SPORE Art Salon, Tuesday 28 February

Yup, another SPORE Art Salon is ahead!

SPORE Art Salon
Venue: Blu Jaz Cafe, 9 Bali Lane
Date: Tuesday 31 January 2012
Time: 8-11pm

I'll let Olivia Kwok do the describing:

This month will see us putting poetry and spoken word performances on stage, a visiting visual artist who'll show you a portrait made in film (!), plus, get ready to topple head over heels for an extremely talented young musician who will bring you heart-felt music and song. Not forgetting... sharpen those pencils and fill up your palettes for life drawing with a model so enthusiastic to pose for all!

Also, we have a very special guest feature... our long-time salon regular, collaborator, host, musician,... the absolute sparkle of every night and great friend who needs no introduction... JOHNNY KIM! He will take the stage for the very last time during his stay here in good ol' Singapore so be sure not to miss this one! It's going to be a wonderful evening out, and we cannot wait to getting around to this... see you all then!



WHERE: BluJaz Cafe (12 Bali Lane)
WHEN: Tuesday 28 February 2012, 7:30PM
FB Event Page : https://www.facebook.com/events/333067136736287/

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SPORE Art Salon is a non-profit initiative created for visual artists to meet, mingle, inspire, and share with performing artists. During the event, we alternate between drawing sessions with live models, and performances from musicians, contortionists, poets, dancers, actors and more. We also feature works of, and demonstrations by visual artists, individually or collaboratively.

For those who are new to the art salon, our event is modeled after world famous Giles Larrain's Art Salon in NYC, with a distinctly Singaporean twist and flavour!

There is a minimum donation of $7/person at the door, and proceeds will benefit our featured artists. The bar and kitchen will be open, so come have some drinks and dinner, meet, mingle and inspire with fellow creatives of various disciplines. Guests are encouraged to participate in the life drawing sessions in between performances, so, bring your sketch materials along!

For information on our archived editions, please visit
www.sporeartsalon.blogspot.com

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Pink Walls Oil on Gesso, by Gavin Maughfling

FEATURED VISUAL ARTIST:

GAVIN MAUGHFLING
http://www.gavinmaughfling.co.uk

Gavin will be showing images of some of the paintings he has been making since January in Singapore, and talking about some of the ideas he is exploring while working here. He will also be introducing a short 5-minute film entitled ‘Sam’, which was first shown at the Frisk Salon event ‘Manual’ in London in May 2011.

A British artist based in London, Gavin is currently visiting Singapore on a three-month sabbatical, during which he is working in a studio in Paya Lebar, producing a series of paintings based on abstractions of Singapore HDB estates, as well as a running a drawing course at the Goodman Arts Centre.

Gavin was trained at the Ruskin School of Art at the University of Oxford, and on the Fine Art Masters Programme at the University of East London. He has exhibited widely throughout the UK and internationally, including solo and group shows at The Lounge Gallery (London), CAP Projects (London, jointly curated with Nicky Hodge), Prenelle Gallery (London), Jill George Gallery, London, ICA (London), the Mostyn Gallery (Lllandudno), Kelvingrove Gallery (Glasgow), Galerie Van Den Planken (Antwerp), Elzenveld Foundation (Antwerp, with the British Council), Art Paris (Paris) and the Holland Art Fair (The Hague).

He has held residencies at the British Embassy, Luxembourg and at the University of Hertfordshire. His work is held in numerous collections and is represented in the Government Art Collection in the United Kingdom.

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FEATURED PERFORMING ARTISTS:


DON SHIAU (host)

Nina Chabra

NINA CHABRA (model)
http://vimeo.com/31288624
Do various things for my life.
I try to live restful throughout.
With the occasional conversation with a tree.










