For Art’s Sake!

Yeah, economic recession and all. Not that giving out trophies or money was ever in our game plan. But still, it’s the thought that counts. Right? Right?

Anyway, there wasn’t enough space in Tuesday’s pages to put out all the “winners” so I’m re-posting the complete list of the highlights of the past year in the Singapore arts scene here.

Or at least, what I think were the highlights. Any thoughts? Fire away! And if you want to add to the list, by all means do so. Woot.

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Art Event of the Year: The Road to Arts NMP

It was like Woodstock. Musicians, visual artists, theatre practitioners banded together, attended townhall meetings, and in the end, decided as a community to present two names for the position of Nominated Member of Parliament. The Substation co-artistic director Audrey Wong was chosen. Another attempt was made, this time for the Censorship Review Committee, which was promptly ignored. But hey, now we know it can be done right?

Play of the Year: Singapore’s Arts Bureaucracy

We’re not talking theatre “play” but sports “play”, seeing as it was a veritable round-robin in upper management, with Singapore’s “power players” being shifting around: Benson Puah and Michael Koh’s twin CEO portfolios (NAC and Esplanade, and NHB and the National Art Gallery, respectively); ex-NAC CEO Lee Suan Hiang heading a newly created office in MICA; National Museum’s Tan Boon Hui taking over as SAM director replacing Kwok Kian Chow who moves to NAG; ex-Singapore Biennale GM Low Kee Hong replacing Goh Ching Lee at the Singapore Arts Festival… Phew.

Strangest Art Installation: The Singapore Art Show

It was the biggest, island-wide art “installation” of 2009. We just didn’t know how to make sense of it. We tried. For two weeks. Honest.

The Prodigal Son Award: Glen Goei

We found out why he went AWOL in 2008. And while The Blue Mansion isn’t technically a play, you couldn’t help but think that it was – with actors Lim Kay Siu, Neo Swee Lin, Adrian Pang, Claire Wong, Tan Kheng Hua, Pam Oei, Huzir Sulaiman and Adrian Pang all joining in. But more than the movie, props for his inventive take on The Importance of Being Earnest — and getting Ivan Heng to play a woman again.

The Oomph Award: Poop

Before you even step inside a theatre, a play’s title establishes its presence. Like The Necessary Stage’s Sofaman. Or Poop. A single, monosyllabic word that’s cute and edgy at the same time. Not to mention the kind of conversation you’ll have after watching this play by The Finger Players. “I went to catch Poop” or “I love Poop! It was beautiful!”

The OMG, My HDB Flat Sucks Award: Much Ado About Nothing

The set had a friggin’ pool. Yes, Victor/Victoria’s two-storey building was the bomb, but Singapore Repertory Theatre’s Shakespeare production is probably the only time you’ll see a swimming pool in the middle of Fort Canning Park. The sound system sucked, but you could distract yourself by imagining you were playing peeping tom into the party at your rich neighbour’s landed property.

The Holy Cow, What’s That? Award: Mr. Sofaman in Sofaman

Was it a turban? No, it was a mini-sofa with video projector in it – that was resting on the head of an actor sitting in a wheelchair. The Necessary Stage’s collaboration with Russian group Theatre KnAM was challenging enough to watch, without you trying to figure out what that thing was on the head of someone who looked like Peter from Family Guy.

The David and Goliath Award: Twardzik Ching Chor Leng and THE Dance Company

A visual artist and a fledgling dance company tried to be ambitious. The former wanted to pump water from the Singapore River all the way to SAM 8Q for President’s Young Talents Award but the idea was shot down so she did a “mini-version” instead. The latter decided to stage a contemporary dance piece at The Esplanade Theatre without any sponsors. Both were gutsy attempts that impressed everyone – and showed us that art is also about pushing boundaries.

The Pass Me The Tissues Please Award: Poop

Like we said, it was a beautiful play about three generations of women coping with the death of their father/husband/son. It was magical, surreal, mundane, and, judging from all the sniffling in the audience, an extremely touching piece of theatre.

