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Collection showcases the various projects and programmes at 72-13
SIFA 2016
72-13 is the Venue and Equipment Partner of the Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA) 2016. Here are the SIFA 2016 programmes happening only at 72-13.
Loo Zihan / Ray Langenbach - I Am LGB
Image courtesy of Kelvin Chew
Performance
Thursday, 18 – Saturday. 20 August 2016, 7pm
Who am l? Am I my name? My Body? My Sex? My History? What State do I represent? Should I believe in the State? Perhaps I am propaganda for a State that does not yet exist. Or perhaps I am here to expropriate what can never be mine. Perhaps I should return to my home. Where is that? Where my father's ashes were released, swallowed by the fish he fed every day? I ate that fish.
You are a performance artist. It is the 24th of January 1994. You teach contemporary art at a public university. One day, you receive an anonymous letter from your students. The letter calls for a boycott of your classes.
"If we are taught by him next year, we will not go to his classes. His teaching is too political and is about sensitive issues. He teaches performance art, which is now forbidden in Singapore, and we are quite right not to go."
You are LGB. LGB is Lan Gen Bah. You were born in 1948. You are a Marxist. A scientist. An ideologue. A member of the government. A citizen of the State. You are Song Liling. You are Cheng Dieyi. You are Ray Langenbach. You are Loo Zihan. You are Lee Mun Wai. You are Shawn Chua Ming Ren. You are Bani Haykal. You are State power. An individual. An ISA (Ideological State Apparatus). A KPI (Key Performance Indicator). You are LGB, without the T. You are a meme. Propaganda. You are not yours alone; you are an idea demanding its own acceptance.
Sardono W. Kusumo - Black Sun
Performance
Friday, 26 – Saturday, 27 August 2016, 8pm
"Hitam kulit, keriting rambut. Aku Papua."
"Black skin, curly hair. I am Papua."
As part of The Sardono Retrospective, this iconic, award-winning artist has created Black Sun, a stirring contemporary dance performance. The trigger for Black Sun is man's unceasing destruction of nature. Year after year, the forest fires in Indonesia create a shroud of severe smoke over much of Southeast Asia. The toxic haze is a humanitarian disaster: Indigenous Indonesians living in the rainforest are among the first to experience the suffering, a tragic fact that is all too clear to Sardono, who is himself a devoted environmental activist.
In Black Sun, Sardono develops a unique vocal and physical vocabulary that is very much inspired by his research with the Papuan people, as well as the environment in which they live. Together with an ensemble of dancers from Papua and other regions of Indonesia, Black Sun is Sardono's epic tribute to life, earth and survival, both primal and sophisticated.
Trained as a dancer as a child, Sardono W. Kusumo first gained recognition when he represented his home country of Indonesia at the 1964 New York World's Fair. He soon gained critical acclaim at home and abroad at major international festivals across Asia, Europe and the Americas. A true pioneer, he was the youngest member of the Jakarta Arts Council in 1968, founded Indonesia's first-ever experimental dance company and became Rector of Jakarta Arts Institute in 2005.
Trajel Harrell - In The Mood For Frankie
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Image courtesy of Orpheas Emirzas
Performance
1 – 3 September 2016
8pm & 9:30pm
Hailed as one of his generation's most prominent choreographers and dancers, Trajal Harrell makes his Asian debut with two hauntingly mesmerizing performances, In The Mood For Frankie and The Return Of La Argentina. Each rethinks the relationship between unsettling, surrealist Japanese butoh and highly stylised Harlem voguing, two seemingly different dance forms that started more than 50 years ago.
In The Mood For Frankie turns towards the female muses of late butoh founder Tatsumi Hijikata, as well as draws upon a diverse set of muses, such as butoh dancers Kazuo Ohno and Yoko Ashikawa, modern dance choreographer Katherine Dunham, filmmaker Wong Kar Wai, fashion designer and Commes des Garcons founder Rei Kawakubo, and singer Sade, as well as Harrell's own working relationships with dancers Thibault Lac and Ondrej Vidlar.
Set on a bare fashion catwalk, Harrell and his two dancers perform on a runway lined with piano benches for the audience to sit on, watching. At once, In The Mood For Frankie spills out like a park of muses settled between classical modernism and postmodern romanticism.
Trajal Harrell became known for his dance series called "Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at The Judson Church". It re-imagined a meeting between early postmodern dance and the voguing dance tradition that was popularized by pop queen Madonna in her "Vogue" video. All seven works in the series continue to tour internationally, including "Antigone Sr.", which won the 2012 Bessie Award for Best Production. Harrell's work has been presented at international venues and festivals, such as New York's The Kitchen, Festival d'Automne in Paris and Tanz im August, Berlin.
Trajel Harrell - The Return of La Argentine
Image courtesy of Orpheas Emirzas
Performance
Sunday, 4 September 2016
2pm, 3pm, 4pm
Free Admission with ticket to in The Mood For Frankie
Choreographer Trajal Harrell has embarked on the long-term research and production of dance pieces related to the work of the late butoh founder Tatsumi Hijikata. In The Return Of La Argentina, Harrell addressed Hijikata's aesthetic and work with pioneering butoh dancer Kazuo Ohno.
