I watched The Planet – A Lament directed by Garin Nugroho, as well as Otniel Tasman’s lengger work Nyawiji, which was part of this year’s ARTJOG. I watched both these works online, but it would have been extraordinary to witness them in person (I was sweating, watching Otniel with the blade of a keris in his mouth…).

a Bucket of Beetles (2020). Photo by Papermoon Puppet Theatre.

The work that left one of the deepest impressions on me during these pandemic times was a children’s theatre production: A Bucket of Beetles by Papermoon Puppet Theater. This was a digital experience, but it felt so tactile and immediate, like we were all crawling through the dense leaf litter of a tropical forest, befriending the tiny, more-than-human creatures that surround us. There was also a strong undercurrent of ecocriticism in this nonverbal performance, particularly when it comes to our negligence of the ecosystem we share with others. Sadly, I haven’t encountered as much live performance in Indonesia due to the current restrictions on travel, so I’ve been making do by reading about Indonesian performance history, e.g. work by Arena Teater, Teater Koma, Teater Payung Hitam, etc. But of course it isn’t the same!

The last few times I was in Yogyakarta, in 2018/2019, I was lucky to witness some experimental works in progress by artists and practitioners from Bandung, Bali and Yogya as part of the Asian Dramaturgs’ Network’s Lab. We all gathered at Teater Garasi and had long conversations about the pieces after.

Corrie: What piece of art or work of performance has moved you the most during these coronavirus times, and why?

Pristine: Thanks Corrie! I watched a play called Titser Kit directed by Adrienne Vergara for Virgin Labfest 2020. The festival was full of experimentation and making do, and I was interested in how the works would respond to limitations (tight budgets, rehearsing remotely) and deal with a medium that was back then still very daunting. Titser Kit was about a teacher encouraging a young Lumad student to come out from hiding under a table. I was struck by its simplicity. In black and white, the characters’ crouched bodies and faces were shown through alternating screens (like the screens on Zoom) and I thought the setup conveyed the anxious confinement and uplifting intimacy that we often felt. The theme spoke to systemic injustice and the realities of othered bodies, and there was so much tenderness to it. What comes to mind now are the warm smiling eyes of the teacher character. It reminds me how loss is all the more poignant when we have a sense of what was full.

Corrie: What’s something new you’ve learnt or come to cherish from this residency period that you’re hoping to share with your students and community of practice in Manila? 

Pristine: Definitely conversational criticism! Before this residency, I’ve been thinking through the very limiting binary of ‘difficult writing’ versus ‘accessible writing’ (which in my head somehow corresponds to academia versus media). Throughout our sessions, I’ve come to realize that this debate may have had its roots in the West, but here in Southeast Asia, there are other nuances, wide gray areas, that need to be considered. For one, translation. It makes passing on knowledge more challenging—as Nia, Jali, and Michael have consistently pointed out. These might be the questions that Euro-American critics take for granted. Instead of choosing just one side, I think the idea of conversational criticism invites us to be more nimble with language. Conversations are always fluid and never finished; they embody that exciting, nervous negotiation. I imagine conversational criticism as an amazingly playful tug-of-war between distinct voices. Or a site where multiple positions, affects, registers, and languages come together. I’m excited to ask my students how conversational criticism can be expressed either through oral practice or performative writing. They can record their conversation, interview each other (like what we’re doing here!), write letters, or co-write essays.

Pristine: Fasyali, when you need to review a performance, how do you remember the  tiny details? Are you the type who writes notes during or right after a performance? Or do you allow yourself to enjoy watching without distraction and simply rely on memory when you write? 

Fasyali: I usually don’t take notes during performance. I will try to enjoy it like a normal audience but of course paying so much attention to every detail. I tried taking notes during the performance, but ended up not enjoying it much because I didn’t see the bigger picture and its context.

Pristine: Throughout the residency, we’ve talked about criticism as a long-term commitment or a durational practice. But if critics change over time, how do they express that they have changed their mind? To be more concrete: Have you ever written an opinion or evaluation that you no longer agree with now (or maybe a review that you think needs to be updated)? Do you feel a need to address these past opinions in future writing? Or do you just move on and let them be, seeing that they have value as they are? 