RIO CHAVARRO (performer)

Rio Chavarro

Rio Chavarro aka "El RIO de MIAMI" was brought to Singapore on the wings of fate (actually in 3 different air planes) a little over a year ago to play "Charlie Chaplin" (the one greatest loving inspiration of his art) for Universal Studios in Sentosa and has lovingly supported the SPORE Art Salon since its early days at the ECHOLoft.
He is a latino-Miamian bilingually unapologetic poet, actor, comedian, story-teller, writer/director. Rio has been performing his poetry and one person shows in bars, festivals & on the streets for the past 12 years in cities all over the US including Miami, NYC, L.A. In South America, he's toured his shows through Chile, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, & Brazil. In Central America through Mexico, Costa Rica, & Panama. In Europe: Scotland's famed Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Spain, France, & Italy.
Kicked out of both Julliard Conservatory for being outspoken and then the New World School of the Arts for his outstanding directorial abilities, he has continued to act, direct, write poetry, plays, pilots, and is currently working on finishing a novel, a TV series, and his first attempt ever at writing a children's book.
He will be reading selected pieces of his work including a few written here in SG... he will tickle and tantalize the audience with his mixture of thoughtful story-telling, child-like witty comedy, & ADDHD poetry to then polish it all off with a song at the end.

Jay Bernard

JAY BERNARD (poet)
http://brrnrrd.wordpress.com/
Jay Bernard is currently the writer-in-residence at NUS University Scholars Program and The Arts House. She is from London and has performed her work all over the UK, including Shakespeare's Globe, The Royal Opera House and The Southbank Centre. Her first pamphlet, Your Sign Is Cuckoo, Girl was selected as PBS pamphlet choice in 2008, and she is currently working on another. She blogs at brrnrrd.wordpress.com, and you can follow her @Brrnrrd on twitter.

Andrea Vazquez

ANDREA VAZQUEZ (singer/song writer)
http://www.youtube.com/user/vazqu7054
Andrea Vazquez is a sixteen-year-old singer/songwriter.
She is currently in high school and taking music as a subject. She has been interested in music ever since she was a little girl, and has always loved being on stage performing. She began composing her own songs when she was just 12 years and has more than 50 songs to date. She gets her inspiration from her own experiences, and each song talks about a specific event in her life, She looks up to singers like Sara Bareilles and bands like Maroon5. She is self taught in guitarist and piano player and loves to play both instruments. She regularly takes part in school music shows and loves performing in open mikes around Singapore. When she graduates high school she hopes to go to London to study music further in University and pursue it as a professional career in the future.



:)

Update on events next week!

From Print to Screen to Print – Book-to-Movie Adaptation and Back

Sun 19 Feb, 11am-1pm

Rendezvous Hotel (Ballrooms 1, 2, 3)
Presentations by children's writer and screenwriter Adeline Foo, author of the bestselling trilogy of The Diary of Amos Lee, and poet/playwright Ng Yi-Sheng on the movie novelisation of Eating Air. Part of the All In! Young Writers Media Festival.

http://allin2012.eventbrite.com/

http://www.bookcouncil.sg/_allin2012/allin_120208

Debate: This House Would Not Sacrifice Cultural Heritage For Progress

Saturday 18 February, 2-3pm

Singapore Art Museum (SAM), Glass Hall
A satirical, slap-your-knee, high octane debate featuring Dr. Gwee Li Sui (TellTale, Man/Born/Free), Adrian Tan (The Teenage Textbook), Ng Yi-Sheng (GASPP) and many others! Enjoy beverages from SOHO Coffee as well!
https://www.facebook.com/events/345683598784594/

January 2012 texts!

Two in a row on the same day? Why the hell not.

*POETRY*
+"Voices: an Annotated Anthology of Contemporary Bahraini Poetry" ed. Hasan Marhamah

*FICTION*
Maha Gargash’s “The Sand Fish”
Danderma's The Chronicles of Dathra, a Dowdy Girl from Kuwait, Vol I

*DRAMA*

*NON-FICTION*
+Hugh Miles’s “Al-Jazeera: The Inside Story of the Arab News Channel That Is Challenging the West”
+Tony Perrottet’s ”Napoleon’s Privates: 2500 Years of History Unzipped”