With The Return Of La Argentina, Harrell ventures into a new realm of performativity in a solo performance that draws upon memory and invention. Harrell offers his interpretation of Ohno's signature work, "Admiring La Argentina". Ohno's piece was directed by Hijikata and had been inspired by the famous Spanish dancer Antonia Mercé, whose stage name was La Argentina.
As much for those with no prior knowledge of Ohno's original work, The Return Of La Argentina regards the viewer as essential in being both witness and admirer It asks: What memories do we remember and archive? What do we forget? And what do we choose to invent in the here and now?
Specially designed in Singapore as a Bonus Track for In The Mood For Frankie, Harrell invokes the ghosts of these two butoh giants in this startling work. Created earlier in 2015, The Return Of La Argentina contains some of the choreographic seeds of Harrell, particularly the notion of 'voguing butoh', which have been expanded in the latest work co-produced by Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA). Hence major contemporary trends, through a body of work by one artist, can be directly experienced by Singapore audiences.
Bill T. Jones - Making and Doing
Image courtesy of Ian Douglas
Lecture-performance
Wednesday, 14 September 2016, 8pm
Free admission with ticket to A Letter/Singapore
A new lecture-performance freshly made in 2016. Through rapid movement and gesture, Jones speaks about creativity: How to take an idea from inception to stage and what it means to be a maker in the world today.
Join Bill T. Jones in this rare, one-night-only opportunity to gain some insight into the mind of a creative genius from the contemporary dance world.
Bill T. Jones is one of the world's foremost multi-talented artists with an illustrious and award-winning career as a dancer, choreographer, theatre director and writer. He has received major honours ranging from the 2013 National Medal of Arts to a 1994 MacArthur Genius Award and Kennedy Center Honors in 2010. Jones was recognised as Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government in 2010, inducted into the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2009 and named "An Irreplaceable Dance Treasure" by the Dance Heritage Coalition in 2000. His creations on Broadway include the highly acclaimed "Spring Awakening" and "FELA!", where he won 2007 and 2010 Tony Awards for Best Choreography.
SIFA Shares / Alfons Hug - THE KULA RING Aesthetic Considerations Of Sharing And Exchange
Images courtesy of Bernd Borchardt
Event, Exhibition
7 August – 4 September 2016
Opening 17 August, 7pm – 10pm
Tuesday – Saturday, 11am – 10pm
Sunday, 11am – 6pm
Closed on Mondays
Free Admission
The social function of this complex, non-profit exchange is that it strengthens the social ties... Relations are free of domination... Kula, therefore, has a community- generating meaning. The ow of gifts never ends; the ring has no beginning and no end.
- Alfons Hug, curator
This art event, initiated by the Goethe-Institut Singapore and curated by Alfons Hug, opened at the Kultursymposium Weimar 2016. It premieres in Asia at the Singapore International Festival of Arts, with an added performative component in collaboration with Festival Director Ong Keng Sen.
The Kula Ring art exhibition is based on a ritual exchange of gifts among inhabitants of the Trobriand Islands in Papua New Guinea. These Melanesian islands form a circle. Today, necklaces made of little red shells, soulava, still circulate clockwise from island to island. Mwali (white seashell armbands) are exchanged in the other direction, that is, counterclockwise. These artistic objects are highly valuable but not for sale.
This ancient cultural practice called 'kula' is being taken up by artists from around the world and given a visual, tactile dimension through aesthetic means of expression. Their works question conventional ideas of trade, value, exchange, prod and put the meaning of creative production, the sale of art, up for discussion. They have produced artworks of many forms: performances, found items, swopped objects, photographs, exotic spices and culinary delights.
Most of all, The Kula Ring is a space of imagination where the unknown is filled in, invented and created. The exhibition-performance offers insights into the sharing game and reciprocity — how is this played out today by individual artists from diverse parts of the world? What are the potentialities embedded in the gifts/objects and the actions/exchanges of The Kula Ring? Can we rethink circulation and currency without the commerce and profit propagated by our supposedly rational economic system?
The Kula Ring features Donna Ong (Singapore), Newell Harry (Australia), Post-Museum (Singapore), Renata De Bonis (Brazil), Reynier Leyna Novo (Cuba), Roslisham Ismail (Malaysia), Samuel Herzog (Switzerland), Thomas Rentmeister (Germany).
SIFA Shares / Kazutaro Nakamura - Kabuki Demonstration: The Art of the Onnagata
Image courtesy of Jun Ishikawa
Performance
Tuesday, 30 August 2016, 7pm
In Japanese with English translation
Free Admission
Discover fascinating insights into traditional Japanese onnagata with kabuki actor Kazutaro Nakamura who performs as Richard Ill in Sandaime Richard. He will introduce this iconic art form and show why onnagata — male actors who play female roles in kabuki theatre — are still revered as cultural icons in Japan today. You will also get a chance to learn more about how the feminine is stylised and manifested in kabuki — from the vocal expressions, to the stance that suggests the female body, to the delicate movements.