Best Mind Blowing Experience: The Comedy of the Tragic Goats

We enjoyed TheatreWorks’ recent anything-goes “dancing museum” showcase. But as a solid, one-off mind-f**k, Cake Theatrical Production’s word-less play about dictators and political prisoners takes the, er, cake. A visceral, visual experience that unearthed our masochistic impulses as theatre-goers – it was just as physically exhausting for the actors as it was for us. It was like being electrocuted. And loving it.

Oh Yeah, We Forgot About Them Award: Vertical Submarine

In a scene that takes itself too seriously most of the time, thank god we’ve got this, until now, under-rated three-member visual collective. The recent PYT winner mixes deadpan humour and sharp literary sensibilities to create installations that are fun as they are complex. They recently planted grey sunflowers at the Botanic Gardens too. 2009 was also the year when the establishment remembered that film-makers were also artists and gave the Young Artist Award to four of them.

The Paradigm Shift Award: Blackout and Open House

One was held in a warehouse, the other inside private homes. Salon Projects’ two group exhibitions proved you don’t have to wait for the next Singapore Biennale to see art in an out-of-the-box setting. And the crowds of people who visited agreed.

We also saw five local productions at the daunting Esplanade Theatre. They may not all have been financial successes, but we’re taking it as a sign of good things to come.

Best Art Exhibit (That You Missed): Archives and Desires

This retrospective on the late Mohammad Din Mohammad opened in 2008 but ran until February at the NUS Museum, which deserves more foot traffic for its well-planned exhibitions. The artist passed away in 2007 and, as you look at his vivid expressionistic paintings and bizarre, primal mix-media sculptures made of household stuff and tribal artefacts, you wonder why you only see bits and pieces in other shows.

The Patron of the Arts: You

Yes, we’re taking a leaf from Time magazine for this one. But it does hold true in a year plagued by the economic recession and swine flu. From our beloved “aunties” to the experimental freaks, kudos to everyone for watching theatre and dance performances and going to museums and galleries to catch exhibits. Same time, same place, next year?

“Uniquely Singapore” Medal of Valour: Ho Tzu Nyen, Ming Wong, Tang Fu Kuen, TheatreWorks

Even with the art scene going “traditional” for the next three years, it’s good to remember that the ones who flew the Singapore flag overseas in 2009 have been our most adventurous contemporary artists. From Ho’s films and videos at the Cannes, Berlin, and Venice Film Festivals and the Asia Pacific Triennial, to Wong and Tang’s victory at the Venice Biennale, to TheatreWorks’ Diaspora at the Edinburgh Festival.

Shameless Shout Out To Act In More Plays Award: Adrian Pang

Really, Adrian. Pretty please?

Best Painting Award: The Photograph

That the UOB Painting of the Year is a photograph for the second straight year means we can lay the debate to rest. It IS an art form. And painters, time to, ahem, brush up on your skills.

Avant-Garde Work of the Year: The Hossan Leong Show

You may think we’re taking a piss at arguably the most commercially crass show of 2009. But the product placements were just so “out there” that it’s practically undefinable. Think about it.

The Reality Bites Award: Institute of Critical Zoologists and Huang Wei

Photographer Zhao Renhui’s scientist “friends” and artist Alan Oei’s “discovery” of a cache of paintings by an unconventional Nanyang-era Singapore artist got people all riled up (and, in the case of Zhao, this reporter all fooled). But they did put imagination back on the table. It isn’t after all, about reality, but about art.

Artist of the Year: The Curator and Arts Programmer

The kinds of shows we see in galleries and on stage, the way they’re shown, yep, these unsung heroes have a hand in those too. It’s not just about hanging a painting on the wall.