Fasyali: Principally, as a critic, we must acknowledge that we are also human beings that can change over time. I did write something that I don’t agree with anymore. Of course I will find a way to update that but not in that writing. I will find a way to update my view/opinion in different writing and acknowledge it to my reader. My view or stand might change because of my exposure to current situations, knowledge and other discoveries. My past writings are not just part of the history of that particular performance, but also become part of my history as well. So, I will try not to update that but embrace it. I will not be ashamed of who I was.

Fasyali: How many languages/dialects do you usually use in everyday life? How comfortable are you using the language(s)? 

Max: I use primarily English and Mandarin in life. I have some Malay colleagues at my workplace so sometimes I use a little bit of Malay in casual conversations. When I encounter people who could speak Cantonese (my mother tongue) and/or Hakka, I might start conversations with these languages, or switch to them during conversations. English is a language for work, I face a little bit of difficulty using it for casual chats – I would speak very slowly. For arts and theatre-related topics, I have the widest vocabulary in Mandarin.

Fasyali: In writing, how do you see the language that you use in your review can reach different audiences from different backgrounds? Have you ever had any doubt that the words, sentences and language that you use are too simplistic or complicated for you reader? 

Max: Yes I think one of the biggest problems (if not the biggest) of mine in review writing is my language. I find it hard to speak my mind freely. I used to keep a blog (before Facebook came out), and I could use my way of speaking in daily life (with wrong sentence structure etc) in my writing. I had much confidence in writing this way as my friends told me the blog really reflected my personality and they could understand my train of thought perfectly, and most importantly, they enjoyed reading it. However when I started writing theatre reviews, I felt I could not write like that anymore. I felt it’s a more ‘serious’ thing, and all the materials I read about theatre and criticism do not look or sound like that. I thought, in order to make my reviews more ‘legit’, I need to learn from or be inspired by them. But I get feedback like “I don’t really know what you’re saying.” I’m not sure if I’m following the good examples, or it’s because I have not improved enough.

I think the words I use are definitely simple (as I have no academic background), but it’s the organisation of words, sentences and arguments that is complicated for readers.

Perhaps this is one of the reasons why I switch to asking questions and begin thinking about conversational criticism.

Max: Could you share with us three shows or experiences that shaped and/or reshaped your understanding of theatre or performing arts? They could just be three shows that are stuck in your brain now. 

Ibsen: Ghosts, by Markus & Markus (2016). Photo by: Ng Yi-Sheng

Sam: Afternoon of a Foehn Version 1 (Esplanade Annex, 2017) was curated for a younger audience but its light-heartedness and fun elements (think clowning, balloons, non-verbal language, and a little physics) made the theatrics accessible and thought-provoking at the same time. I love it. It’s staying at the top of my list, always.

1 Table 2 Chairs (The Theatre Practice’s Chinese Theatre Festival, 2013) was my first encounter with (what I thought to be an) alternative theatre form, the power of symbols and what a minimalistic stage could do.

Ibsen: Ghosts, by Markus & Markus (Singapore International Festival of Arts, 2016) showed me the power or impact of docu-verbatim theatre and made me rethink about their content topic “death” and the authority one has over oneself.

Max: If you could ignore everything you have learned about writing good reviews (e.g. context), how would you write a review? What would it look like? 

Sam: I wish I could just submit my handwritten sketches, mindmaps, journaling notes/word clouds and thoughts about the show that aren’t constructed in proper full sentences.

By Critical Ecologies | Critical Anomalies
September 2021

Try your hand at cracking some of the words and phrases that have been used frequently by the working team during their six-month residency period!

Puzzle not loading? Click here for an image version of the puzzle.

By Critical Ecologies | Critical Anomalies
September 2021

A Yellow Chair Productions team huddle during Lanterns Never Go Out (2012). This photo is just one of the memories unearthed during the Our Space in Time archival residency. Photo credit: Yellow Chair Productions.