Born in 1990, Nakamura Kazutaro I is the son of famous Japanese traditional artists, Nakamura Ganjiro IV (formerly Nakamura Kanjaku V) from kabuki and Japanese classical dancer Azuma Tokuho II. Kabuki Living National Treasure
Sakata Tojuro IV is his grandfather. Kazutaro has been achieving recognition of late for being one of the most expressive actors in his young generation with much hope for his future as a kabuki star. He is very active as a kabuki actor, playing mostly female onnagata roles but occasionally performing male roles as well. He has also been on NHK radio for several years as the host of "Hogaku Jockey", a programme featuring interviews with a wide variety of guests and recordings of traditional Japanese music.
SIFA Shares - In Conversation with Ron Arad
Conversation
Tuesday, 6 September 2016, 7pm
Free Admission
Join the world-renowned London-based architect, artist and designer for an enlightening session about art in public spaces. This is your chance to get up close with the man who most recently redesigned the iconic Watergate Hotel in Washington DC. He is also designing a cancer treatment centre in northern Israel, to be completed in 2018, that will serve the residents of West Bank conflict zones. Among his latest artworks are the sculpture "Thought of Train of Thought" at St Pancras railway station and the re-installation of "Curtain Call" at the Roundhouse. Other public art pieces include the "Vortext" in Seoul and the "Kesher" Sculpture at Tel Aviv University. In June, he received the 2016 Compasso d'Oro award for lifetime achievement from ADI, the Italian industrial design association.
Born in Tel Aviv in 1951, educated at the Jerusalem Academy of Art and later at the Architectural Association in London, Ron Arad co-founded the design and production studio One Off in 1981, Ron Arad Associates architecture and design practice in 1989, and Ron Arad Architects in 2008. He was professor of design products at the Royal College of Art in London up until 2009 and was awarded the London Design Medal in 2011. In 2013, he became a Royal Academician of the Royal Academy of Art in London. His constant experimentation with the possibilities of materials such as steel and aluminium and his radical reconception of form and structure has put him at the forefront of contemporary design. His architectural projects include the Holon Design Museum, Israel's first museum dedicated to design, which opened in 2010. His international exhibitions include "Ron Arad: Restless", Barbican, London, 2010; and "In Reverse Lingotto", Turin, 2013.
Eng Kai Er / Faye Lim - She Ain't Heavy, She's Reaching Into Space
Performance
Thursday, 28 – Friday, 29 July 2016, 8pm
In "She Ain't Heavy, She's Reaching Into Space", Faye and Kai perform discussion and discuss performance using a format they created within the last 6 months. The format requires that they discuss what to perform, perform it, then debrief it after. This brings focus to the integral role of discussion in collaborative performance-making. They debate, agree with, and wait for each other's feelings and thoughts. Are their arguments compositionally interesting enough to be considered a performance in themselves? Is their decision-making process vulnerable or guarded? How real can their discussion be when it is staged?
Come witness Faye and Kai becoming premier self-referential dancer- discussers as they reveal their creative process and blur the line between studio and stage, rehearsal and performance, process and result.
Eng Kai Er mostly works in the fields of contemporary performance, dance, and theatre. In 2016 Kai continues as associate artist at TheatreWorks, where she previously created Indulgence (2015) with Bernice Lee and Jereh Leong. In 2013 Kai participated in The Substation's Directors' Lab, creating "Fish" (2014) with Vincent Chia, Alvin Koh and Jey Lim Jun Jie.
Prior to that, Kai worked on numerous collaborations with Sviatlana Viarbitskaya, including "House Hole" (2010) and "The Pleasure of Eating Oranges" (2013). The latter was performed in Singapore, Toulouse, Berlin, Brussels and Stockholm in 2013 and 2014.
Kai also created a solo performance, "The Prayer" (2012), commissioned by the M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2012. "The Prayer" was performed in Singapore, Stockholm and Prague, and was shortlisted for the Outstanding Performance Award at Prague Fringe Festival 2012.
Kai started dancing Contact Improvisation (Cl) in 2007 and has been organising, facilitating, and occasionally teaching Cl since 2014.
Faye Lim is based in Singapore where she continues her movement practice in improvisation and aikido. Her body is drawn to cyclical patterns and rhythms, from which her movement and art-making extend.
She directs the Strangeweather Movement Group, a collective that creates and performs improvisational and cross-disciplinary dance works at off-stage venues around Singapore. "Spooky Action (at a Distance)" (2013), created in collaboration with quantum physicists at NUS Centre for Quantum Technologies, was featured in filmmaker Karol Jalochowski's documentary "Reality Lost" and was performed at the ArtScience Museum in November 2015. Other commissions and invitations include "Say That Again" (2012) and "Port of Call" (2013) for curator Tang Ling-Nah's exhibitions at FOST Gallery and SMU Arts Festival respectively, and "Hot Spotch!" (2012) for Ground-Up Initiative's Heritage Kampung Festival. As part of the Contact Improvisation (Cl) community in Singapore, Faye has facilitated jams and workshops in Singapore and dance festivals in KL. She has also taught very young dancers and mentored youth dancers at the Little Arts Academy.
