"I Am An American" by the Ad Council

Trying to write an article for What's Up's Racial Harmony Day Special; my assignment's to write about What We Learned From 9/11. I'll be talking about my own experience of the event as a college student. One of my memories is watching this ad on TV:



Odd: I thought I remembered there being more overt representations of Arab-Americans. Kind of defeats the purpose otherwise.

Moving Words Slam, this Saturday, 630-8pm, Esplanade XChange Burger King!

As stated before, I'm devoting a full post to this event, because I'd really like it to be successful. It's the first poetry slam I've organised (with the blessing of Word Forward), and also the first I've emceed in quite some time.

It's part of the Moving Words festival to promote Singaporean poetry, organised by The Literary Centre, who also published GASPP, doncha know. The event's held in conjunction with the featuring of Singaporean poems on MRT trains, a nationwide poetry competition, and the run-up to this year's Singapore Writers Festival.

Also! It features some really cool writers!

RAFA'AT HAMZAH, guest poet: A director, producer, performer and poet in the Malay language; Creative Director of COKELAT Events.

MIRIAM NASH, sacrificial lamb: A young and amazing poet from the UK, currently heading the Writing the City project at the British Council.

MARC NAIR, competitor: One of the young stalwarts of the Singapore slam scene who's represented us in the World Slam Finals. Author of Along the Yellow Line and Chai.

POOJA NANSI, competitor: Another young stalwart, author of Stiletto Stars and one half of the phenomenal music-poetry duo the Mango Dollies!

BANI HAYKAL, competitor: One of our most inventive slammers, frontman for indie-unclassifiable band B-Quartet, founder of multidisciplinary collective mux and associate artist with the Substation.

CHONG KOH YOU, competitor: An emergent voice and one of several of these writers to be jamming in the upcoming Lit Up! performance, The City Limits.

STEPHANIE MILANI, competitor: An Indonesian brought up in Singapore who's performed at the Singapore Writers Festival and the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival.

BENJAMIN CHOW, competitor: A former contestant on Singapore idol and one of our most consistent winners at the Blu Jaz slams!

Seriously, these are some of Singapore's best performance poets. I kid you not. And it'll be a real slam, with tension and competition and prizes.

Judging will be Rafa'at Hamzah, Word Forward co-founder Savinder Kaur, student writers Almira and Azura, as well as a few random audience members.

So once again:

Moving Words Poetry Slam

Saturday 25 June, 630-8pm
Esplanade XChange Burger King
http://www.facebook.com/?tid=1869389166914&sk=messages#!/event.php?eid=180821831975252

The slam is supported by BooksActually, Word Forward and the Esplanade Xchange.

Also click on the above to find out about the Moving Words open mic on Thursday 7 July from 7-9pm at 15 Minutes Cafe. And if you want to find out more about the MRT poetry prize, go to the Moving Words website.

Poetry Readings Galore!

I'm just back from Southern Africa! And I suppose photos may emerge at some point, but right now I have to gear up for the ridiculous number of readings I'm hosting, reading at, or curating in the next week and a half:

The Contemporary: An International Conference of Literature and the Arts
Friday 24 June, 815pm
NTU, Creative Studio, HSS-B2-01
http://portal.cohass.ntu.edu.sg/TheContemporary/programme.asp

... I'll be reading 5 minutes at the university to academics. Suchen Christine Lim will also have a bit. There's also going be a launch of Spark, the Singapore Poetry Archive.

Moving Words Poetry Slam
Saturday 25 June, 630-8pm
Esplanade XChange Burger King
http://www.facebook.com/?tid=1869389166914&sk=messages#!/event.php?eid=180821831975252


This deserves a whole post to itself. Akan datang!

SPORE Art Salon
Monday 27 June, 7-11pm
ECHO Loft, Chinatown
Corner of Smith Street and South Bridge Rd, Second Floor
$15 for entry (including performance, sketching and food)
http://www.facebook.com/?tid=1869389166914&sk=messages#!/event.php?eid=126847487396738


I've curated Indonesian slam poet Stephanie Milani for this multidisciplinary performance!

Carnal Stash, the House of Incest Reading
Tuesday 5 July, 730-9pm
Post-Museum, 107 Rowell Road.
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=210225729018745

Erotic texts and artworks curated by Amanda Lee. I'll get 15 min to read alongside folks like X'Ho, Alvin Pang, Pooja Nansi, Madeleine Lee and Tania de Rozario, in front of works by Genevieve Chua! The art show's opening tonight, in fact.

Hello 2111!: a collaboration with Michikazu Matsune

If you happen to be in Vienna/Wien, Austria, this coming week, why not head down to a performance art/art installation I've helped to create called Hello 2111?

It's featured in Wiener Festwochen's "Survival Strategies", and it's initiated and mostly created by Michikazu Matsune, a Japanese artist working in Austria whom I last met at the Flying Circus Project 2007.

The performance segment is a letter to the people of the year 2111, performed by Mich himself. I helped generate the text (in fact, I just got off Skype with him as we hammered out the final version). Can't fly over because I'm currently in Zimbabwe.

Anyhow, details are:

13 to 18 June 2011
Kunsthalle Wien, project space karlsplatz
brut at Künstlerhaus

(The performance is on 18 June!)

More info about the exhibition here.

Go to Pink Dot, Sat 18 June, Hong Lim Park!