At Centre 42, documenting and archiving Singapore theatre is an essential part of our ethos, and this includes making space for stories that may have been lost to time. To paint a more colourful picture of the local theatre landscape, one of our new programmes, The Archival Residency, invites artists to venture down memory lane and tell the less documented histories of our scene through the archival process.

Kicking off the residency is Our Space in Time, a digital exhibition capturing memories of Yellow Chair Productions (YCP), a now-defunct community and amateur theatre group.

Leading the project is none other than YCP co-founder and artistic director Mohamad Shaifulbahri (Shai), who is better known these days as an independent producer and co-artistic lead of outfits like Bhumi Collective and AdeebandShai.

A production photo from Tainted Flower (2006). Photo credit: Yellow Chair Productions.

YCP was based in Tampines Central Community Complex and was home to almost 300 youth from 2005 to 2016, many of whom are still practicing in the arts today. Together, they staged and produced numerous works in community spaces and organizations.

Many of these milestones and memories have been retrieved and archived in Our Space in Time, including scripts, old programmes and photographs. In fact, for this residency, two plays, Tainted Flower (2006) and You Think, I Thought, Who Confirm (2013) were recently revived as play-readings and recorded for the exhibition.

But for Shai, the Archival Residency is just the beginning. Our Space in Time will be further developed into an YCP Legacy Project over the next few years. We speak to Shai to find out more about the YCP journey and his experience in the residency.

Why did you decide to embark on this archival project?

Over the years, I’ve talked about wanting to do a ‘YCP book’ to the people around me, but never actually committed to it. This all changed when the pandemic hit and the circuit breaker happened. During this period, I created this metaphoric cave that I went into and shut down for a bit, and this forced rest gave me clarity and a new perspective about history and theatre-making.

It was then I knew this is exactly the time to be archiving and recording legacy. Instead of presenting archival footage like what the other theatre companies were doing [during the pandemic], I thought, “what does it mean to archive something that hasn’t been archived?”

How has your time in Yellow Chair Productions shaped you?

I was 19 when I started YCP. At that point in time, it was something that I did out of interest and wasn’t thinking of making into a career. None of us (in YCP) had any affiliations with big theatre companies, nor did we go through any training programmes, so a lot of what I learnt from the scene came through my time at YCP.

I jokingly refer to those years as my “on-the-job training”. It was a space where I could make mistakes (and I did), because as the leader of the group, you just had to do it. And the spirit of “just doing” became part of the YCP identity as well. 

A Yellow Chair Productions recruitment poster. Image credit: Yellow Chair Productions.

What are some of your favourite artefacts that you’ve dug up thus far?

Photos of me with hair! [laughs]

The one artefact that I keep getting lured back to is a recruitment poster back from the early days that I discovered in my old emails. It says “Take Centre Stage” and “Come Join the Club” — I can’t recall when we even used it! But it was for an audition that we held back in 2005, and the image and the poster were quite definitive of what we were doing back in the day. Of all the artefacts, this was the one that got us started and it was a marker that we existed.

What’s your favourite thing about the process of archiving?

For me the process of discovering things that I thought we’ve lost to time is my favourite. Contacting people and seeing what they have is a joyful thing, people who respond might not think that their photos or artefacts could be useful, but to me, it can be unique.

Do you wish you could go back and archive everything that you’ve lost to time?

No, because then I wouldn’t have the richness of what I’m experiencing now. I believe that everything has its space and time, and there are reasons why this journey didn’t happen earlier. Part of the fun is knowing that some things are going to be lost to time and maybe it’s meant to be.

I think if we had been continuously talking about YCP for the past 15 years, this conversation wouldn’t be happening. My co-founders and I never looked at Yellow Chair in a critical way from when we first started and looking at it now has allowed me to create new archival material in the climate and the time that we’re currently in — and that keeps it exciting!

by Nadia Carr
Published 30 August 2021

Our Space in Time, a digital exhibition following the history of Yellow Chair Productions is now live! Visit bit.ly/ourspaceintime to view it now! Our Space in Time was developed under Centre 42’s Archival Residency. Click here to find out more.

It was over three decades ago when late theatre doyen Kuo Pao Kun described Singapore theatre and its history as “severely interrupted”.

