She deserved it, actually. She gave them a great proposal: do an artistic audiotour of the Arts House building, a la Desire Paths/National Museum Guide. Hell, I'd have picked her over me. Plus she's shown years of commitment to inventive theatremaking - much more than I have.
But part of the job that goes with the Fellowship is giving a free workshop to prospective writers. Which is where we came in:
Kaylene sent out a call for applications for her week-long writing workshop, maximum capacity ten. On the first day, only eight people turned up; by the last day there were only four of us. (Not sure why; people just didn't seem able to commit.)
I was the only male: the girls on top are Rashidah, Isabella and Yingying.
We did odd stuff, like being assigned to wander through the city, collecting objects and impressions:
And then returning back to the cafe, where we shared our found objects (we had to bring back something live):
I decided to be hero by bringing back an entire palm frond:
A couple weeks later I tried a similar exercise at the ACS (Independent) GEP Enrichment camp. The boys were kinda nonplussed, but responded very enthusiastically when I told them swear words were acceptable in their poetry.
Mostly Kaylene had us do research at the Library and the National Archives, though. We came up with site-specific performances about lost items of Singapore history.
The final day included a presentation. We actually had an audience!
They were mostly Arts House staff lah. This was Isabella's Merlion Monologue:
And this was us watching Isabella's Merlion Monologue.
Unfortunately I have no shots of my monologue performance about Singapore's lost system of tramlines and trolleybuses.
In lieu of a satisfying image to conclude this journal entry, I'll just add a mural from the Arts House Writers Festival:
Yup. I've already contacted the Speak Good English Campaign. :) G'nite everybody!
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