IndigNation notes

Just for everyone's info: Akka is all set for Thursday night! It seems it's going to be a full-on performance rather than a staged reading. Here's a photo I took on site of Sonia Pravinaa (a transgender dancer and DSC volunteer) and Suresh Subash (actor), who'll be playing the characters Kamini and Vijay.

That's the playwright G. Selva hiding in the foreground btw!

Might as well regale you with some shots of the very successful queer sci-fi reading, Gaylien Invasion, while I'm at it:

My persona for the evening was High Priestess Marikita Pondan-Pondan, a being from an alternate dimension where gender is optional and sex is compulsory.

Audience!

My partner-in-crime for Eastern Heathens, Amanda Lee! (The other presenting writers were Nicholas Deroose, Joel Tan, Jeremy Tiang [in absentia] and the genuine sci-fi writer JC Yang.)

Did I mention I made rainbow cake balls for the event? Arduous task.

IndigNation 2012!

Our monthly LGBT Pride Festival is back! And this year, we have a logo!

We also have a theme: looking back at our heritage. It's not reflected in all our events, but it is in some. Click on the link to see the calendar properly:

Specific timings for each of our events is listed here. I've curated two events this time. Come come come.
 Gaily Ever After: Our Very Own Fairy Tales
Date: Fri 17 August
Time: 8pm
Venue: BooksActually, 9 Yong Siak Street
Sit down for an evening of storytelling with four queer Singaporean writers, each bearing a fairy tale with a gay twist. Featuring Ng Yi-Sheng, Cyril Wong, Tania de Rozario and Anila Angin.

ContraDiction 8: Our Very Own Literature
Date: Sat 25 August
Time: 7:30pm
Venue: The Reading Room, 21 Tanjong Pagar Road #04-01 (old MOX bar)
Our annual queer literary evening is back, with a new focus! Listen to some of Singapore's oldest works of queer literature from the 1980s, as well as works by our youngest writers from the 2010s. Featuring Ovidia Yu, Joel Tan, NUS Poet-in-Residence Jay Bernard and many more.

Lit Up Singapore 2012 and the Party Action People

I'd like to take the opportunity to plug yet another literary event I'm involved in:

It's a youth literary arts festival organised by Word Forward, Singapore's main performance poetry group. It's running from Sun 22 to Sun 29 July at Telok Ayer Performing Arts Centre (TAPAC), the soon-to-be-demolished building at 182 Cecil Street  Singapore 069547. 

The website's at http://litup.sg, and the Facebook page is here. We're also non-profit, so we're raising funds via a Rockethub page. There'll be shows, workshops, exhibitions, bazaars. Come come come.

Self-servingly, I'd like to promote the two Lit Up events that I'm performing in, namely:

1) Lit Up Singapore 2012 Launch

 TAPAC Courtyard, 4:30-7pm, Sun 22 July

Besides being a wonderful place to mingle, this is where we'll be debuting the Party Action People, a spoken word troupe made up of Marc Nair, Lee Jing Yan, Nabilah Husna, Deborah Emmanuel, Zuni Chong, Abel Koh, Charlene Shepherdson and myself. (Our bit is only half an hour long, and it'll come on around 5pm.)

2) National Poetry Slam

TAPAC Courtyard, 7-9pm, Sun 29 July

Hopefully I'm gonna compete at this year's slam - mostly because Marc's told us he wants to have a good, strong show to close off the festival. Must create three new poems; will inevitably be beaten hollow by someone else.

If you're in Singapore, hope you can come!

Turns out I'm judging Poiesis tonight.


Just got asked. Here's the website, and here's the info!

Poiesis-Play Poetry Slam
Date: 2 March 2012
Location: The Arts House-The Hall
Time: 7:30pm
Nearest MRT: City Hall / Clarke Quay

{POIESIS} Play Poetry Slam™ is a one night-only ticketed event, hosted by veteran theatre actress Karen Tan, that plays up the performance element of a poetry slam, to increase accessibility and interest in the literary arts amongst young adults.

Young, budding poet-performers are selected through an open call to create original poetry pieces inspired by themes of escapism and the blurring of the lines between reality and illusion and the power of imagination.