'Cos I can't. I'll still be in South Africa. :(



Please SAVE THE DATE:
WHAT: PINK DOT 2011
WHERE: Hong Lim Park
WHEN: Saturday, June 18, 2011
WHAT TO WEAR: Of course, PINK!
TIMINGS: Activities commence 4.30pm, Concert begins at 5pm, Dot is formed at
6pm

*Please note: According to the park's terms and conditions, only Singaporeans and Permanent Residents may participate at the events held at Hong Lim Park. However, foreigners are most welcome to watch and observe.

For media enquiries and interviews, email writetopinkdot@gmail.com.

More info here

May 2011 texts

Late I know!

*POETRY*
+Kazuko Shirashi’s “Seasons of Sacred Lust”

*FICTION*
+Nadine Gordimer’s “Burger’s Daughter”
+Thomas Mofolo’s “Traveller to the East”
+Neshani Andreas’s “The Purple Violet of Oshaantu”
=Bessie Head’s “When Rain Clouds Gather”
+Nozipo Maraire’s “Zenzele: A Letter to My Daughter”

*DRAMA*
+Aileen Ritchie’s “The Juju Girl”

*NON-FICTION*
+Teo Soh Lung’s “Beyond the Blue Gate”
+Sybil Kathigasu’s “No Dram of Mercy”
+James Hall’s “Sangoma: My Odyssey into the African Spirit World”
+Rolf C. Hemke’s “Theater südlich der Sahara: Theatre in Sub-Saharan Africa”
+Mpho 'M'atsepo Nthunya's “Singing Away the Hunger”

*FILMS*
+Kenneth Branagh’s “Thor”
+Stanley Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange”

*PERFORMANCES*
+Cake Theatre’s “Decimal Points: 4.44”
+Arco Renz’s “Crack”
=Boris Charmatz’s “Flip Book”
+Isinha’s “When a Gray Taiwanese Cow Stretched”
=Nature Theatre of Oklahoma’s “Life and Times”
+T.H.E. Company’s “As It Fades”
=Living Dance Studio’s “Memory II: Hunger”
+Teatro de los Sentidos’s “Inhabitants”
+Fantastic Productions’ “The Adventures of the Mad Chinaman”
+Ontroerend Goed’s “Internal”

*EXHIBITIONS*
+Aung Ko's "Village"
+Joo Choon Lin's "Too Big In the Tank"

I'm being featured in "Utter", directed by Natalie Hennedige, Sat 18 June!

I've only got a single poem in the programme: "Ne Zha", from my collection "last boy". But I wuv Natalie, and the YouTube keeps gliding over "GASPP", so I'm pretty damn chuffed.

Sadly I'll still be in South Africa on the date of the performance, so I can't watch. But maybe you can!

Here's the synopsis, from the bookings page on Gatecrash:

utter : to give audible expression to (something), to articulate (words); pronounce or speak. Example: He can hardly utter a sentence without swearing.
utter : carried to the highest degree; absolute, complete, total. Example: Utter madness

What do you get when you add three exciting talents from the theatre, television and film circles to a mixed bag of creative writers from Singapore? Three utterly riveting evenings of highly dramatised readings you don’t want to miss.

Utter is curated and directed by Natalie Hennedige (Nothing, Cuckoo Birds), Lee Thean-jeen (The Pupil, Singapore Short Story Project) and Ken Kwek (Kidnapper, It’s a Great, Great World). These directors will draw fresh content from anthologies Telltale: 11 Stories, & Words and upcoming writers and screenwriters. Watch them breathe new life to these Singapore texts and brew a heady concoction for your enjoyment!

June 17: Curated and directed by Lee Thean-jeen

One moment, savour the quiet of the written word, and the scent of the flipped page and the next, put on new spectacles as characters take on new life - phrases shout out with new emphasis while other words are whispered or uttered into your ear. Observe how your fellow audience member reacts to the mounting tensions, the shattering relations and increasing distances even whilst you settle into your own seat. Thean-jeen turns the reading upon the reader as every gesture adds a different layer of interpretation to the text, and filmed footages add a new dimension to themes and topics explored in Singapore content including Dave Chua’s ‘The Drowning’ and Alfian bin Sa’at’s ‘Autobiography’.

Cast: Lim Kay Tong, Christina Sergeant, George Young

June 18: Curated and directed by Natalie Hennedige

'Thirteen Ways of Looking and Other Observations' utters naked truths and offers poignant and tender observations of life from the perspective of Singaporean writers. It weaves poems written by Yong Shu Hoong, Madeleine Lee, Ng Yi-Sheng, Cyril Wong, Alfian bin Sa’at, Toh Hsien Min, Alvin Pang and Felix Cheong into Alfian bin Sa’at’s short story ‘Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Hanging’. Directed by Natalie Hennedige and performed by Julius Foo, Noorlinah Mohamed and Lim Kay Siu, it is a celebration of the diversity, honesty and power in Singaporean writing.

Cast: Julius Foo, Lim Kay Siu, Noorlinah Mohamed

Sound Designer: Philip Tan

June 19: Curated and directed by Ken Kwek

What happens to a society of pragmatic Singaporeans when it falls under the spell of a magical, soporific haze? Applying the cinematic technique of time fragmentation, filmmaker Ken Kwek deconstructs Jeffrey Lim’s dazzling short story, ‘Haze Day’, and introduces a new chaos to the parallel lives of Evan, Fathul, Nallini and Hwee Leng as they unravel in a blanket of narcotic smoke.

Cast: K Rajagopal, Lim Kay Siu, Sukania Venugopal, Koey Foo

Advisory for 19 June 2011 performance: Mature content and some coarse language. Recommended for ages 16 and above.