Theatreworks asks, What is Asian in this age of globalisation, internationalization, modernisation and urbanisation? Its work exists on the tension between modernity and tradition; local and global. It hopes to rethink what is Western, what is Eastern, what is first world and what is third world: Do these dichotomies continue to make sense in the new millennium? Representing the continuum between tradition and contemporary, the work is unafraid to be exotic and yet conceptual. Theatreworks' aesthetics projects the hybrid identity of the modern Asian and embrace the multiple realities.
Apart from intercultural concerns, Theatreworks' recent works have challenged accepted history through a genre of docu-performance. Such works question the process of documentation itself. It points to the slippage when translation occurs: linguistic translation, translation from fact into history into myth into performance. These works, the latest being 'The Continuum: Beyond the Killing Fields', ultimately deal with the realm of myth making in modern societies.
TheatreWorks works primarily through a process of collaboration, dialogue and engagement with artists from other cultures. The company has become increasingly concerned with the urgent need for Asia to engage with Europe, America and Australia on new territories and with a new vocabulary. Ultimately, TheatreWorks is dedicated to the development of contemporary arts in Singapore, and to the evolution of an Asian identity and aesthetics for the 21st Century through a culture of difference.