These poet-performers, who may perform individually, in pairs, or in groups of three, will draw on staging techniques such as dialogue and movement to enhance the reading.

The 3-8 minute ‘mini poetry plays’ will be judged by random audience members and literary and performance experts, with the overall winner receiving mentorship and further performance opportunities with Word Forward.

So come down for an interesting night of poetry and fun!

As part of the i-AM Festival 2012 in conjunction with The LASALLE Show 2012, Project Ecclesia would like to present Poiesis, a poetry meets-theatre performance.

In partnership in the Word Forward and proud first time sponsors of the arts, SpecTech Engineering Pte Ltd.

Ticket Prices: $10 for students
- $12 for adults
- $15 at the door

*All tickets come with a complimentary drink

THE CITY LIMITS COLLECTIVE PRESENTS: "RHYME AND PUNISHMENT"



I've helped to put together this little event for the Singapore Writers Festival Fringe. It'll be on 21 October, 8:30pm, at the SMU Steps. Basically, we were programmed in the middle of a bunch of acts extolling the virtues of poetry, so we've decided to create an event where we ritually execute bad poems instead.

Help us make the event a success by uploading some bad poems on the Facebook page!

https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=232728086778744&ref=ts


WE WANT BAD POEMS! PLEASE POST THE WORST OFFENDERS BELOW!

A time of reckoning is upon us. Bad poetry must die!
For too long, we have tolerated its presence in our libraries, bookstores, schools and festival programs. We have been tortured by its slipshod rhythms; we have been oppressed by its tyranny in literature syllabuses. We have been scandalized by the repugnant politics of some of its texts – why, some of the damned things just won’t stay banned!

But just as a good poem should be praised, a bad poem deserves to be punished. (Never mind subjectivity – we’re readers, dammit, we know what we like!)

We have therefore resolved to hold a series of bloody executions, so that these miserable verses may die for their sins. And we look to you, the audience, to nominate those worthy of death.

So from now until 14th October, we ask you to post bad poems on this wall, along with your accusations thereof (e.g. banal rhyming, flaccid imagery, inciting civil unrest). You may also submit poems that you feel have been wrongfully charged as 'bad' and deserve a fairer trial in public.

At our event on 21st October, your poems shall either be acquitted or found guilty as charged. You will have the power to choose their fate: whether they enjoy a swift and painless death or suffer the agony of disemvowelment, or worse.

Let the killing begin!

Hello 2111!: a collaboration with Michikazu Matsune

If you happen to be in Vienna/Wien, Austria, this coming week, why not head down to a performance art/art installation I've helped to create called Hello 2111?

It's featured in Wiener Festwochen's "Survival Strategies", and it's initiated and mostly created by Michikazu Matsune, a Japanese artist working in Austria whom I last met at the Flying Circus Project 2007.

The performance segment is a letter to the people of the year 2111, performed by Mich himself. I helped generate the text (in fact, I just got off Skype with him as we hammered out the final version). Can't fly over because I'm currently in Zimbabwe.

Anyhow, details are:

13 to 18 June 2011
Kunsthalle Wien, project space karlsplatz
brut at Künstlerhaus

(The performance is on 18 June!)

More info about the exhibition here.

I'm being featured in "Utter", directed by Natalie Hennedige, Sat 18 June!



I've only got a single poem in the programme: "Ne Zha", from my collection "last boy". But I wuv Natalie, and the YouTube keeps gliding over "GASPP", so I'm pretty damn chuffed.

Sadly I'll still be in South Africa on the date of the performance, so I can't watch. But maybe you can!

Here's the synopsis, from the bookings page on Gatecrash:

utter : to give audible expression to (something), to articulate (words); pronounce or speak. Example: He can hardly utter a sentence without swearing.
utter : carried to the highest degree; absolute, complete, total. Example: Utter madness

What do you get when you add three exciting talents from the theatre, television and film circles to a mixed bag of creative writers from Singapore? Three utterly riveting evenings of highly dramatised readings you don’t want to miss.