*FILMS*
+Maneesh Sharma’s “Ladies vs Ricky Bahl”
+Peter Chan’s “Wu Xia”
=Patrick Shen’s “The Philosopher Kings”
Mark Mylod’s “What’s Your Number?”
Most of +Tsui Hark’s “The Chinese Feast”
Short Circuit selection: +Marcia Ong’s “Kristy”, =Ezzam Rahman’s “Someday My Prince Will Come”, =He Shuming’s “Labour Day”, +Lincoln Chia’s “Sisters”, +Regina Tan’s “Transit”, +Kirsten Tan’s “Thin Air”, =Leon Cheo’s “Swing”, and Loo Zihan’s “CHANCRE”

*PERFORMANCES*
STAGES’ “iChestnuts 15”
Ravindran Drama Group’s “Hanuman Resurrection II”
+LaSalle’s “Exit the King”
*EXHIBITIONS*
+Singapore Art Museum’s “Future Proof”
+Singapore Maritime Museum’s permanent exhibition
=Brian Gothong Tan’s “Milk and Honey”

Books November and December 2011

I know I've been horribly behind on updating this blog. I'm not really sure what to do about it, really... It's the age of Facebook and Twitter, but having a regular site like this helps me document what I've covered in my life.

Anyway, here's what I watched and saw at the end of last year. January will be up, maybe tomorrow.

*POETRY*
+Alvin Pang's "What Gives Us Our Names"

*FICTION*
+Victor Pelevin’s “Omon Ra”

*DRAMA*
=Verena Tay’s “In the Company of Heroes”

*NON-FICTION*
+Christiane Bird’s “The Sultan’s Shadow”
=Melanie Chew’s “The Presidential Notes 1: Yusof bin Ishak”

*RELIGIOUS TEXTS*
+Seema Mohanty's “The Book of Kali”
“The Quran”

*FILMS*
+Olivier Megaton's “Colombiana”
Most of =Tate Taylor's “The Help”
=Milan Luthria's “The Dirty Picture”
+James Bobin's “The Muppets”

*PERFORMANCES*
“Improvanopolis”
LaSalle’s +“Loveplay” and “Hamlet”
+The Necessary Stage's “Gemuk Girls”
TheatreWorks's =“Dust: A Recollection”
+W!ld Rice’s “Aladdin”

*EXHIBITIONS*
=Tania de Rozario’s “A Language of Longing”
=“The Elephant Parade”
+Kiran Nadar Museum of Art's permanent collection
National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi's +"...in the seeds of time" and ="Company Paintings"
+Indian War Memorial Museum's permanent collection
=Red Fort Archaeological Museum
+Central Sikh Museum

SPORE Art Salon on Tuesday 31 January: January with a Bang!

SPORE Art Salon's coming again! (And yes, I'm updating this blog again, after a long hiatus.)

This time round I'm responsible for the curation of poet Lee Jing Yan and performance artists Ezzam Rahman and Daniela Beltrani.

More info at our Facebook event page and our blog.

SPORE Art Salon

Venue: Blu Jaz Cafe, 9 Bali Lane

Date: Tuesday 31 January 2012

Time: 7pm to mingle, 8pm for performances

This Saturday, I'm hosting a talk with Singapore's top theatre reviewers!

It's the 4:30 Open Panel Discussion noted below:

Open Roads: Stage Talk -Theatre Talks Back and Open Panel Discussion
Saturday 28 January 2012, 2-6pm
Theatre Talks Back, 2-4pm
Open Panel Discussion, 4:30-6pm
The Substation Theatre
Admission: Free
This is an InHouse event

Open Roads: Stage Talk was a programme initiated by The Substation in collaboration with The Flying Inkpot Theatre and Dance in 2010 to invite members of the public to come together and converse about local plays. After two successful runs in 2010 and 2011, Open Roads: Stage Talk comes to a close.

*To end the programme on a high note, local theatre reviewers have been gathered for a final pow-wow session– an open panel discussion about the current state of theatre criticism and their personal processes of reviewing performances. Join Life! journalist Corrie Tan, TODAY journalist, Mayo Martin, local online arts journal The Flying Inkpot‘s Matthew Lyon and freelance reviewers, Ng Yi-Sheng and Tara Tan in an open discussion about local theatre. Look forward also to the first of our Theatre Talks Back sessions, where invited theatre practitioners will talk about their recent productions in a Q&A presentation.

