Year in Review 2021

“STUDY ART FOR WHAT”

Host: 

Ke Weiliang (he/they) is a Singaporean arts practitioner-critic whose creative practice is centered around conversation building and fostering physically distanced intimacy over scattered, asynchronous interactions. He is the founding administrator cum radio chat host of the Telegram community Channel NewsTheatre, founding editor of the arts criticism blog Gee Dock Convos and a regular guest contributor with arts media platform ArtsEquator. They graduated from LASALLE College of the Arts with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Arts Management in 2019. Follow him/them on Instagram: @monsieurkewl.

Guests:

Kaykay Nizam is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Singapore graduating from Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts with a B.A. (1st Hons) in Theatre Arts. Since then, his career has spanned over 40 productions, having performed internationally in Beijing, Mongolia, Indonesia, London and New York.

Michele Lim is an arts management consultant, arts educator and producer. She currently teaches part time at LASALLE College of the Arts in the Career Management module for the level 3 students pursuing their Diploma in Dance, Performance and Technical Production Management. She has also conducted career guidance workshops for dance students at SOTA since 2016.

Selma Alkaff is a freelance actor and alumni of SOTA and The RCSSD. In 2020 she (accidentally) founded TheVirtualBabysitter; an online platform that provides interactive programs for children. Combining her experience with children and professional acting training, she strives to provide a unique service that is tailored to every child.

“FLIRTING WITH THE FRENEMY: ART & TECH”

Host: 

Vithya Subramaniam is an Anthropology DPhil candidate at the University of Oxford, tracing the materiality of being ‘Singaporean Indian’. This year, Vithya created Thamizhachi: a digital museum of Tamil women under construction; wrote the zoom-play Rasanai; produced Tekka Food Steps; and co-facilitated the Migrant Workers Community Museum. She is also a founding member of Brown Voices.

Guests:

Adeeb Fazah is a theatre director and educator. He is the founding Artistic Director of The Second Breakfast Company, one half of Adeeb & Shai, co-founder of Impromptu Meetings and a committee member of STRIKE! Digital Festival. He also recently founded In the Round, a network of early career theatre directors.

Cherilyn Woo is a Freelance Theatre Director and Writer in Singapore with a keen interest in multi-disciplinary collaboration. From 2014 – 2016, she was in the Directing Residency at Singapore Repertory Theatre. Currently, she is one half of Issy x Cher and Associate at Nine Years Theatre.

Han Xuemei is a theatre practitioner based in Singapore. Her artistic practice involves designing experiences and spaces for people to be creative, disrupt routines and deconstruct paradigms. She has been a resident artist with theatre company Drama Box since 2012, and has conceptualised, directed, designed and facilitated numerous projects.

“WAYS OF CARING”

Host:

Corrie Tan is a researcher and practitioner who works at the intersection of care ethics, collaborative performance practices, and new articulations of performance criticism and arts writing in Southeast Asia. She is currently completing her Ph.D. in Theatre and Performance Studies on the joint degree programme between King’s College London and the National University of Singapore. She is also contributing editor and resident critic with ArtsEquator.

Photo credit: Elizabeth Chan

Guests:

Ahmad Musta’ain is an educator and playwright. He has had experience in leading, devising and participating in applied theatre projects with young people and sensitive communities. He’s also served on the Arts Consultative Panel (ACP) of IMDA and on executive committee of the Singapore Drama Educators Association.

Shaza Ishak is the managing director of Teater Ekamatra, an ethnic minority theatre company in Singapore established in 1988. She believes in effecting social change through the art of storytelling on stage and is committed to forging progress for the ethnic minority arts scene in Singapore and beyond.

Xiao Ting Teo (they/she) plays with ‘words’ and its related resonances, ‘art’ and its transubstantiation. Their current practice focuses on tending to the arts through writing alongside, sharing attention, and being with. They are currently a counsellor-in-training, and are in the midst of being trained in trauma-informed relational somatics.

Year In Review 2021 is presented by Centre 42, ArtsEquator and Channel NewsTheatre, in collaboration with Artwave Studio.

We would like to thank the following people for their contributions:

Sound Collaborators: 

Ng Sze Min is an audio storyteller and the Co-Founder of Artwave. She produces novel audio-first experiences at the intersection of sustainability, wellness and the arts. Listen to the latest immersive audio adventure, Blind Diving, to popular diving sites in Southeast Asia; a 30-min creative guide to soulful reset or watch her feature on Channel News Asia’s Into the Vault, where she speaks to various experts and recreates the soundscape of 1950s Singapore.

Pan Zai’En is a music producer and the Co-Founder of Artwave. His guitar work and arrangements have made its way into Asia’s Mando-pop scene, notably on tracks from artists like 动力火车(Power Station), Jerry Yan, and many more. He has mixed and mastered music for many upcoming artists under OL Creative, a label based in London. In Singapore, he has worked with The Freshman, Cues, and mixed for acts like Astronauts, Wokfunk, and SMSBand. He currently lectures at the School of Media and Design at Singapore Polytechnic.

Space Facilitator:

Lee Shu Yu is a freelance theatre practitioner from Singapore. Her professional and personal interests lie in critical and creative ideation and the development of communities. In her theatrical pursuits, she has been a conceptualist, stage manager, documenter and critic and co-founded Spacebar Theatre. Shu Yu enjoys crafting at ig:@washutape and making funny shushapes as an amateur dancer.