“The advantage of having an artistic tradition is that the younger artists could see an organic link between the real life of one’s country and its art work which is a sublimation of that life,” he said. “I see it as a worry because the lack of this tradition really means that theatre in Singapore never had an experience of delving deeply into the country’s life (past and present), to observe, research, reflect and then, often painfully, distilling it into theatre.”

Something to prove

The Repository, a digital archive of theatre ephemera, launched in 2015.

The record-keeping role of the archive is one important way to build and sustain a local theatre tradition. When Centre 42 launched its digital theatre archive the Repository back in 2015, it was meant to do just that.

We privately called The Repository a ‘proof of concept’ – the programme had a short development runway of six months and a modest investment, but ultimately we wanted to find out whether it was possible to build a collection of artefacts that could serve as a record of Singapore theatre history.

This collection of artefacts, as a whole, would give users an impression of the trends and developments in Singapore theatre history, and, hopefully, whet their appetites to find out more from other archival resources. For this scope and purpose, the Repository focused on theatre ephemera, specifically the programme booklets, posters, brochures and other publicity collateral which form the residue of past theatre productions.

Six years on, this proof of concept was, for the large part, successful. The Repository held a tidy collection of over 2,400 artefacts from 16 companies, covering the years 1966 to 2019.

However, the Repository collection was severely limited in the picture it portrayed of Singapore theatre.  There were many gaps, most notably an absence of the work of our independent peers, as well as documentation of the processes that led to the development of these theatre productions.

A bigger, bolder archive

In 2020, armed with feedback from members of the theatre community and an audit of Centre 42’s documentation work, we set out to envision a new archive that was much larger and complex in scope and bolder in its ambition, one that would fill out the portrait of Singapore theatre better than before.

We’re calling this endeavour the C42 Archive of Singapore Theatre, and it builds upon the Repository and our other documentation work, as well as introduces new ways of archiving our local theatre landscape. Briefly, the Archive will focus on the following areas:

1) Comprehensiveness

The Archive needed to have a broader range of materials to build a better picture of Singapore theatre. In addition to production collaterals from the Repository, the Archive will also contain reviews, publications, essays & writings, audiovisual recordings and photographs.

A new type of artefact that we’re introducing into the Archive is unpublished scripts. These are

Playwright Alfian Sa’at’s “Cook A Pot of Curry” in the Unpublished Scripts section of the Archive.

the play-texts that were performed but never received publications and risk fading into oblivion. They could also be early drafts of plays that represent important milestones of the creative journey. If you’re interested in submitting an unpublished script, or just interested to find out more this effort, please click here.

2) Connections

Another major aim of the Archive, and a mammoth undertaking, is to create linkages between the various archival materials.

To that end, we will have Productions & Staging pages, which function much like encyclopedia entries, pulling together the various artefacts pertaining to that particular theatre production.

Another way of joining the dots would be through the individuals and groups involved in the productions. For them, we have People and Organisation profile pages, which, when populated, will be able to aggregate the work that these entities have done, from theatre works to writings.

Theatre practitioner Grace Kalaiselvi’s profile page in the People section of the Archive.

3) Capabilities

And finally, we also want to build archival and documentation capabilities. For that, we’re introducing an Archival Residency, in which independent artists and groups can work with Centre 42 to build collections of artefacts, and organise them to tell a story of themselves.

There’s no limit to what the Archival Residents are allowed to archive, which makes for an abundance of documentation and storytelling opportunities. And it opens a world of possibilities for what could be contributed to the Archive!

We’re already working with our first Archival Resident, Yellow Chair Productions, to archive their works and organisational history. Stay tuned to see what emerges from this residency.

Embracing complexity

As ambitious and, at times, frustrating it has been to plan, develop and build the Archive, it’s in the knowledge that this is important work.

In a 1996 interview with The Necessary Stage, Kuo Pao Kun put out a clarion call for Singapore theatre to cherish and study our history: “We cannot actually do the art and call it our own without delving into our own tradition, our own history, our own experience. It is all really one. Different dimensions, different ways of seeing. How can you assert yourself without knowing who you are?”