The Theatre Talks Back session is hosted by invited theatre practitioners who will talk about their recent productions in a Q&A presentation. Cake Theatrical Productions will be showing a video presentation of Decimal Points: 4.44 and talking about the trials and tribulations of putting together the first co-presentation between The Substation and Cake Theatrical Productions.

Income inequality hurts everyone

You've gotta watched this TED Talk by Richard Wilkinson, author of "The Spirit Level". It's not that he's a great speaker: he's just got an incredibly important point to make about how income inequality within a state causes health and social problems for everyone... and he has the data to prove it.



He doesn't shy away from the fact that Singapore is THE most unequal nation in terms of income in the world:


But unfortunately he doesn't have a lot of data to graph us. We definitely don't do well on the percentage of population incarcerated, though.



I've gotta buy this book.

October 2011 texts!

Did I really read and watch so little in October? Singapore Writers Festival can't be that good for me after all...

*POETRY*
Leonard Ng’s “This Mortal World”

*FICTION*
Heidi Munan’s =“Tales from the Iban” and +“Tales from the Bidayuh”
+“My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me”, ed. Kate Bernheimer
Nuruddin Farah’s “Maps”
+Maaza Mengiste’s “Beneath the Lion’s Gaze”

*MIXED GENRE*
=“CERIPH 2”
+“The Short Stories and Radio Plays of S. Rajaratnam”, ed. Irene Ng

*PERFORMANCES*
=“Laskar Pelangi”
+Hofesh Schechter Dance Company’s “Political Mother”
JECKOSdance’s “We Came From the East”
+Pangdemonium Productions’ “Dealer’s Choice”

*EXHIBITIONS*
=Grapheme's "Zine Mosh"

+Amanda Heng’s “Speak to Me, Walk With Me”

SPORE ART SALON 10 - The Halloween Edition!

Just a reminder to everyone that this month's SPORE Art Salon is coming - on Halloween itself! Guests include filmmaker Shaun Koh, artist Ila and sound artist Bani Haykal, and storyteller Kamini Ramachandran. Do also note that the price is now $20, and that it's now a free drink instead of free food.


In the spirit of 31st October falling on the very last monday of the month, we present to you, our first ever, themed salon - the SCARY EDITION! Don on your craziest costume creation, and come on out to The Loft to be spooked by a very special SCARY LINE UP of performing and visual artists who will be sharing the stage!!! It will be a night of halloween-inspired art making, nothing like another, so make sure you don't miss this spine chilling, mind blowing experience!

LOCATION: The Loft - 289A South Bridge Road (Corner of Smith Street & South Bridge Road)
Doors open at 7:30PM
$20/ticket donation/person
FB Event Page : https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=166529500101752

More info here.

SWF STUFF!

1. I've been published in the wonderful Singaporean literary journal CERIPH, edited by Lee Wei Fen and Amanda Lee.


This is its 4th edition, branded as the white issue, launched last Saturday at the Singapore Writers Festival. I've got a poem to open each of the five themed sub-chapbooks in the journal (they like to monkey a lot with design): a poem on ivory, a poem on wheat, a poem on amber shift, a poem on cosmic latte, a poem on sleet.

Copies are $20 from BooksActually and the Select Books store at the Festival Pavilion, over at the SMU Green. You should totally pick one up.


2. I'm also being published in the mono-titular anthology Coast, edited by Lee Wei Fen and Daren Shiau.


Mono-titular means that every single story and poem in the book has the title "Coast". Contributors include every significant Singapore writer from Edwin Thumboo to Alfian Sa'at to Pooja Nansi to Theophilus Kwek. (My contribution is fiction, for once!!!)

Don't know how much it costs yet, but it'll be launched at the following free Singapore Writers Festival event:

date : 26 October 2011, Wednesday (Deepavali)
time : 2 pm ~ 3 pm
venue : Singapore Management University (Festival Pavilion, Campus Green)

Be there or be square.


3. I'm also hosting an event at SWF: the screening and discussion of the short film Civic Life: Tiong Bahru. I'll be interviewing co-director Joe Lawlor, bookstore owner Kenny Leck and someone else.