sheaintheavy2016.wordpress.com
Tony Perez - Writing From The Heart Workshop
Workshop
18 – 23 July 2016
Registration Fee: $200
Open to participants 17 years and above
Session 1, Introduction to Writing from the Heart
18 July 2016
7pm – 10pm
Session 2, Strengthen one's power of observation & creative visualization
19 July 2016
7pm – 10pm
Session 3, Creating characters & dialogue
20 July 2016
7pm – 10pm
observation
creative
Session 4, Working with a premise; Creating a dramatic plot
21 July 2016
7pm – 10pm
Session 5, Conceptualise & Visualise the theatre space
22 July 2016
7pm – 10pm
Session 6, Deconstruct, structure & restructure and shaping the Narrative
23 July 2016
10am – 1pm
Session 7, Delivering Creative Group Dynamics
23 July 2016
2pm – 5pm
TheatreWorks is organising a 6-day interactive playwriting workshop at 72-13 this July! Conducted by Tony Perez, renowned playwright and novelist from the Philippines, these workshops comprise a series of interactive hands-on exercises designed to enable participants to discover their inner self and creativity in exploring the basics of playwriting.
After the successful edition of Writing from the Heart in 2014 and 2015, Writing & Community once again invites him to conduct an interactive playwriting workshop this July 2016.
This series of workshops aims to:
• Unearth and inspire new playwriting enthusiasts from within the community
• Share one of the region's best playwriting skills and expertise with the community
• Develop new plays through a post-workshop mentorship and dramaturgy programme
Writing from the Heart has previously discovered over 30 new writers and has given them the basics in playwriting. Through a series of hands-on exercises, which include drawing, dialogue and interpersonal interaction between participants, the mentor and within themselves, these exercises drew out the writers' potential from within and these discoveries became important material and inspiration for playwriting.
Everyday there was a self-discovery — from our favourite character in a fairytale to our imbalanced chakras, which we balanced through the use of a pendulum, to the Eros and Thanatos concept which improves the inner voice in writing.
- Eliete Vivino, participant of Writing from the Heart 2014.
The workshop exceeded my expectations. It gave me fresh perspectives on writing and that writing should come from the head. I loved how interactive the workshop was. I left the workshop inspired by all the participants and Tony.
- Serene Tan, participant of Writing from the Heart 2014
Tony Perez is a wonderful, thoroughly unconventional and intuitive teacher. He talks about everything from chakra points and meditation to Freud and Jung, and you're asked to try them out in class, so you have to have a very, very open mind.
- Helmi Yusof, participant of Writing from the Heart 2015.
Tony Perez is a Filipino playwright, novelist, and visual artist with an M.A. degree in Religious Studies, an M.A. candidacy in Clinical Psychology, and an AB. in Communication. He has authored two major, full-length trilogies of plays in Tagalog, some of which have been translated into English and Polish. His full-length play "Trip to The South" was performed in New York and in Singapore; another full-length play, "On The North Diversion Road," was performed in Melbourne and in Singapore. After having more than 40 books published in the Philippines, he is devoting the rest of his life to posting his new and forthcoming books in cyberspace. They can be accessed through his main blog site, http://www.tonyperezphilippines.blogspot.com. His artworks have showcased in more than 15 exhibitions.
Perez is also the founder of the Spirit Questors, a group of young, psychic volunteers who render service to the public free of charge. Among his other interests are fiber art, puppetry, the use of drama in psychotherapy. In his home country, he conducts workshops to underserved audiences such as victims of human trafficking and sexual abuse, children in conflict with the law, prison inmates, child combatants, and residents of drug rehabilitation centers.
Perez has worked with TheatreWorks since the 1990s. He led in workshops like Writing from the Subconscious (1990), Explore the Physical Psychic Sense for Creative Writing (1992) and wrote Trip to the South performed at the ASEAN Season Festival in 1991.
The O.P.E.N 2016
The O.P.E.N. - the pre-festival ideas from the Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA) 2016 will be happening at 72-13. 72-13 is the Venue and Equipment Partner of SIFA 2015. Here are the O.P.E.N. 2016 programmes happening only at 72-13.
O.P.E.N Exhibition / Newsha Tavakolian - I Know Why The Rebel Sings
I Know Why The Rebel Sings 2 3 , image courtesy of Newsha Tavakolian
Exhibition
22 June – 9 July 2016
Opening 22 June, 7pm – 10pm
Tuesday – Saturday, 11am – 10pm
Sunday, 11am – 6pm
Monday: Closed
Free admission with O.P.E.N. Pass, with limited single entry tickets available at the door.
I Know Why The Rebel Sings strikingly highlights the impressive range of Iranian photojournalist Newsha Tavakolian. Comprising photographs from her previous series, "Look", "Listen" and "The Blank Pages Of An Iranian Photo Album", this comprehensive showcase includes previously unexhibited images of humanitarian tragedies around the world. It highlights the continuum in Tavakolian's oeuvre, from art to photojournalism. With a focus on the portrait, these two genres are scintillatingly in conversation in her work.
Tavakolian's talent for making the inner worlds of her subjects come alive is seen in her "Look" series. It captures the people in her building, each individual framed by a window and the detritus of everyday living. Her work refuses to fall into the clichés of expressing Iran today. Instead, she gives complexity to these ordinary lives without resorting to narratives of oppression and freedom. This theme is continued in "The Blank Pages Of An Iranian Photo Album", in which she follows her peers through video portraits and photo albums from their daily lives.