Tags: Adrian Pang, Alan Oei, Archives and Desires, Arts NMP, Audrey Wong, Benson Puah, Blackout, Cake Theatrical Productions, Censorship Review Committee, Claire Wong, contemporary art, Diaspora, Esplanade, Glen Goei, Goh Ching Lee, Ho Tzu Nyen, Hossan Leong, Huang Wei, Huzir Sulaiman, Institute of Critical Zoologists, Ivan Heng, Kwok Kian Chow, Lee Suan Hiang, Lim Kay Siu, Low Kee Hong, MICA, Michael Koh, Ming Wong, Mohammad Din Mohammad, Much Ado About Nothing, NAC, National Art Gallery, Neo Swee Lin, NHB, NUS Museum, Open House, Pam Oei, Poop, President's Young Talents, Salon Projects, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore Art Show, Singapore Arts Festival, Singapore Biennale, Singapore Repertory Theatre, Singapore theatre, Sofaman, Tan Boon Hui, Tan Kheng Hua, Tang Fu Kuen, The Blue Mansion, The Comedy of the Tragic Goats, THE Dance Company, The Finger Players, The Importance of Being Earnest, The Necessary Stage, The Substation, TheatreWorks, Twardzik Ching Chor Leng, Victor/Victoria, visual art, Zhao Renhui

Walking towards the Toa Payoh ampitheatre this afternoon to catch the third and final performance event on today’s (enforced) schedule, I thought: Aside from budgetary constraints, what’s to stop anyone from spending a whole Saturday (or Sunday) from going on an art marathon?

Couch potatoes do it. Movie freaks do it. And if you time it right, you still have time to go to Zouk. If you wanted to.

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But I digress. It’s been an interesting day, to say the least. I started it surrounded by people a third of my age and ended it surrounded by heartlanders.

Now, watching a children’s play at 11am may not be everyone’s cup of tea – particularly if you don’t have one yourself and you don’t personally know any of the cast members enough to make that penultimate sacrifice, but hey, there’s a first time for everything.

And so it was that I found myself at The Jungle Book, which was staged by SRT’s The Little Company.

It was fairly amusing (although I couldn’t help but wait expectantly for The Bare Necessities, which of course, didn’t come out) and confirms my belief that Timothy Nga, who played the tiger Shere Khan, is effective in playing silly.

Two other points.

Sitting directly in front of me was Adrian and Tracie Pang and their two kids. If children’s theatre needed a poster family, the Pangs are it. They give credence to the adage: The Family That Watches A Play Together Stays Together.

Sitting directly behind me were two imps who, during intermission, screamed in my ears. They give credence to the adage: The Family With Two Brats That Watches A Play Together Should Be Banned From Theatre.

Luckily, the heartlander families that watched Melt, Cake Theatrical Production’s free public performance at Toa Payoh were well behaved. The only crazy thing was the show itself.

The creative tagteam of Rizman Putra and Natalie Hennedige put on a Dr. Seuss-like piece that was basically five people dressed up as facial body parts running around like crazy to the uber-cool rhythms of Bloco Singapura – who were dressed like KISS members. Like I said, crazy. Now if only all public theatre performances were this out of this world.

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In between those shows was expo zero, that kicker event for TheatreWorks’ The Flying Circus Project.

I was just as curious as everyone else to find out exactly what an empty “dancing museum” was.

True enough, nothing inside TW’s 72-13 except for audiences and participants, who problematised the idea of what a “dance museum” (or in fact, a “museum”) should be.

I stayed for three hours but still missed out on TW big boss Ong Keng Sen and Indian dancer Padmini Chettur’s presentations. I also wasn’t quite sure about actor-director Yves-Noel Genod’s proposition, where he, all resplendent in pink and wearing a crocodile hat, basically took a photo of me.

Anyway, here’s one of Keng Sen having a discussion with folks beneath the lighting rig.

I caught the others, though, and they’ve all got interestingly varied approaches to the proposition. And all invariably entailed some kind of participation from the “museum visitors”.