Tiong Bahru Trailer from Desperate Optimists on Vimeo.

The timing of the event is:

date : 30 October 2011, Sunday
time : 2 pm ~ 3 pm
venue : National Museum Gallery Theatre

Right now, the free advance tickets have been snapped up, but further tickets will be available at 1pm on the day itself from the Museum Box Office. More info here.

Reading tonight!

Just thought I'd say: my NTU students have forced me to do a poetry reading.

Epiphany Literary Society's first Open Nic Night
Fri 14 Oct, 7pm
HSS Building B2
NTU

Hope there'll be some kind of audience!

Call for Entries to EASTERN HEATHENS: an Anthology of Fiction Based on Asian Folklore

Dear Writers,

We love Asian folklore. We grew up listening to Chinese legends, Arab fairy tales, Malay ghost stories and Indian sacred epics, and their fabulous images have continued to inhabit our imaginations ever since.


But as adults, we’re sometimes bugged by the moralistic, simplistic way these fables are told. We’re aching to hear these tropes subverted, perverted or simply adapted to reflect our times.

So, we’ve decided to reinvent our heritage. We’re putting together ‘Eastern Heathens’: an anthology of short stories based on folklore from our continent. We're looking for intelligent, imaginative myths, retold for adult connoisseurs.

We’d like you to base your story on a pre-existing Asian folktale. To help you out, we’ve included a list of our favourite traditional stories and sagas at http://easternheathens.tumblr.com. (Do feel free to interpret a story that’s from a culture other than your ‘own’.)

Our deadline is 31 January 2012. Entries should be in prose; poetry will not be accepted. Please include your name and your contact information in your submission. Also include the title of the original folktale that’s inspired your story, as well as a brief summary of that folktale for our reference.

Please e-mail easternheathens@gmail.com for enquiries and submissions.

Yours sincerely,


Amanda Lee and Ng Yi-Sheng
Editors

P.S. Both of us editors are based in Singapore, but we welcome international submissions.

Texts September 2011

Did I really not watch any films last month?

*UPDATE: Oh yes I did!



*POETRY*
+Okot p’Bitek ”Song of Lawino & Song of Ocol”
=Marc Daniel Nair’s “Chai”

*FICTION*
+“Teleny, or the Reverse of the Medal” by Anonymous
+Ngugi wa’Thiongo’s “Devil on the Cross”

*DRAMA*
+Yasmina Reza’s “The God of Carnage”

*NON-FICTION*
+Paul Rusesabagina’s “An Ordinary Man”
=Khoo Salma Nasution’s “Sun Yat Sen in Penang”
=Stella Dong’s “Sun Yat-Sen: The Man Who Changed China”

*GRAPHIC TEXTS*
+Troy Chin’s “The Resident Tourist (Part 5)”
+Alan Moore’s “Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?”

*PERFORMANCES*
+The Finger Players’ “To Whom It May Concern”
+TheatreWorks’s “Serunding”, “The First Emperor’s Last Days” (staged reading) and “Fear of Writing”
=Lau Ming Hang’s “Am I Crying”
STAGES’s “On This Emerald Hill”
Teater Ekamatra’s “The Gunpowder Trail”
LaSalle’s +“Kaspar” and =“Working”

*FILMS*
+James Lee's "Tolong! Awek Aku Pontianak"

*EXHIBITIONS*
+Bruce Quek’s “The Hall of Mirrors”
=Kian-Peng Ong’s “Within 140 Characters”
=Substation’s “Rahim: womb [wu:m]”

The City Limits Collective presents: "RHYME AND PUNISHMENT"!

I've helped to put together this little event for the Singapore Writers Festival Fringe. It'll be on 21 October, 8:30pm, at the SMU Steps. Basically, we were programmed in the middle of a bunch of acts extolling the virtues of poetry, so we've decided to create an event where we ritually execute bad poems instead.

Help us make the event a success by uploading some bad poems on the Facebook page!

https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=232728086778744&ref=ts


WE WANT BAD POEMS! PLEASE POST THE WORST OFFENDERS BELOW!

