ITI Theatre Forum 2016: Challenges and Counters: The questions for today’s theatre-makers – and hope

Challenges and Counters: The questions for today’s theatre-makers – and hopefully, some answers

– I learnt that the theatre is about our memories, and our imagination. Memories: where do we come from, what makes us who we are today. Imagination: different possibilities that we can create for the future. Past, present, future. Neither can survive independently of each other. To answer today’s topic, we need, more than ever, to tap into our memories, and actively seek out imagined possibilities that leads us to various creative responses and counter measures, to the future challenges.

CHALLENGE 1 – SPACE

– As compared to say ten or twenty years ago, I think it’s relatively easier to do theatre now. As artists, we need space to work. And space comes with money. I don’t think a lot of theatre-makers now are struggling too much to find space for their work. Certain venue have low rental fee. I will like to mention Centre 42, which we know is doing a lot of good work in the scene. I have been working with Centre 42 on a project since January this year. It is a long process where my friend and I work to churn out a script. So I go to C42 a lot. I noticed so many works going on at C42, works by theatre companies, and even more works by independent artists. There’s usually a pattern. The artists work at C42, they present at C42, they invite other artists to come and watch their presentation, and receive feedbacks from them. And then everyone eat and drink together.

– This seems to be a model of doing Creative work that appeals to quite a lot of independent artists. I think it’s because firstly, C42 subsidies the venue rental fees, so the artist doesn’t have to struggle too much to pay for rental fees. For most of us, financial can be a burden, and when the burden is not as much, the artists can spend more time and effort on his or her creative output. Secondly, through the publicity and documentation by C42, the theatre scene will also able to get a sense of what is happening nowadays in the scene. It’s a win-win situation.

– I’d heard in the past, some theatre companies or individual artists, have to rehearse in void deck, or in public Parks. Now we cannot do that anymore. Illegal gathering. How many years have artists been waiting for a space like C42 to happen? It has finally happen, and I hope there will be more possibilities that will arise.

CHALLENGE 2 – FUNDING

– And then I have heard that in terms of funding, funding usually goes more readily to established theatre companies or theatre groups. And when new, first-time collectives or companies try to get the financial support, they don’t get the support as readily. I can understand why. So are there other possibilities of receiving funding? People have been talking about how we need individuals from the society to fund the artists and their works, so that the government is not the only one we can turn to when we need funding. And also so that we are not subjected to the government’s censorship and control of our content. But are there other ways?

– Sometimes the artists can exercise their creativity in this aspect. Recently I saw a group of artists doing crowdfunding project for their work. It’s called “Process in Progress”. The group is researching for an alternative approach to creative practice in Singapore, and the fund is to assist the rental fees for an alternative space for a month, so that they can research, explore, and experiment. The idea is revolutionary. Will it work? Who knows? Someone has got to try. Will it fail? Even if they do, at least they tried, and regardless of their success or failure, there is a practice of creativity, an initiative from the artists themselves. And when they do so, they create an awareness. You look at the names, they’re all experienced practitioners, Lee Yeong Wen, Lim Chin Huat, Dorothy Png, Pamela Lee, etc– 10 of them. Do check them out.

WHAT IS ART

– If we want to get funding from different agents, agents meaning either the government, or corporate, or individuals, etc, we need to be able to tell them why art is necessary. For the longest time it has been our challenge: to convince everyone else why we need the art. And what is art. Everyone knows that economics is necessary, healthcare is necessary, and everyone put the arts on the last rung of the ladder. How do we challenge the general mentality and attitude towards art? And then we have to ask ourselves: what is our attitude towards art?

– I’m not talking about the different philosophies of art-making, I’m talking about something more intrinsic. What is the arts? One of the best thing I heard about the arts, is that art is aesthetic, and that the opposite of aesthetic, is anaesthetic. Numb. Insensitivity. Asleep. And what artists do, what art do for us, is to awaken us. Make us awake, aware, of the world, and towards each other. To all our similarities and differences.

– And if we can agree on that, then whenever people ask us: why do funding goes to the arts when it could very well goes towards basic services. And we can tell them confidently, that art is a basic service. And we would know why we say that.