Utter is curated and directed by Natalie Hennedige (Nothing, Cuckoo Birds), Lee Thean-jeen (The Pupil, Singapore Short Story Project) and Ken Kwek (Kidnapper, It’s a Great, Great World). These directors will draw fresh content from anthologies Telltale: 11 Stories, & Words and upcoming writers and screenwriters. Watch them breathe new life to these Singapore texts and brew a heady concoction for your enjoyment!

June 17: Curated and directed by Lee Thean-jeen

One moment, savour the quiet of the written word, and the scent of the flipped page and the next, put on new spectacles as characters take on new life - phrases shout out with new emphasis while other words are whispered or uttered into your ear. Observe how your fellow audience member reacts to the mounting tensions, the shattering relations and increasing distances even whilst you settle into your own seat. Thean-jeen turns the reading upon the reader as every gesture adds a different layer of interpretation to the text, and filmed footages add a new dimension to themes and topics explored in Singapore content including Dave Chua’s ‘The Drowning’ and Alfian bin Sa’at’s ‘Autobiography’.

Cast: Lim Kay Tong, Christina Sergeant, George Young

June 18: Curated and directed by Natalie Hennedige

'Thirteen Ways of Looking and Other Observations' utters naked truths and offers poignant and tender observations of life from the perspective of Singaporean writers. It weaves poems written by Yong Shu Hoong, Madeleine Lee, Ng Yi-Sheng, Cyril Wong, Alfian bin Sa’at, Toh Hsien Min, Alvin Pang and Felix Cheong into Alfian bin Sa’at’s short story ‘Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Hanging’. Directed by Natalie Hennedige and performed by Julius Foo, Noorlinah Mohamed and Lim Kay Siu, it is a celebration of the diversity, honesty and power in Singaporean writing.

Cast: Julius Foo, Lim Kay Siu, Noorlinah Mohamed

Sound Designer: Philip Tan

June 19: Curated and directed by Ken Kwek

What happens to a society of pragmatic Singaporeans when it falls under the spell of a magical, soporific haze? Applying the cinematic technique of time fragmentation, filmmaker Ken Kwek deconstructs Jeffrey Lim’s dazzling short story, ‘Haze Day’, and introduces a new chaos to the parallel lives of Evan, Fathul, Nallini and Hwee Leng as they unravel in a blanket of narcotic smoke.

Cast: K Rajagopal, Lim Kay Siu, Sukania Venugopal, Koey Foo

Advisory for 19 June 2011 performance: Mature content and some coarse language. Recommended for ages 16 and above.

SPORE ART SALON, Monday 30 May, 7-11pm

The SPORE Art Salon, our monthly multidisciplinary showcase of performance poets, artists and musicians, is back! Be at Echo Loft in Chinatown tomorrow night to check us out!

Plus, we've lowered the donation price to $15 to make it more affordable. Proceeds benefit the ECHO Music Sponsorship Program for disadvantaged kids.

There will be models posing between performances and you are encouraged to take part in these mini live drawing sessions. I'd really like to recommend Miriam Nash (a splendid British performance poet who's leaving Singapore soon) and Ben Chow (a splendid Singaporean slam poet, full stop).

SPORE Art Salon
Tuesday 29 March, 7-11pm
ECHO Loft, Chinatown
Corner of Smith Street and South Bridge Rd, Second Floor
$20 for entry (including performance, sketching and food)
http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=206097452746078


FEATURED PERFORMING ARTISTS:

BILL LEARY JAZZ TRIO: Bill Leary is a master jazz musician, who aims to educate and entertain people with his music. He will remove some of the mystery and myths about jazz music, and make it accessible to all listeners. Many times people are turned off by jazz because they don't truly understand the art form. Allow Bill to be your tour guide through this organic and ever-changing art form.

BEN CHOW: Benjamin spends most of his time slouched over a desk in a dark cobweb infested basement. He survives on rats and the occasional snake while crafting short little horror stories that often don't scare people as much as he would like. However, during those rare moments when Benjamin does crawl out from beneath the woodwork, he has been known to sing, loudly and annoyingly, and sometimes even tap dance. Benjamin sightings have been few and far between, but he has been recorded to have been seen at Blue Jazz, during their monthly poetry slams, at TAPAC (the Telok Ayer Performing Arts Centre), during their fortnightly Open Mics, and every now and then in one or two really off-off-OFF Broadway musicals. Nowadays, Benjamin is spending more and more time masquerading as a Student of Lasalle's BA (Hons) Acting Programme, while secretly using the basement there for his dark and mysterious purposes. It's more spacious. And they have a great theatre. Go figure.