A time of reckoning is upon us. Bad poetry must die!
For too long, we have tolerated its presence in our libraries, bookstores, schools and festival programs. We have been tortured by its slipshod rhythms; we have been oppressed by its tyranny in literature syllabuses. We have been scandalized by the repugnant politics of some of its texts – why, some of the damned things just won’t stay banned!

But just as a good poem should be praised, a bad poem deserves to be punished. (Never mind subjectivity – we’re readers, dammit, we know what we like!)

We have therefore resolved to hold a series of bloody executions, so that these miserable verses may die for their sins. And we look to you, the audience, to nominate those worthy of death.

So from now until 14th October, we ask you to post bad poems on this wall, along with your accusations thereof (e.g. banal rhyming, flaccid imagery, inciting civil unrest). You may also submit poems that you feel have been wrongfully charged as 'bad' and deserve a fairer trial in public.

At our event on 21st October, your poems shall either be acquitted or found guilty as charged. You will have the power to choose their fate: whether they enjoy a swift and painless death or suffer the agony of disemvowelment, or worse.

Let the killing begin!

Two literary events ahead!

First of all, there's the upcoming SPORE Art Salon:


The featured artists that I rustled up include singer/songwriter Bani Haykal, poet Yong Shu Hoong and visual artist Lip.

DATE: Monday 26 September 2011
TIME: 7PM - 11PM
LOCATION: The Loft @ 268A South Bridge Road #02-01 (Corner of Smith Street & South Bridge Road)
There is a ticket donation of $15/person to cover event costs, and proceeds go to efforts of featured artists.

Webpage: http://www.sporeartsalon.blogspot.com/
FB Event Page: https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=231373196910164&ref=ts

Second, there's the next Word Forward slam at Blu Jaz! I'm hosting!

DATE: Thursday 29 September 2011
TIME: 8PM - 10+PM
LOCATION: Blu Jaz Cafe, 12 Bali Lane, Singapore 189848

Still waiting for the event page to go up online...

Texts July 2011

Sorry this is late!

*FICTION*
=Abdulrazak Gurnah’s “Paradise”
+Shamini Flint’s “Inspector Singh Investigates: A Deadly Cambodian Crime Spree”

*DRAMA*
Zakaria Ariffin’s “Opera Stage”

*NON-FICTION*
+Tracy Kidder’s “Strength in What Remains”

FOLKLORE
+Rosemarie and Ranjan Somaiah’s “Indian Children’s Favorite Stories”
+Kim So-Un and Jeong Kyoung-Sim’s “Korean Children’s Favorite Stories”
+Pugalenthi’s “Myths and Legends: Philippines”

*GRAPHIC TEXTS*
Frank Weyers’ “Salvador Dali: Life and Work”

*FILMS*
+Sidney Drew’s “A Florida Enchantment”
=Magnus Hirscheld’s “Laws of Love”
+Joe Johnston’s “Captain America: The First Avenger”

*PERFORMANCES*
+W!ld Rice’s “The Weight of Silk on Skin”, “Cooling Off Day” and “Family Outing”
+Teater Ekamatra’s “Charged” and “Nadirah”
DramaBox's "Is This Home?"
Theatrestrays’ “Paper Boat”
+Good Red Road Productions’ “Improvanopolis”

*EXHIBITIONS*
+stuff at Sarawak Art Museum and Sarawak Museum
=IndigNation’s “Pride and Prejudice”
+Asian Civilisations Museum’s “Terracotta Warriors: The First Emperor and His Legacy”
+ArtScience Museum’s “Dalí: Mind of a Genius” and “Van Gogh Alive”

SPORE Art Salon 9 tomorrow!

Monday 29 August, 7-11pm

ECHO LOFT, Chinatown, Singapore, Singapore 162005
http://sporeartsalon.blogspot.com/2011/08/spore-art-salon-9th-edition.html

In the month of AUGUST, we are proud to present you a mish mash of artistic wonders! Doors open 7pm at ECHOLoft, a local short film screening will commence at 7:30PM... life drawing sessions, a stage play, poetry reading, an acoustic trio n then some!