"Listen" highlights the plight of female singers in her home country in a candid statement about a society in which women cannot perform solo or produce their own albums. "The project 'Listen' echoes the voices of these silenced women," she states. "I let Iranian women singers perform through my camera while the world has never heard of them."
Enlightening and heartbreaking at the same time, I Know Why The Rebel Sings offers a rare glimpse of life, unfiltered.
Best known for her iconic photographs, photojournalist Newsha Tavakolian creates opportunities to decipher the human condition with candour and sensitivity. Her ongoing engagement with the human figure has produced intense aesthetic portraits of intimacy and silence.
The 35-year-old self-taught photographer first garnered public attention at the age of 18 when she documented the 1999 student uprising in Tehran. Since then, she has fearlessly expanded her coverage to humanitarian tragedies in countries like Iraq, Lebanon and Syria. She has developed a dynamic wartime style that spotlights the human condition — in all its glory and depravity — amid the bloody shadows of military skirmishes.
Her works have been published by international publications from The New York Times to National Geographic, while institutions like the Victoria & Albert Museum have included her photography in exhibitions. In 2014, she was chosen as the fifth laureate of the Carmignac Gestion Photojournalism Award. Last year, she was named Principal Laureate of the Prince Claus Award and also selected as a nominee of Magnum Photos. She remains an active mentor of young Iranian photographer.
Image courtesy of Prince Claus Fund, © Frank van Beek
Artist Talk
Wednesday, 29 June 2016, 7.30pm
Free admission with O.P.E.N. Pass, with limited single entry tickets available at the door.
Join Newsha Tavakolian for an evening in conversation with curator Vali Mahlouji to discuss her iconic, ground-breaking work, from stirring warzone photographs to more formally conceived portraits.
A Conversation with Newsha Tavakolian
Artist Talk
Saturday, 2 July 2016, 5pm
Free admission with O.P.E.N. Pass, with limited single entry tickets available at the door.
Best known for her iconic photographs, photojournalist Newsha Tavakolian creates opportunities to decipher the human condition with candour and sensitivity. Her ongoing engagement with the human figure has produced intense aesthetic portraits of intimacy and silence. Take, for instance, her expansive exhibition I Know Why The Rebel Sings at The O.P.E.N., which movingly shows the terror of human conflicts as well as the of-forgotten realities of those forced to pick up the pieces in the aftermath.
The 35-year-old self-taught photographer first garnered public attention at the age of 18 when she documented the 1999 student uprising in Tehran. Since then, she has fearlessly expanded her coverage to humanitarian tragedies in countries like Iraq, Lebanon and Syria. She has developed a dynamic wartime style that spotlights the human condition — in all its glory and depravity — amid the bloody shadows of military skirmishes.
Her works have been published by international publications from The New York Times to National Geographic, while institutions like the Victoria & Albert Museum have included her photography in exhibitions. In 2014, she was chosen as the fifth laureate of the Carmignac Gestion Photojournalism Award. Last year, she was named Principal Laureate of the Prince Claus Award and also selected as a nominee of Magnum Photos. She remains an active mentor of young Iranian photographers.
Join Tavakolian for an eye-opening and inspiring evening as she gives insights into her practice and discusses her recent work in conversation with Festival Director, Ong Keng Sen.
O.P.E.N. Salon / Vali Mahlouji - Archaeology Of The Final Decade
Image courtesy of Kaveh Golestan Estate
Lecture
Tuesday, 28 June 2016, 7.30pm
Free admission with O.P.E.N. Pass, with limited single entry tickets available at the door.
What is the potentiality of archives for the future? Explore Iran's rich yet lesser-known artistic past with London-based curator Vali Mahlouji, who is a writer and adviser to the British Museum. Mahlouji founded Archaeology Of The Final Decade, a curatorial and research platform that brings back to life art and culture buried under revolution and social change.
In this enlightening lecture, Mahlouji explores Iran's cultural legacies now lost by the chaos of the 1979 Revolution. With meticulous passion and investigative energy, he dissects these ideas through the use of two cultural reference points. The first is Iran's "Festival of Arts, Shiraz- Persepolis" that ran from 1967 to 1977, a theatre, dance and music showcase with a unique focus on Asia and Africa. Black-and-white snapshots of this arts and cultural extravaganza reveal a rich diversity and cosmopolitan sophistication not often associated with the country. The second is the seminal photographic series, "Prostitute", by Iranian photographer Kaveh Golestan. These haunting images of women from the red-light ghetto of Citadel of Shahr-e No represent an underbelly deliberately annihilated. The Citadel went up in flames as the revolution unfolded. Many survivors were imprisoned or culturally 'reformed'; some were sentenced to death.
What are the lasting ramifications when huge chunks of cultural memory are brutally erased? What is the best way to reintroduce lost objects into the public domain, stimulate healthy discourse and encourage reconciliation? Join Mahlouji as he confronts these thorny issues of memory, history and reintegration that have lasting resonance for us all.