MIRIAM NASH: Miriam Nash is a British poet, currently sneaking around Singapore. She has performed her poetry in London, Chicago and Singapore, at the Esplanade, the Arts House, Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, Young Chicago Authors and too many bars and cafés to count. She appears regularly at Word Forward’s Blu Jaz SLAMs and her work has been featured on 938LIVE. She coordinated England’s first national youth poetry SLAM and regularly runs workshops in schools. Her first book of poems will be published this year by flipped eye publishing.

NOLUYANDA MQULWANA: Is an engaging and passionate choreographer and dancer from South Africa. She brings a genuine and heartfelt authenticity to all her projects. She is looking forward to inspiring the art salon with her sensitivity and strength...a performance that MUST be seen!

FEATURED VISUAL ARTIST:

AVA TAN: This talented artist was born in Shan Dong province of China where she came to experience painting through the master Ma Yan Hong and later came to love painting as she continued to fervently pursue numerous summer programs in Beijing before enrolling at the local art high school. Her current work explores an inward turning world that appears incongruent from the workings of a sensing body. Through a voyueristic glass that is turned upon the human self and its various participants, it is at once a sympathetic and disparate view of an amorphous body image when the lines between performance and reality are blurred in the eyes of others as they are turned in upon oneself.

I've a bunch of gigs coming up!

1) I've got a poem in Man/Born/Free: Writings on the Human Spirit, edited by Gwee Li Sui. It's being marketed in South Africa right now as part of Spotlight Singapore. I hear it's doing rather well.

I'll be speaking on a panel at the Singapore launch! Here's the info:

Launch of "Man/Born/Free"
Friday 26 March, 11am-12pm
Living Room, Level Two, Arts House

And here's a blurb from this site:

"This literary anthology – centred on the travails of the human spirit – is like none other published in Singapore. It testifies to the social reflections of generations of Singaporean writers and their inquiries into issues of freedom, equality, humanity, and hope. The selection brings together works originally written in English, Chinese, Malay, and Tamil across almost six decades of Singaporean life. They are arranged here in a compelling way that argues for the inevitable interconnections of these concerns. Man/Born/Free is an exciting initiative to commemorate the relationship between Singapore and South Africa as extended through the 2011 event, Spotlight Singapore in Cape Town.

2) I'm performing stuff at the SPORE Art Salon. It's an event cooked up by Ryan Beck, a dancer at Resorts World's Voyage de La Vie circus show (no, I'm not kidding). He and his fellow artist/performers have been longing for a way to connect with the greater Singapore arts scene, which is really hard for them since they're usually working Wednesday to Sunday.

They've set up this monthly event where they can gather and showcase works by both Singaporean and expat artists - plus, there's live models present for sketching, so you can practise your drawing skills. Unfortunately, it costs $20, but the proceeds go to charity, and there'll be a lovely tapas spread to boot.

This month's will feature myself, musicians/comedians Jacqueline and Bill Landsman, pianist/songwriter/performer Johnny Kim and accordionist/singer/songwriter Faizal Bohtiar.

SPORE Art Salon
Tuesday 29 March, 7-11pm
ECHO Loft, Chinatown
Corner of Smith Street and South Bridge Rd, Second Floor
$20 for entry (including performance, sketching and food)

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=187152654659220

3) I was involved in a collaboration between artists and writers, organised by the literary journal CERIPH and the Substation. Not a lot of publicity materials out yet, but I'm just gonna announce the launch of the art exhibition:

Synaesthesia Launch

8-17 April (launch 7pm on Friday 8 April)

Substation Gallery, 45 Armenian St

Thankyee, y'all!

expo zéro by Musée de la Danse

I'm serving as the official documenter for this! It's on this Saturday and Sunday, 1-6pm, at 72-13/TheatreWorks. Drop by if you can!