Life is multidimensional and complex, and perhaps, so should an archive. At the time of publishing, we’re still building, testing and working out the kinks. But feel free to check out what we’ve been working on here, and we look forward to hearing feedback from you through any of our social media channels.

Welcome to the C42 Archive of Singapore Theatre History. Pardon the mess.

By Daniel Teo
Published on 25 May 2021

Critical Ecologies| Critical Anomalies doing an activity following one of their brainstorming sessions. The entire residency is held over Zoom as the members are from different Southeast Asian regions.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced us to find new ways to think, work and play. While physical presences are crucial to human relationships and well-being, digital spaces can offer us creative alternatives to the way we connect, even offering opportunities to form global networks.

C42 restructured our residency programmes to adapt to the changing needs and circumstances of our community. One new programme is the Co-Lab Residency.

As its name suggests, Co-Lab is for collectives, inspired by laboratory-style experimentation and investigation, and altogether focuses on collaboration. The aim of Co-Lab is to create and grow ecologies of creativity and expertise. Co-Lab can take place in a physical space, a digital one, or a mixture of both.

Co-Lab is artist-centered – this means the Co-Lab Resident Collectives are allowed to determine for themselves what outcomes they would wish to achieve within the residency period, and how they wish to achieve them. It’s not just about devising new creations, but also new ways of creating and exploring.

In addition, Co-Lab encourages knowledge-sharing. Resident Collectives will be given opportunities to gather and discuss their explorations and processes. These sharing sessions may also be extended to the other residencies at C42.

Brown Voices

Brown Voices at one of their monthly meetings held over Zoom.

Brown Voices (BV) is Singapore’s first collective of Indian theatre practitioners and playwrights. A 12-member team, founded by freelance Indian actor-director-playwright Grace Kalaiselvi, BV supports, encourages and trains play-writing, especially for quality play scripts where the narratives by Indians in Singapore take centre stage. The group previously had their regular meetings at C42, and made their debut with a reading of original works at C42’s Late-Night Texting 2019.

BV is no stranger to adapting their practice and expanding their reach. In February 2020, they were already forming regional connections, having conducted networking sessions online with Malaysian Indian playwrights. They also had public online discussions on their writing.

Since the move to the cloud, they have found their stride in online monthly meetings. In Co-Lab, BV will be presenting a whole host of workshops and play-readings in 2021, where members will be sharing on their topics of interest and how they may intersect with theatre, as well as freshly written scripts.

Members of the Main Tulis Group having their monthly meetings

Main Tulis Group

Formed in 2016, Main Tulis Group (MTG) is Singapore’s first collective that works on developing English and Malay plays. With “main” meaning play in Malay, the group emphasises writing organically, without restrictions.

They are keen to exchange ideas and provide critique, with the aim of producing more original writing for the stage. Like BV, MTG has also regarded C42 as their home base, and has been a frequent feature at Late-Night Texting since 2017.

The group also organises regular readings of works-in-progress, conducts outreach events on writing, and mentors young writers. Members have also conducted playwriting workshops for each other, in areas such as adaptation and translation.

As part of Co-Lab, look out for MTG’s Script Circles, public sessions in which to share scripts to gain feedback or to learn about playwriting. Script Circles are slated to begin later in 2021.

Critical Ecologies | Critical Anomalies

Critical Ecologies | Critical Anomalies, led by arts researcher and writer Corrie Tan, consists of a team of 12 critics, writers, documenters and translators from Singapore, the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia.

They have come together to imagine what performance criticism and critique located in and emerging from Southeast Asia might look like and how it can be theorised and documented.

In their attempts to formulate a regional understanding of criticism, the team has been meeting online in focus group discussions to unpack the practice. They will also be running workshops to facilitate mutual support and sharing of individual expertise.

A screen grab of a Google Jamboard used to capture thoughts and ideas during a brainstorming session from The Care & Intimacy Working Group.

Care and Intimacy Working Group

The Working Group emerged from a strong desire and need to be intentional about having more conversations about care and intimacy practices in the local arts scene. Made up of 20 members and divided into smaller sub-groups, they have been exploring and mapping information and knowledge on maintaining care in arts disciplines.