SPORE Art Salon is a non-profit opportunity created for visual artists to meet, mingle, inspire, and share with performing artists. During the event, we alternate between drawing sessions with live models, and performances from musicians, contortionists, poets, dancers, actors and more. We also feature works of, and demonstrations by visual artists, individually or collaboratively.

For those who are new to the art salon, our event is modeled after world famous Giles Larrain's Art Salon in NYC, with a distinctly Singaporean twist and flavour!

There is a minimum donation of $15/person at the door, and proceeds will benefit ECHOLoft and our featured artists. There will be alcoholic drinks for sale, and a small spread of 'tapas'! Come meet, mingle and inspire with fellow creatives of various disciplines. Guests are encouraged to participate in the life drawing sessions in between performances, so, bring your charcoal, pastels, paints, drawing pad, ipad...... you are also welcomed to take the stage at the end of the evening during our 'open mic'!


FEATURED VISUAL ARTIST:

JOW ZHI WEI (film maker)
http://jowzhiwei.wordpress.com/

Born in Singapore, Jow Zhi Wei graduated with first-class honours from The Puttnam School of Film, Lasalle in 2010. He believes in making films that deeply examine the human condition through compassionate, intimate observation of behaviour, discovering the cycles of life and death, the fragility of relationships and the emotional isolation that characters feel in urban spaces.

During his two year study at the school, he wrote and directed two short films. His first, Outing, was selected for competition at the 58th San Sebastian International Film Festival in Spain. His graduation work, Waiting, had its international premiere at the 15th Busan International Film Festival in South Korea. It also received the award for ‘Best Script’ at the 2nd Singapore Short Film Awards 2011, and a ‘Jury Special Mention’ for both ‘Best Director’ and ‘Best Performance’.

Both his films have screened at the National Museum of Singapore’s Cinematheque programme, the Singapore Short Cuts, a showcase of outstanding short films from Singaporean filmmakers.
Collectively, they have screened in over 20 countries.

He is an alumnus of the Golden Horse Film Academy in Taiwan, organized by illustrious Taiwanese filmmaker, Hou Hsiao-hsien and is due to pursue his studies at Le Fresnoy - National Studio of Contemporary Arts in France.

'WAITING' will be screened at 7:30PM.


FEATURED PERFORMING ARTISTS:

BECCA D'BUS (host)
Eugene Tan is an artist who works in performance, garments and drag. Till recently, Eugene was based in Boston, MA, where he worked he directed A Street Theater Named Desire, a guerrilla AIDS activist performance troupe that did work in gay cruising areas in the middle of the night, he also created Come As You Are: Celebrate Queer Sex!, a performance series that looked at queer sexual values 40 years after Stonewall, versions of Come As You Are were seen in 13 cities across the US, from major gay capitals like San Francisco to cities such as Cedar Rapids, Iowa. As an artist in research at the Berwick Research Institute in 2005, Eugene started an exploration of garments as performing objects, this, he has continued this work with costume design for plays, and also in the creation of Becca D’Bus, his drag persona. Eugene is currently a theater reviewer for The Flying Inkpot.

ALL I WANT - a stage play by Ren Robles
“What are you looking for in a partner?” Watch Vince and Amy try to answer this age-old question that has plagued single people all over the world in the charming romantic comedy ALL I WANT. A lighthearted romp through the perils of singledom and the quest to find The One, this one-act play is written and directed by playwright Ren Robles. ALL I WANT stars Jason Miller as Vince and Crista Leopardi as Amy, two old friends who stumble, bumble, and fumble their way to finding out just what they’re looking for.

REN ROBLES (Playwright and Director) finished with a degree in Psychology but pursues his passions in theatre as a veteran of Repertory Philippines Children’s Theatre as well as the Asian premiere of the stage version of HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL directed by Chari Arespacochaga for Ateneo Blue Repertory in Manila.

JASON MILLER (Vince; Ba. Musical Theatre at CQUniversity) has played Lennox and understudy for Banquo and Malcolm in MACBETH: THE CONTEMPORARY ROCK OPERA (2009), directed by Beth Child at Cremorne Theatre, QPAC.