O.P.E.N. Performance / Rabih Mroue - Riding On A Cloud
Image courtesy of Projects 101 ©️2015 MoMa, New York, by Julieta Cervantes
Performance
Thursday, 23 June – Saturday, 25 June 2016, 8pm
Free admission with O.P.E.N. Pass
The brilliant performance auteur Rabih Mroué's younger brother was shot in Beirut in 1987, as the Lebanese civil war was winding down. Although the 17-year-old Yasser did not die, the sniper's bullet pierced his skull and caused partial paralysis and aphasia — the loss of the ability to understand and express speech.
It was this seminal moment that gave birth to "Riding On A Cloud" so many years later. This mixed-media theatre piece blurs the line between fact and fiction, reality and imagination, truth and subjective perspective, especially with Yasser himself at the centre as the sole performer.
Yasser as victim in a political struggle that riveted the world for decades, Yasser as actor in a fictionalised narrative, Yasser as a character invented by Mroué's imagination, Yasser as victor in his struggle with language and meaning.
Through the flickering images on stage, the video clips and disjointed fragments of music, Mroué plumbs depth and meaning in shifting narratives, explores possibilities for a post-war Lebanon and, more universally, strikes the chords of memory, representation and the elusive search for truth in all of us.
Riding On A Cloud debuted in the Netherlands in 2013 and enjoyed its American premiere at New York City's Museum of Modern Art in 2015.
O.P.E.N. Design / Carla Fernandez - Dance And Ceremonies: Spring/Summer 2017
Image courtesy of Ramiro Chaves
Exhibition
Thursday, 30 June 2016, 10pm
Free admission with O.P.E.N. Pass
Be swept up in a colourful whirl of Mexican clothes and culture with fashion designer and cultural historian Carla Fernåndez's latest collection, Dances And Ceremonies: Spring/Summer 2017. Fernandez documents preserve and brings contemporary relevance to the rich textile heritage of Mexico's indigenous communities. She studies pre-Hispanic and traditional Mexican clothing design that employs an elaborate system of pleats, folds and seams, using only combinations of squares and rectangles. Working closely with Mexico's indigenous communities, she has created stunning, ethical contemporary designs. In the process, she has revived indigenous textile-making in Mexico and improved the economic conditions of the artisans and communities making these textiles.
In "Dances And Ceremonies", Fernandez puts together the craft and ideas of 11 different indigenous and Mestizo* tribes around Mexico. She explores the numerous festivals in the Mexican calendar celebrated by neighbourhoods and communities, which are marked by unique religious rituals and beautifully thought- out costumes. Expect a completely immersive sensory experience of her country's culture — native art is woven into the moving tapestry of the event through five carved totem sculptures. Instead of the usual catwalk, dancers and models perform a unique, specially-created choreography. You can appreciate the beauty of the handwork, the rustle of the skirts and the sheen of the light upon the fabric.
*Mestizo are people of mixed European and indigenous Latin American ancestry
O.P.E.N. Inspiration - A Conversation with Carla Fernandez
Artist Talk
Friday, 1 July 2016, 7.30pm
Free admission with O.P.E.N. Pass, with limited single entry tickets available at the door.
When we think of someone documenting history and culture, we tend to think of writers or filmmakers. Not a fashion designer. Yet that's exactly what Carla Fernandez does. With her mother working in fashion and her father in history, it is perhaps no surprise that Fernandez combines the two perfectly in her work — creating clothes that say as much about trends as they do about Mexican cultures and indigenous craftsmanship.
Based in Mexico City, the designer is famous for her fusing of sleekly modern, avant-garde geometric shapes with traditionally woven textiles. Her 'Square Root' technique from indigenous wisdoms — used to create her signature square and rectangular patterns — is based on the intricate pleating, folding and seaming that local craftsmen and artisans have been doing for hundreds of years.
By connecting her country's native heritage while interpreting Mexican style in a fashion-forward way, Fernandez has made the world sit up and take notice. She was named the British Fashion Council's Young Fashion Entrepreneur of the Year in 2008 and won the 2013 Prince Claus Award, while her work has appeared in magazines like Elle, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar and Wallpaper.
Join Fernandez as she shares her approach to fashion and talks about how she is endlessly inspired by her country — its tribes and its traditions, its feast days and its festivals. Her motto? "The future is handmade," she states in an interview with Designboom. "Sometimes the simplest things give us the most satisfaction.”
Carla Fernández Design, image courtesy of Ramiro Chaves
Workshop
Saturday, 2 July 2016, 12pm – 4.30pm
Free admission with O.P.E.N. Pass
Limited capacity, registration is required.
Carla Fernandez will guide you through the history of Mexican clothes with her singular vision at this educational hands-on workshop. In just two sessions, learn to design and create your unique garment. No special skills required, apart from a willingness to work with your hands and a curiosity about different cultures, design and indigenous clothing.
Workshop
Sunday, 3 July 2016, 2pm – 4pm
$45 O.P.E.N. Pass for one adult and two children (12 years old and below) $25 O.P.E.N. Concession Pass (13 to 16 years old)
Limited capacity, registration is required.
Let the young ones have a fun taste of fashion as they try their hand at making clothes with Carla Fernandez herself. Kids and teens will learn her 'Square Root' technique and also get to create doll-sized paper designs before making clothes and dressing models for their very own runway show. Recommended for children and teenagers aged 7 to 16, with an accompanying parent/guardian for children 12 years and below. Limit to two children per accompanying adult.