CHALLENGE 3 – TIME

– And then we need to think about sustainability. A theatre company or collectives need years to mature. An artist needs space to explore, and also time to grow. There is a theatre company that centres its philosophy on honing and nurturing the actors’ craft over a long period of time. It is a Mandarin theatre company, Nine years theatre. Right from the start, NYT has been providing space for the actors to train regularly and systematically over years, across time. A lot of actors are so thankful for this. What about playwrights? Can we imagine full-time playwrights in Singapore, who can write and hone their writing skills over years, without having to worry too much about their livelihood? Can we imagine that possibility? Can theatre companies support? Can the government support? Can we as a society support?

– My questions can be challenged as well. Recently, I worked with this collective call Playcircle. In short, Playcircle is a loose collective formed by six young people who were from the youth wing of Drama Box some five years back. Out of these six members, only two of them are full time theatre practitioners. The rest have their day jobs. So the nature of Playcircle is actually quite interesting. They are not interested in forming a theatre company. They don’t mind if they don’t work as full time theatre practitioners. They are interest based, and the recent play they put up is a product of two years of labour– something we seldom heard of nowadays when we have to fulfill requirements because we are getting funding and we have to be answerable to the money we receive. I’m observing and I’m very interested in this group of people. Will they disband and disappear after this production. Will they spend another two years before their next performance. What kind of imprint did they leave upon the theatre scene. Are there any other groups of “Playcircle” around in Singapore, that function like them, or not like them, what challenges are they facing, what support are they getting, what model of sustainable theatre-making are they working towards? I am interested.

WHAT IS AN ARTIST

– In this day and age when we spend two months rehearsing (sometimes less), goes on stage, finish the production, and then delves into the next production, sometimes I ask myself what is an artist. This is my challenge.

– I have the chance to watch this documentary of this particular dance company in Taiwan, call 无垢舞蹈剧场, or Legend Lin Dance Theatre. One thing that strikes me was how the dancers in the company have to sew their own costumes.

– They have cloths that they bring with them onto the stage for ten to twenty years. For twenty years they dance with that same piece of cloth, and whenever there is wear and tear, they don’t replace the cloth, they mend it, carefully, thread by thread, with a lot of sensitivity and care. The cloth then becomes more than a piece of cloth. By taking care of the cloth, you put your breathing into the cloth. It’ll be so different everytime you bring it on stage. The audience would be able to feel it. They wouldn’t be able to articulate, but they can feel it. This act of taking care of the cloth transcends into a way of life. Taking care of every aspects of theatre, from the performance, to backstage, to the props you carry with you, everything.

– So to the dancers, they are not multi-hyphenated artists because they can dance and sew and manage a company and etc. I think they are practitioners of Life.

– So I ask myself, how do I take part in life. In today’s world when everyone is impatient and want to see results quickly, very quickly- I want to be a good actor NOW, I want to be a good director NOW- can we recognise that art can take on a very different life if we take care of it, be sensitive towards it, grow with it. A Taiwanese director 李国修 said, “一辈子做好一件事就功德圆满了.” Loosely translated it means, to do one thing, and do it well. It has become an increasingly challenging thing to do in this day and age.

CHALLENGE 4 : WHAT KIND OF THEATRE SCENE DO WE WANT

– We have to ask this question. What kind of theatre scene do we want. We can have a lot of answers. But I think we really have to ask ourselves this question again and again. Because we don’t make art in the ivory tower. Whatever art we make, we have to question the relationship between our art and the society, our art and the world.

– Going back to my very first point, we have seen more and more collectives and theatre companies emerging. And it is interesting to read this phenomenon. We can see they are mostly English Theatre companies, or collectives whose mode of working and performances are in English. In the past decade, we see only two new mandarin theatre companies appear, two. Plus one mandarin collective last month. What about the Malay theatre, Tamil theatre? What if we can imagine more companies or artists that do Mandarin theatre, Malay theatre, Tamil theatre, and other theatre of other languages and cultures. Who knows. A Hainanese theatre group? Living in Singapore, we have the advantage to explore this– Kuo Pao Kun left us a legacy: Open Culture. We are now moving towards a mono-lingual society. Do we still want it? Or do we not want it anymore, because time and space has changed? What are the challenges? What do we want for the scene?

IMAGINATION AND CREATIVE RESPONSES

– I’ll like to wrap up by saying that there will never be a lack of challenges and limitations for artists, and the arts. But we must always continue to imagine possibilities. Imagination is free. Don’t let it be taken away from us. And we can see, from the examples I raised just now, that artists are blessed with the gifts of creativity, and we should always use it to our advantages. Instead of just fighting against our challenges, we can always use our imagination in finding creative means of tackling, handling, listening, and responding to our challenges.

– Thank you.

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