TheatreWorks / 72-13 presents

Flying Circus Project Platform 01: expo zéro by Musée de la Danse

The first-ever dancing museum in Singapore hosted by the Flying Circus Project, expo zéro is a unique exhibition without objects conceived by acclaimed French choreographer, Boris Charmatz and Musée de la Danse.

expo zéro is only open on two days: 7 & 8 November at 72-13 between 1pm and 6pm.

An `exhibition' project with no photographs, no sculptures, no installations, no videos. Zero things, not one stable object. But artists, and areas occupied by gestures, projects, bodies, stories, dances which everyone will choose to imagine.

In the process spirit of the Flying Circus Project (FCP) conceived by Ong Keng Sen, expo zéro is a kind of 'think tank' through analysis, description, performance, movements and ideas which each guide-artist will develop with the audience. This comes at a timely occasion as Singapore has no dancehouse (tanzhaus, dansens hus, centre chorégraphique national), a question which TheatreWorks / 72-13 is presently pondering.

expo zéro is headed by Boris Charmatz in collaboration with dancers-choreographers, François Chaignuad, Mette Ingvartsen and actor-director Yves-Noël Genod. In Singapore, it collaborates with Asian artists, architects, theorists of FCP 2010 like Padmini Chettur, Heman Chong, Torrance Goh of FARM, Donna Miranda, Joavien Ng and Ong Keng Sen.
For all bios, please go to www.theatreworks.org.sg / www.72-13.com

Visitors will experience these individuals' visions, subjective and utopian, of what a dancing museum can be.

Join us and be part of expo zéro now!

EVENT INFORMATION

Flying Circus Project Platform 01
expo zéro by Musée de la Danse

Date: 7 & 8 November 2009
Musée hours: 1pm – 6pm daily
Venue: 72-13 Mohamed Sultan Road
Admission: Free

Please call 6737-7213 or email tworks@singnet.com.sg to register your attendance.

For more information:

www.theatreworks.org.sg
www.72-13.com

THE PATRIARCH ALWAYS PAYS

... is the title of the commedia dell'arte inspired play that I've devised with four other writer/performers as part of the DramaBox Blanc Space collaborative playwriting programme, under the guidance of American playwright Joan Holden.



It's a makeshift presentation using texts we wrote over the weekend, so it won't be stellar, but it'll be fun. It's a comedy set in old Suzhou about organ transplants! I play the faithful servant Ah Lek, based on Arlecchino.

Details are:

Sat 8 August, 4pm
The Hall @ The Arts House (i.e. the small building with the Vietnamese restaurant, next to the Arts House proper)
Price: FREE

The writers/performers are:

Chris Lee
Verena Tay
Peggy Ferroa
Jacklyn Kuah
Ng Yi-Sheng

We're performing tonight!

I'm talking about ARTS Fission's A Garden Affair 013: Bird Call, of course. Tickets are sold out (well, it's free, but we've got a capacity of 40 and we've got bookings of about 65 each night. So yeah, we're sold out).



Unfortunately the dance studio is not very photogenic:


From left to right: Elysa Wendi (choreographer), Scarlett, Shirley, Mayu, Edwin, Bobbi and Lynn.


Look how they turn the simplest of tasks into an artistic act! No lah; I'm seriously impressed at how the ARTS Fission troupe willingly commits itself to practice, teaching, brainstorming, researching and sai gang. They're a really cool group of people.

I do have a few gorgeous pics, but they'd give away some of the ideas we have. So I'll post them after the show.

Bird Call was in the papers today!

Straits Times Life!. Will scan it in soon.

Garden Affair 013: Bird Call

Next Thursday and Friday, I'm involved in a contemporary dance performance called Bird Call, produced by ARTS Fission group and choreographed by Elysa Wendi. It's centred around the theme of birds, so I might have to do some dressing up in feathers. :)




Garden Affair 013 - Bird Call
Thursday 25 & Friday 26 June 2009, 8.30 pm
Garden Studio, Cairnhill Arts Center
126 Cairnhill Road #01-07/09
Within (tedious) walking distance from Newton MRT

I recently participated in KYTV's POP Station...

... thus yielding one of the most embarrassing videos of myself, ever.



The exhibition's showing at the Esplanade Jendela Studio till 29 June.

Oh, and I made a second one, too:

Come see me act.