Artist Talk
Tuesday, 5 July 2016, 7.30pm
Free admission with O.P.E.N. Pass, with limited single entry tickets available at the door.
Emerging artists working in hybrid, multi-disciplinary works, such as Loo Zihan and Marina Otero, have been invited to Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA) for this year's theme of Potentialities. How can we begin to contextualise and think through their art practice?
When we think about the arts, there is a tendency to slot them into neat, distinct boxes labelled dance', 'painting', 'photography', 'music' and so forth, with little overlap. But are they really so separate?
Hong Kong-born, New York-based choreographer, dancer and curator "Muna Tseng" questions these assumptions and more in her talk at The O.P.E.N. Tseng serves on the selection committee of the prestigious New York Dance and Performance Awards, known informally as the Bessie Awards. She chairs the Current Practice sub-committee, which assesses cutting-edge work that challenges standard definitions of dance — art installation, performance art and long durational work.
She has won a Bessie: New York Dance & Performance Award and repeat Choreographic Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She has also been honoured as "An Artist of National Merit" from the Smithsonian Institution and for her "Distinguished Service in the Arts" from the New York City Council President.
In this vibrant lecture, Tseng draws on her rich experience to consider the current art scene in New York and internationally. Be inspired as she investigates cross-boundary collaborations and unpacks artistic issues.
O.P.E.N. Performance / Christine Bergstrom, Axelle Doué, Charlotte Floussaut, Claudia Huidobro, Anne Rohart, Violeta Sanchez & Amalia Vairelli - Models Never Talk
Image by Vincent Lappartient
Performance
Thursday, 7 – Saturday, 9 July 2016, 8pm
Free admission with O.P.E.N. Pass
Axelle tells how a heavily draped jersey dress by Madame Grés influenced her way of walking on the runway. Amalia, through a few well-chosen gestures, wraps herself in the memory of an evening dress by Yves Saint Laurent. Whichever one of these models you ask — Anne, Charlotte, Christine, Claudia or Violeta — each has held on to a memory of the structure of a piece of clothing for which her bare flesh served as the negative or positive.
The stage depicts the wings behind an haute couture catwalk. But without the clothes. Here, all that remains of fashion are memories. Hands buckle a vanished belt or lace up a corset that has faded away; garments return to being the carbon paper cut-outs they once were. The arms that envelop themselves in an absent coat evoke the reality of bodies held in cage-like clothing. In this setting, words — those same words that are forbidden during fashion shows — act as wardrobe.
These words spoken by the models replace nostalgic velvet or muslin. Accompanying gestures serve as patterns and prints. From these naked artifices, the movement of a model held fast in the gaze of the designer or photographer she once inspired is captured.
"Models Never" Talk is a performance designed by Olivier Saillard, director of the Palais Galliera, Fashion Museum of the City of Paris. Some of his most astonishing work has been his collaboration with actress Tilda Swinton, notably when she donned clothes once worn by Marie Antoinette and Napoleon as well as garments designed by Schiaparelli, Balmain and Dior, for "The Impossible Wardrobe" during the 2012 Paris Fashion Week.
Post-Show Dialogue With The Artists Of Models Never Talk
Post-show Dialogue
Friday, 8 July 2016, 9pm
Free admission with O.P.E.N. Pass
Featuring Christine Bergstrom, Axelle Doué, Charlotte Floussaut, Claudia Huidobro, Anne Rohart, Violeta Sanchez & Amalia Vairelli.
Jean Lambert-Wild - Le Clown des Marias (Swamps Clown)
Performance
Friday, 20 – Sunday, 22 May 2016
Friday & Saturday: 8pm
Sunday: 3pm
No admission for children below 6 years old.
Not recommended for children below 12 years old.
Despite its title, "Le Clown des Marias" clowning or the red-nosed an Auguste clown. Instead, poetic and artistic. Des Marais does slapstick humour, this performance did not have much to do with circus pranks and fake clumsiness of is about a Whitefaced clown — poetic and artistic.
Take a peek into the process by which the actor, Jean Lambert-Wild, undergoes the live metamorphosis from himself into his white clown. The clown's presence is an oddness which expands over the course of the show. Ever surprising, Lambert-Wild gives his character a unique body language and voice of its own.
Having first originated this character in his Calentures (short acts he devises for himself), Lambert-Wild now also uses it to interpret famous characters from seminal plays such as Lucky in Waiting for Godot or Shakespeare's Richard III. Le Clown des Marais is a new Calenture he has created with playwright and stage director Marc Goldberg, to explore the roots of this clown, as well as the intimate bond between a clown and a performer.
The entire process is a dialogue between the actor and the clown. It presents contradictions. They have commonalities but are distinct in their own right. In this poetic and avant-garde performance, clowning does not seek laugher per se, but allows the artist to express himself without any preconception and to directly share stage experiences with the audience.
The performance will be preceded by a documentary about Jean Lambert-Wild's work. Directed by Francois Royet, produced by France Télévision, the French public national television broadcaster, L'étoffe des Réves (The Stuff of Dreams) presents Jean Lambert-Wild's artistic universe and creative process through archive footage and images from the rehearsals of his Richard III.
