Texts June 2010

A lot of the performances I watched for the Singapore Arts Festival blog.

The books, on the other hand, feature in a new blog, Around the World in 80 Books! Basically, I'm trying to read my way around the world, one book from one adjacent country at a time.

Meanwhile, my Singapore Biennale Blog, which I was updating every now and then even though it's two years since the last one, has been unceremoniously erased. Good luck to them trying to get me to work with them again.

*POETRY*
+Christopher Reid’s “A Scattering”
=Sudesh Mishra’s “diaspora and the difficult art of dying”
Konai Helu Thaman’s “Hingano”
=Kauraka Kauraka’s “Return to Havaiki”

*FICTION*
+David Leavitt’s “The Lost Language of Cranes”
+Jack London’s “Jerry of the Islands” [Be warned!!! Extremely racist!!!]
+James A. Michener’s “Tales of the South Pacific”
+Wena Poon’s “The Proper Care of Foxes”
+Janet Frame’s “Owls Do Cry”
+Albert Wendt’s “Leaves of the Banyan Tree”
Ze Lin Xiao’s “Tutuila”

*DRAMA*
=Tanika Gupta’s “The Waiting Room”
+David Hare’s “The Blue Room”
+Alfian Sa’at’s “Collected Plays Volume 1”

*NON-FICTION*
+E. Benjamin Skinner’s “A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern Day Slavery”

*HARD TO CLASSIFY*
+Charu Nivedita’s “Zero Degree”

*FILMS*
+Nina Paley’s “Sita Sings the Blues”
+“Shrek: Forever After”
+Satoshi Kon’s “Millennium Actress”
= Baratz's "Unmistaken Child"
+Lee Unkrich's "Toy Story 3"

*PERFORMANCES*
+Singapore Arts Festival’s “Platform Campus”
=Joyce Koh’s “On the String”
=Singapore Street Festival’s “Street Revolution Jam”
=a bit of Atsuhiro Ito feat. Zai Kuning and the Analog Girl
+AWARE’s “Superwomen in Concert”
+Nanning Cantonese Opera Troupe’s “Mulian Rescues His Mother”
+Compagnie Une de Plus's "Trois"
=Singapore Arts Festival’s “Open Studio”
+Theatrestrays’ “The Lower Depths”
Meg Stuart and Philippe Gehmacher’s “Maybe Forever”
=Singapore Arts Festival's "Mega Line Dance"
+Beijing Paper Tiger Studio’s “Cool”
=Pangdemonium’s “The Full Monty”

*EXHIBITIONS*
+Era Dance Theatre Unlimited, Yayasan Warisan Johor and Langkan Budaya Taratak’s “Zapin d’Muara”
National Museum’s “Singapore 1960”
=National Library’s “Rihlah – Arabs in Southeast Asia” and “William Farquhar”
NUS Museum’s +“Dire Patterns: Antipas Delotavo”, =“Southeast Asian Ceramics: New Light on Old Pottery” and +“Tracing Taiping”