They are also invested in holding space for people to have these conversations about care, and advocating for broader considerations of care and intimacy, and the minimization of harmful practices across in the arts. The Working Group hopes to develop new best practices that we can adopt collectively.

By Lee Shu Yu
Published on 24 May 2021

The Vault: Lite artists: (from top left) Cheryl Tan, Isaiah Lee, Ke Weiliang, Lim Shien Hian, Lim Si Hui, and Ruzaini Mazani.

Since the beginning of 2021, the artists-in-residence of The Vault: Lite have been researching and developing responses to the plays they have selected, under the overarching theme “A Whole New World” inspired by monumental changes to human lives brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the course of eight weeks, they have been conceptualising and devising, and conducting research, interviews and play-tests. As we look forward to their final sharings on 28 Feb, let’s find out more about six Vault: Lite artists about their motivation and vision behind their projects.

Les autres Latifahs
by Ruzaini Mazani

Ruzaini Mazani is responding to the monodrama La Libre Latifah written by Aidli ‘Alin’ Mosbit. La Libre Latifah was first performed in 2003 as part of Teater Ekamatra’s Projek Suitcase showcase series featuring local and regional contemporary Malay plays.

What drew you to the text you selected?
I realised the text was not performed a lot. It was staged twice in 2003 – at the Esplanade and in Stor Teater, Kuala Lumpur – and had a recent revival in 2020 during Circuit Breaker by RUMAH by Khai. Even so, the latter was a performance of one of the monologues in the play. Then I thought, “why not revisit this play? I’ve always liked Kak Alin’s works. Let’s see what happens when I approach it.

How did the idea for your response come about?
As I was reading the play, I was drawn to the idea of nostalgia and nostalgia-making, especially in the current context of COVID-19; there was an air of “good old times” during the lockdown. It opened up the possibilities that nostalgia isn’t purely a “warm and fuzzy feeling”, but something to do with performing a memory for a particular purpose instead.

What are you exploring with your response?
I’m experimenting with the philosophy of nostalgia and the performance of self from La Libre Latifah. I am curious to know where ‘nostalgia’ can take me creatively, and performance ideas that can be inspired from it. I’m hoping to get materials for a possible expansion of Latifah or excavation of Latifah’s lives. If possible, I would like to write a sequel about Latifah (heehee).

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

Lim Shien Hian is responding to Haresh Sharma’s Those Who Can’t, Teach, the 1990 play about Mrs Phua Su Lin, a secondary school teacher and single mother who is challenged by the demands of both roles. In his response, he is reimagining Those Who Can’t, Teach as an Interactive Fiction piece set in COVID-era Singapore.

What drew you to the text you selected?
I wanted to look at a play where the central experience has been radically transformed by COVID-19. I then had a chance conversation with a teacher friend about their tough experience dealing with their students during the Circuit Breaker. I thought, there must be many horror stories of teaching and learning during the lockdown, what better plight to throw the teachers and students of Those Who Can’t, Teach into?

How did the idea for your response come about?
The format came first – I learned about Interactive Fiction in a module at university, and then was wowed by games such as Detroit: Become Human and Disco Elysium. While not technically Interactive Fiction, their stories are so rich and integral to the whole game experience that I wanted to see if the same could be applied to plays.

What are you hoping to explore through this response?
Marrying the play and the format, I want to see how Su Lin, the main teacher figure of Those Who Can’t, Teach, would navigate COVID-19 and the lockdown. For such a hands-on teacher who is always concerned about her students (perhaps, a little too much so) the whole situation must have impacted her mentally, or perhaps strengthened her resolve to care for them. Would she come up with innovative ways to engage her students over Zoom?

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

Cheryl Tan and Isaiah Lee are responding to POOP! written by Chong Tze Chien. First staged in 2009 by The Finger Players, POOP! explores death and grief in the story of a grandmother, whose own son had committed suicide, and whose granddaughter contracts a terminal illness. Rehearsals for (Im)permanence re-imag(in)es post-traumatic healing after the loss of a loved one, and the ways in which one perceives life and the afterlife.