Le Clown des Marais (Swamps Clown) is a brand new show that Jean Lambert-Wild has devised with Marc Goldberg, a French playwright and stage director who settled in Singapore three years ago. Goldberg has presented a French version of "Emily of Emerald Hill" by Stella Kon and "The Coffin Is Too Big For The Hole" by Kuo Pao Kun throughout France for the 2015 Singapore Festival in France. Le Clown des Marais will be created at 72-13 as part of the 2016 Voilah! festival organised by the French embassy.
The performance will be in French and English, with English subtitles.
This event is part of the Voilah! festival, organised by the French Embassy and Institut Francais.
TheatreWorks is proud to support the presentation of Le Clown des Marais at its home, 72-13 - an incubator for artistic experiments by artists and creatives. This endeavour is part contemporary experiences audiences alternatives, and disciplines and cultures.
This endeavour is part of TheatreWorks' aim to promote innovative contemporary experiences and artistic expressions that offer Singapore audiences alternatives, and offer a consistent conduit for dialogues between disciplines and cultures.
Jean Lambert-Wild is a multi-faceted French avant-garde stage artist born in La Réunion, a French island in the Pacific. He was only 35 years old when the French Ministry of Culture selected him to direct a National Drama Center, ten years ago. A playwright, a stage designer, a team leader, he often performs in his shows as a clown. He is presenting a show in Singapore for the first time, and this will be an opportunity for Singaporean audiences to discover this remarkable artist who has already been invited to perform in Japan, Korea and China.
Eng Kai Er / Faye Lim - Open Rehearsal
Performance
Friday, 29 – Saturday, 30 April 2016, 8pm
Join Kai and Faye in rehearsal and conversation as they develop "She Ain't Heavy, She's Reaching Into Space", their duet performance TheatreWorks in July 2016!
Follow them as they act on the combined curiosities, unfulfilled desires and discontent arising from their practice of Contact Improvisation (CI). Over two evenings of rehearsals, you get a sneak peek into their creation process and a shared understanding of their dancing, performing and resting bodies.
"Contact Improvisation (CI) is a subcultural dance phenomenon embraces worldwide by people who love embracing. Usually, there is a spirit of openness, enquiry/research, and mutual trust and respect, within communities that practice CI. Sometimes, people who don't practise CI think that CI is like a cult."
- Teddy Bear, March 2016 at Faye's living room
On Friday, 29 April, Kai and Faye will rehearse a montage of scenes developed through their workshopping process.
On Saturday, 20 April, Kai and Faye will share an intimate dance that is filled with questions and wanting of answers.
With support from National Arts Council, Cultural Matching Fund and Webvisions
Bumi Purnati Indonesia - Under the Volcano
Performance
Thursday, 21 – Saturday, 23 April 2016, 8pm
Based on one of nature's deadliest disaster that killed over 30,000 people, this piece explores the lives of the people most affected — those who lived at the heart of the disaster. Using dance, martial arts and music of the Minangkabau culture, this gripping dance-drama relives the devastation and rehabilitation following the disaster.
Under the Volcano was inspired by the poem, Lampung Karam, written in syair (traditional Malay poetry) by Muhammad Saleh, a Sumatran poet and religious scholar. It captures first-hand and in-depth, the horror and destruction that befell the people of Padang, West Sumatra during the disaster over 130 years ago.
The message of Under the Volcano, that connects all-natural disasters in the world is as true today as it was in 1883: To survive in this world one must depend on the help of others.
https://underthevolcan02016.wordpress.com
With support from National Arts Council, Cultural Matching Fund and Webvisions
Elizabeth Loh / Jaenny Chandra / Junnosuke Tada / Kitamari / Ma Yanling / Mario Chan / Offside Dance Studio / Sufri Juwahir / Sheriden Newman / Tatsunori Imamura - RE/PLAY Dance Edit
Performance
17 – 20 February 2016, 8pm
RE/PLAY Dance Edit explores the intent and meaning of re-production through bodily repetition of physical movements. Using pop music, the performers dance until they collapse in exhaustion — and then they get up and do it again, each choreographer-dancer taking a turn at their own approach to the performance. "RE/PLAY Dance Edit" is performed by Elizabeth Loh, Jaenny Chandra, Kitamari, Ma Yanling, Mario Chan, Sufri Juwahir, Sheriden Newman Tatsunori Imamura.
In this production under the aegis of Tada's direction, the very foundation and meaning of dance is examined, performance as a format is subverted, and a fresh perspective on dance and performance emerges.
"RE/PLAY Dance Edit" a theatre piece or a dance piece? —
it doesn't matter.... what is important is that the piece opens new possibilities in performance. "
Chikara Fujiwara, Dance Critic
"RE/PLAY Dance Edit" first premiered in Tokyo in 2011 by Tada's theatre company, Tokyo Deathlock.
This collaboration with Offsite Dance Project combines the creative energies of Japan's new wave of contemporary performance artists with those from Singapore. A Cambodian version of RE/PLAY Dance Edit is being planned for 2017.
"RE/PLAY Dance Edit" celebrates the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Japan and Singapore.
https://replay2016.wordpress.com/
With support from National Arts Council, Asia Center Japan Foundation, JCCI Singapore, Purple Sage and Webvisions.