Boris Charmatz, who concocted the whole concept, was pretty straightforward in his intentions – if not in his presentations. One of his schemes was to, erm, drag people to take charge of this so-called dance museum. “Taking charge” of course, meant, trying to replicate the dance choreography of the “museum”’s previous owner – which meant I had to memorise a simple but rather physically exhausting piece, which I would then pass on.

Design collective FARM’s Torrance Goh did a playful “hide n’ seek” with participants, encouraging them to explore the different nooks and crannies of this supposed “museum”.

Choreographer/dancer Joavien Ng turned one section of the warehouse into a space for her to recreate her tableaus, which often looked hauntingly pretty in the shadows. Here’s an interesting one.

I didn’t actually get to see dancer/choreographer Francois Chaignaud. But that’s because he was inside this literally “black box” the whole time. Lovely (albeit a bit creepy) piece where you enter this pitch-black room and hear this disembodied voice inviting you to imagine your own museum of dance… while he, erm, somewhat massages you.

Danish choreographer/dancer Mette Ingvartsen was the group’s wild card, focusing more on the “dance” aspect of the “dance museum”.

At one point, I was lying down beside her after she said she had no one to do her contact improvisation piece with. So instead, she recounted her various performances in New York. Another time, she invited a group of people to walk with her around the space – and went around a pillar around three times.

The said pillar also became part of another of her performances. A reconstruction of a previous performance, the butt-naked Mette repeatedly walked into the pillar. But gave up after a while because, in the original performance, the pillars were heavy but actually moveable.

The last time I saw her, she was all blue. Literally.

Filipino dancer/choreographer Donna Miranda, meanwhile, was upstairs at the rooftop behind TW’s actual office. Hers was part-formal confessional speech (she had it all on paper!), part- intellectual discussion and part-dance, that began with questions on just how effective dance is as a means of communication. One of her tactics was to literally translate a piece of text (if I remember correctly, it had something to do with the turn of the century invasion of the Philippines by the US) into dance.

But the most ingenious (and arguably the sneakiest) piece has got to be from artist/curator Heman Chong.

What he basically did was write a 500-word short story, which will never be published.

If you’re game enough to hear the story, you go inside this room, which will then be locked. It’ll only be opened once you memorize the story.

It’s a very interesting proposition of how a “museum” should be (a place where there is an extremely personal unfolding of knowledge and wonder – since you and you alone discover something new at that point in time. After which, it’s up to you whether or not you want to pass on this (memorized) experience).

But of course, it comes with a price. As I told him, it sounds suspiciously authoritarian. But at the same time, it’s a pretty cool concept.

But I’ve got the memory of a guppy so I didn’t take up the challenge. My fellow art journo Tara Tan was game though. Except that she didn’t know she was memorizing a 500-word piece of text. Yikes! (Note the ironically positioned ‘Exit’ sign.)

It’s a very interesting showcase. There’s one minor point I’d like to ask the organisers, though, which I had discussed with Donna and brought up briefly with Keng Sen.

expo zero centres around questions of a “dancing museum” but how come no one thought of interrogating or questioning the notion of the building-as-museum itself. That the idea of a “structure” to house “dance” (in this case, TheatreWorks’ very own 72-13) is taken as a given. It seems to me that there is freedom to explore everything, but at the same time, it all still takes place within the four walls of an implied institution.

In any case, this is probably one of the last mind-bending artistic experiences you’ll see in Singapore this year. So I urge you to drop by tomorrow (Sunday). It’ll be open until 6pm at 72-13 Mohamed Sultan Road.

Tags: Adrian Pang, Bloco Singapura, Boris Charmatz, Cake Theatrical Productions, children's play, contemporary dance, Donna Miranda, Flying Circus Project, Francois Chaignaud, Heman Chong, Joavien Ng, Melt, Mette Ingvartsen, museum, Natalie Hennedige, Ong Keng Sen, Padmini Chettur, public theatre, Rizman Putra, Singapore Repertory Theatre, Tara Tan, The Jungle Book, TheatreWorks, Timothy Nga, Tracie Pang, Yves-Noel Genod