What drew you to the text you selected?
We actually met during the 2015 M1 Peer Pleasure Youth Theatre Festival in which our schools were participating, and Cheryl was playing Emily in her school’s production of POOP!. This play has stuck with us over the years because of its relatable tenderness and fresh take on what it means to lose the people we love.

How did the idea for your response come about?
The play’s language is poetic in its imaginings of the afterlife and its spiraling cyclicality, yet the simple and profound message is that grief is a non-linear process that begs constant re-evaluation. There are also many sidelined (or perhaps subaltern) voices that have yet to be explored in the play. Thus, we were drawn to work with the original material to expand its meaning and explore the intersection between loss and love.

What are you hoping to explore through this response?
POOP! explored what it means for the living to have been left behind; we hope to shed light on the flip-side and explore what it means for the departed to leave people behind. We are also exploring several aspects of performance art and audience participation and how it may be integrated into theatre.

Bodies in Community
by Lim Si Hui

Lim Si Hui is responding to Ovidia Yu’s Breastissues, a play about four women who experience various challenges with their breasts. Breastissues was first staged in 1997 by Singapore Repertory Theatre. For her response, Si Hui zeroes in on women’s experiences of breast cancer, and is seeking to understand how the themes and interactions from the play can be further experienced and expanded upon during a health crisis.

What drew you to the text you selected?
I was drawn to Breastissues, as it focuses on major changes to the female body (pregnancy, breast cancer, breast augmentation). I was also struck by the keen urgency of making a decision about one’s body with the input of community, and the fraught relationship between bodily changes and shared emotion. I have a personal family history of breast cancer as well, and the topics of feminine presentation and reproduction has been of keen interest to me for the last couple years.

How did the idea for your response come about?
Women have always lived with judgment on bodily changes, whether visible or invisible. The current COVID-19 pandemic also illustrates how changes in the larger community ties closely with one’s personal experience. Our lives are informed by the opinions, emotions and decisions of others.

What are you hoping to explore through this response?
At the heart of my response is the urge to explore the connections that underscore a crisis of the human body, no matter what form it takes.

Letters to/from Rosnah
by Ke Weiliang

Ke Weiliang is responding to the Haresh Sharma monodrama Rosnah. First staged by The Necessary Stage in 1995, Rosnah is the coming-of-age story of a young Malay Muslim woman studying in London. For Letters to/from Rosnah, Weiliang is working with artists Tysha Khan and ila to embody two different versions of the titular character, and he engages with the two Rosnah’s through the act of letter-writing. [At the time of publication, the letter exchange is ongoing and expected to be completed in Mar 2021. You can view the letters here.]

What drew you to the text you selected?
My first encounter with Rosnah was the 2016 staging at the Esplanade Theatre Studio, during the Pesta Raya festival. I was struck by how Rosnah struggled with her personal identity in an increasingly intersectional world, and how actress Siti Khalijah Zainal fluidly alternated between playing Rosnah and being herself to provide meta-commentary on Rosnah’s journey. It made me wonder if Rosnah and people living in the present could have a time capsule-like conversation about some of the relatively dated, yet relatable issues brought up by the play.

Two examples of letters sent between the Rosnah’s and Weiliang. You can view all the letters here.

How did the idea for your response come about?
Being stripped of regular close contact because of COVID-19 made me curious about the possibility of fostering intimacy over scattered, physically distanced interactions – without defaulting to digital communication. I gradually became fascinated with sending letters and postcards to loved ones whom I could no longer readily meet.

I was also inspired by Teo Xiao Ting’s response to The Necessary Stage’s 2019 staging of Off Centre, where she framed her review as a letter addressed directly to the play’s protagonists, Saloma and Vinod. It made me dream of the possibility of similar interactions happening between audience members and a legacy character from a text-based play.

What are you hoping to explore through this response?
By the end of my letter exchanges with both Rosnah’s, I am hoping to get a better sense of whether there is a future for scattered, physically distanced theatrical experiences that do not require artists and audience members to share the same physical and/or digital space in real time.

By Lee Shu Yu & Daniel Teo
Published on 24 February 2021

The Vault: Lite is the exploratory arm of The Vault, aimed at the experimenting and ideating of contemporary responses to works from the Singapore theatre canon.