At 8pm next Friday and Saturday, 28 and 29 Nov, I'm doing a staged reading of filmmaker/Tisch Asia student Wee Li Lin's short play "The Tent".



I'll be playing a straight Eurasian schoolteacher. Patricia Toh will be playing the teacher I wanna schtup.

Come see me enter the wonderful world of pretending! It's free!

UPDATE: This version of the poster is cooler:

Reservoir Review (Today Weekend, 30 August 2008)

We rather like this review because it actually describes the problematics of the show's construction.

From Ng Yi-Sheng's Careerblog

A Shrining example

“A STRAIGHT line into the forest!” It’s a phrase actress Patricia Toh utters in amazement upon finding a pathway in the middle of Reservoir.

It’s also an apt analogy for this new multi-media production by TheatreWorks, as director Choy Ka Fai, playwright Ng Yi-Sheng and the rest of the team beat a straight path into uncharted historical territory like a band of merry explorers.

This collaborative piece is essentially a heartfelt ode to a forgotten monument in the heart of MacRitchie Reservoir. And not just any whitewashed statue or structure, but the rather controversial Syonan Jinja. The Shinto shrine was built to commemorate the first anniversary of the British surrender to the Japanese during World War II in 1943.

Reservoir has an autobiographical approach, literally: It tells the story of a group of people who go in search of a mysterious structure that’s been swallowed up by the jungle.

Like episodic chapters in a multi-media history book-cum-diary, it combines song and dance performances — from actor/singer Rizman Putra and Japanese dancer Norico Sunayama, respectively — Choy’s own video graphics, an evocative soundscape from Chong Li-Chuan, as well as documentary footage and audio interviews of people who’ve seen the shrine in its heyday.

It’s an inventive approach to telling a story; one that few people would even think of bringing up without getting their knickers in a bunch.

That’s because it’s a sticky topic to begin with. And because Reservoir does not dwell at length with the less-than-pleasant points of war and colonial occupation, it may get accused of handling a sensitive historical topic irresponsibly.

During the opening night’s post-show talk, for example, an audience member even made comparisons to the World War II Auschwitz concentration camp.

But that comment reveals, more than anything, certain prejudices towards such topics: for example, when you bring up the Japanese Occupation of World War II, every Japanese must have three eyes, two horns, a tail and feed on the blood of young babies.

But this reviewer was relieved that the young team behind Reservoir did not even attempt to tackle the topic in such a manner, because they found a way of making sense of a symbolic structure on their own terms, no matter how romanticised it may sometimes feel.

Unlike the black and white views of textbook history, Reservoir feels fresh. There’s a sense of wide-eyed innocence and an eagerness to explore and it’s worthwhile to follow the piece all the way to that proverbial clearing in the forest.

Reservoir ends Saturday (Aug 30), 3pm and 8pm, at 72-13Mohamed Sultan Road. Tickets at $28 from tworks@singnet.com.sg or call 6737 7213.

mayo@mediacorp.com.sg

Performing at Supperclub tonight.



My first time. Experimental drag + Sprachstimme, 10-10.15pm.

Your daily dose of WTF.




Curious? Come and see.

RESERVOIR: 28-30 August, 2008

Deep in the heart of MacRitchie Reservoir lie the ruins of the Syonan Jinja, a Shinto shrine built during the Japanese Occupation of Singapore. Envisioned as a spiritual centre for the future empire, today it exists only as stone relics and fragments, swallowed up by the thick tropical rainforest.

This performance, a tapestry of images, sound and movement, will be a drama of recollection, an attempt to capture the Syonan Jinja's sleeping spirit.

Date: 28-30 August 2008
Time: 8pm nightly/ 3pm matinee on 30 August
Venue: 72-13 Mohamed Sultan Rd
Tickets: $28/ S15 (Concessions for Students + NSF + Senior Citizens)
For purchases and reservation of tickets, please call
Tel: 6737 7213
E-mail: tworks@singnet.com.sg

Conceived + Directed + Multimedia by Choy Ka Fai
Written by Ng Yi-Sheng
Performed by Norico Sunayama+ Rizman Putra+ Patricia Toh
Sonic Compositions by Chong Li Chuan
Set and lighting design by Jiro Endo