CRISTA LEOPARDI (Amy; BS in Dance Management) is mostly a dancer but proudly credits roles in CHILDREN OF EDEN (Ensemble), BEND (an Original staging), and ANNIE GET YOUR GUN (Winnie).

ACE BIGCAS is Stage Manager for this production.

The Russian Dolls (acoustic trio)
Fuelled with the passion for music, Sarah E., Fauzo, and Ed came together in the spirit of this one mutual love, to try a hand at a new collaboration. The results weren't surprising... not yet anyway! But are increasingly entertaining, sparked off by the great chemistry within this unexpected trio! Let The Russian Dolls bring you a night of entertainment and laughter!

Stephanie Dogfoot (performance poet)
http://stephdogfoot.wordpress.com/
Stephanie is a performance poet who toys with ideas about identity, foreignness, (not) growing up and river snails. She won the Annual Singapore Poetry Slam in 2010, and represented Singapore in the Indian Ocean Poetry Slam on Reunion Island that same year where she competed against poets from countries like Botswana, India and Madagascar and bridged geographical, cultural and language barriers with a universal ode to hawker food. She was also runner-up in the Vancouver Queer Slam 2008.

Stephanie is in back in Singapore for the moment but is more often found in London where she performs poetry and hosts spoken word events in various spaces around the city (especially squatted buildings) and sometimes finds the time to study law. She recently came to the conclusion that lawyers and poets are more similar than they would like to think because both are in the business of arranging words to change people’s feelings. Stephanie is inspired by things in the world (but especially Singapore) that make her enraged, being righteously enraged, then laughing at them. Her work has been described as ‘spiritual lyrics for the human journey’ (some guy named Sky) and "um...a bit chim. A bit embarrassing for our family. But nice." (her sister).

I've decided I'm voting for Tan Jee Say.

Was vacillating until I read this Yawning Bread article.

For those of you who can't decide, this one-stop chart is useful too.

CONTRADICTION 7, Sat 13 Aug, 7:30pm!

Hi guys,

Some of you might know about IndigNation, Singapore's annual queer pride festival. It's on now, and the calendar's up here:

http://indignationsg.wordpress.com/

I'd just like to plug my own little event, which is part of the festival: CONTRADICTION 7!!!


https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=197068853683688

Our annual queer literary reading is back! Prepare for a sumptuous salon with Singapore’s most talented new GLBT writers, curated by Ng Yi-Sheng, Jasmine Seah and Amanda Lee.



Featured artists include singer/songwriters Iris Judotter and Roy Lim, poets Teng Qian Xi and Mika Yamaji, playwrights Joel Tan and Drayton Hiers, author/artist Tania de Rozario, slammers Stephanie Chan, Atiqah Lukman and Deborah Emmanuel, Golden Point Award winner Jeremy Tiang, and heterosexual guest star, accordionist Faizal Bochtiar. Hosted by drag queen Becca D'Bus.

Date: Sat 13 August (this weekend!)
Time: 7:30 onwards
Venue: 72-13, Mohamed Sultan Road (TheatreWorks office)

Free entry! Refreshments provided!

Rated R-18 by MDA - we just got the licence. :D

IndigNation's opening!

The full calendar's here!



Our organiser, Jun Zubillaga-Pow, has asked me to advertise the Gala Concert he's organised as part of the opening at 7pm on Sunday 7 August:

Pride and Prejudice

http://www.bytes.sg/EventDetails.aspx?EventID=243

How often do you hear a trumpet, a tenor and a recorder in a single recital? Come and experience the triple-bill of Romantic pieces presented by Edric Liew, Adrian Poon and Jun Zubillaga-Pow. The young musicians will revive luscious music from the 19th- and 20th-centuries by famous and less-known composers. As the opening line of Jane Austen is beloved novel goes, “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” Be smitten by these suave bachelors of the musical world as they weave spellbound tales of affectionate love. The reverberant setting of the Chamber makes it such an auricular rarity that nobody should give this a miss!

Venue: Arts House Living Room
Price: $28
Time: 7pm
Duration: 1 hr
Date: Sun 7 August 2011