Fezhah Maznan amongst her fellow participants of the Dramaturgs’ Practice Development: Introduction to the Dramaturg’s Work online course in October 2020.

Fezhah Maznan is a producer for the Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA). In October 2020, she took part in Dramaturgs’ Practice Development: A Introduction to the Dramaturg’s Work (DPD), an online course that introduced performing arts practitioners to dramaturgy and the work of a dramaturg. The course was conducted by Dr. Robin Loon and spanned over four sessions throughout the month. We spoke with Fezhah on her experience on the course and how it shaped her understanding of dramaturgy and dramaturgs.

How did you come to know about dramaturgy?

The first symposium by the Asian Dramaturgs’ Network (ADN) in 2016 piqued my curiosity. What is a dramaturg? How do you even understand dramaturgy?

When I was a producer for the Esplanade [before joining SIFA], I got a better idea of what dramaturgy is even though I had no idea what the craft was. I was just going with my instincts.

I’ve been in theatre since I was 14. I’ve done writing, directing, designing, and stage managing. I later found myself in the production manager and producer roles, and I enjoy those. Because I’ve been in the rehearsal space, I understand what it entails to talk about process.

As a producer, I work with a lot of artists. I have the privilege to know what their concerns are and where their strengths lie. So sometimes, I’ll ask questions about the work. As I continue having conversations with these artists, they become more comfortable with me, and they grow to like the questions I ask.

Why did you join the DPD course?

When I told my husband Felipe [who is a lecturer at LASALLE College of the Arts] about my thoughts in approaching a work and analysing what I’ve seen, he said, “I think you might make a good dramaturg!”

Also, since leaving the Esplanade, I’ve been receiving invitations to be a dramaturg.

But I never saw myself as a dramaturg. There’s a bit of anxiety. Am I doing it right? What other tools or strategies are there?

What did you think a dramaturg was before the DPD course?

I thought a dramaturg needed to have a certain kind of domain expertise. Like when I produced Leda and the Rage by Edith Podesta in 2018, we worked with Rosemary [McGowan] as a dramaturg. She had domain expertise [in counselling and applied theatre].

I majored in Theatre Studies but I wasn’t a good student. And I thought a dramaturg needs to read a lot, a lot of books. You see [Lim] How Ngean, Charlene [Rajendran], Robin [Loon] – they all have PhDs. And I don’t! It gets really intimidating, especially when I attend ADN panels and I think, “Oh, I don’t think I’m that clever.”

What did you enjoy about the DPD course?

I enjoyed learning about the different kinds of dramaturgs. I also thought it was interesting to know some of the strategies and approaches.

I liked working with the other participants. There were people coming from different disciplines and different generations. I enjoyed the group work, even the extra time we put in outside of the course sessions. We were very task oriented, maybe because we would meet for group discussions on Zoom and we didn’t want to spend too much time onscreen.

And it was fun being taught by Dr. Loon again. I don’t remember him being this fabulous back when he taught me at NUS [National University of Singapore]!

Did you experience any difficulties in the DPD course?

No, actually. It wasn’t difficult. I thought Dr. Loon’s pedagogical approach was great. I could see what he was doing with the structure of his class. He would gently move you into concepts and break them down. He used quizzes, which I liked.

Has the DPD course helped you to feel more confident about dramaturgy?

I’m more assured now knowing that the questions I ask artists are in the right direction. The approach that I take to analyse a work is in the right direction. I’m definitely more interested in pursuing and further deepening my knowledge on dramaturgy.

Would you call yourself a dramaturg now?

No! It’s like reading an article on economics and then calling yourself an economist!

I’m really not comfortable calling myself a ‘dramaturg’ at this moment. I’m still experimenting. And I find people are very quick to label themselves, and I’m trying not to do that. It kind of boxes me up or creates expectations. I’m just going to go with the flow.

By Daniel Teo
Published on 24 February 2021

Fezhah is joining five other aspiring dramaturgs in 2021 for the follow-up Dramaturgs in Practice course, which will see the dramaturgs-in-training being attached to professional productions over the course of 10 weeks.