Events
& Happenings
2010
SERUNDING - A SOLO MAKCIK PLAY!
Touring the South East District: Dec 2010 – Jan 2011
A Writers’ Lab Community Project in partnership with South East CDC
New Shows!
8 Jan 2011, Sat, 7:30pm
Multi-Purpose Hall, Siglap South Community Centre
14 Jan 2011, Fri, 8pm & 15 Jan 2011, Sat, 3pm
Theatrette, Marine Parade Community Club
29 Jan 2011, Sat, 3pm
Multi-Purpose Hall, Geylang Serai Community Club
30 Jan 2011, Sun, 5pm
Multi-Purpose Hall, Changi Simei Community Club
TheatreWorks in collaboration with South East Community Development Council (CDC) announced the Winners of the 24-Hour Playwriting Competition 2010
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Performing Idea Creative Spaces
Workshop by Ong Keng Sen
2 - 4 October, 10am to 6pm
Whitechapel Gallery, London
Ong Keng Sen will lead a workshop on documentary performance evoked by Gertrude Stein’s Wars I Have Seen. Keng Sen is interested in charting the cultural diversity of the UK and mainland Europe through memories, histories and narratives of migration. The workshop will explore the experiences of those who left their homelands to avoid wars or out of a necessity to find new lives – experiences that perhaps are only interrogated several generations later.
This workshop is conceived for artists and researchers working on or in performance with an interest in theatre aesthetics, narrative, memory and cross cultural exchange.
Each workshop will also feature a respondent to act as witness and/or facilitator. The respondent for Keng Sen's workshops is Tellervo Kalleinen.
Performing Idea, a research project that investigates the shifting relations between performance practice and discourse, event and writing; through a public programme of workshops, presentations, screenings and a symposium.
Performing Idea is a collaboration between Goldsmiths, University of London, Roehampton University, and the Live Art Development Agency.
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The Continuum: Beyond The Killing Fields – Australian Premiere
15 - 18 September 2010, 8pm
the Arts Centre, Melbourne
The Continuum: Beyond The Killing Fields marks the tenth year of performance with its Australian Premiere at the Arts Centre, Melbourne. First conceived and directed by Artistic Director Ong Keng Sen in 2001, this moving documentary-performance on Cambodian artists who survived the Khmer Rouge regime is part of the Kenneth Myer Asian Theatre Series—a new biennial season that brings together some of the best examples of contemporary performance located across the broad Asian region. The production is contextualised by a series of public forum, workshops and artist talk that will engage the Australian public. As the war crimes trials continue its controversy in Phnom Penh, The Continuum reminds us of the scars that Pol Pot inflicted, and the fragile yet persevering nature of art.
Asialink Forum
Cultural resistance and continuity in Cambodia
Speakers will include: Ong Keng Sen, Artistic Director, TheatreWorks (Singapore) and Director of The Continuum: Beyond the Killing Fields; Emeritus Professor David Chandler, Monash University
Monday 13 September, 6:00pm-7:30pm
Yasuko Hiraoka Myer Theatre, Level 1,
Sidney Myer Asia Centre
The University of Melbourne
Post-Performance Talk
Thursday 16 September, following the performance
Playhouse, the Arts Centre
Cambodian Classical Dance Workshop
Saturday 18 September, 11:00am-12:30pm
Dancehouse
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Evolution is at the heart of TheatreWorks, one of Singapore’s longest running theatre company. For its landmark 25th year, it celebrates the ties that have shaped its journey so far in the Friends’ Season – Tenderness For The Future.
Ong Keng Sen, Artistic Director, TheatreWorks
“Tenderness for the future. We have to act today to keep our memories for another time. But what do we keep? What are the parameters for remembering and forgetting?
Who are we tender towards? Lovers, families, friends? This is all the more pertinent in the environment we are in today with its relentless measures of success. These days, it’s all about outcomes, key performance indicators, or box office. Our 25th year is about giving value to things that are neglected.
TheatreWorks remains open to constantly re-defining itself. We have completely transformed from when we first began, as a repertory company up till 1999, playing to 20,000 audience members with each popular, Singapore-themed production. But in the first decade of the 21st century, we started carving a niche for ourselves in spaces that have been forgotten.
Abandoning the mainstream, we started to value individuality, subjectivity and minority interests. We evolved into a platform for younger artists and a vessel for people who share similar artistic visions, for those who work in between boundaries and disciplines. We are very directly responding to Singapore all the way, in that we fill the spaces that are underappreciated.
Singapore can be said to be a wonderful country for the majority interest. Everything is framed by public interest as opposed to public interests. What happens when you are not in the majority?
The loss of the artistic process in Singapore theatre as a way of life has been on the cards for a while because of the materialistic value system here. Seeing art mainly as a commodity will break it down. Supporting art primarily for tourism will sound the ultimate death knell. For our 25th year, we rethink the values prioritised today and we propose some sustainable alternatives. What will it mean to the future generations? How will they continue or deconstruct it? That is their story. For now, we articulate the journeys we have made with you, our loyal friends and new friends.”
The season kicks off on 8th April 2010 and will continue till 1st May 2010.
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Fukuoka Prize 2010 awarded to ONG Keng Sen
16 September 2010
TheatreWorks has great pleasure in sharing a piece of good news with all.
This year, the Fukuoka Prize for Arts and Culture will be awarded to ONG Keng Sen, TheatreWorks' artistic director. Keng Sen is the first contemporary performance maker / theatre director to receive this award.
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