Theatre, Talk/Workshop, Festival

Southernmost: 1 Table 2 Chairs Project 2017

Organised by: Emergency Stairs
  • Date:
    12 - 24 Dec 2017
  • Venue:
    The Arts House
    The Arts HouseThe Arts House
  • Admission:
    Festival pass: $78
    Single ticket to One Table Two Chairs Triple Bill Presentation: $48
    Single entry ticket to other programmes: $12

Synopsis:

Presented by up-and-coming experimental theatre company Emergency Stairs, the first edition Southernmost is a theatre festival which brings most outstanding and established traditional and contemporary theatre artists from the region together in this red dot for an intensive two-week intercultural exchange and presentation, with a series of workshops and public presentations, to create the arts festival, or perhaps the art form of the future.

One Table Two Chairs Triple Bill Presentation

$48 for single entry ticket
$78 for festival pass, allows free registration to all other programmes, first come first serve; you will receive a password from us for registration to other events.
Early bird period (10% off) from 30 Sep-30 Oct 2017

1 table; 2 chairs; 3 performances

5 art forms 6 cities, 8 artists, 1000 years of history. A dialogue through time and space.

This Triple Bill Presentation is the culmination of two weeks of intercultural dialogue and experimentation in Southernmost. Each piece will be led by theatre masters Danny Yung (HK) and Makoto Sato(JP), and young experimental director Liu Xiaoyi(SG) respectively, featuring two traditional arts masters each piece as the performers.

The presentation will be followed by a post-show dialogue.

Capacity: 200 per show

Directors: Liu Xiaoyi (SG), Makoto Sato (JP), Danny Yung (HK)
Performers: Didik Nini Thowok (ID) Wang Bin (CN) Sun Jing (CN) (to be updated)
22-23 December 2017
Venue: Chamber@ The Arts House
Duration: 90 minutes excluding post show dialogue

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Other programmes
Free registration for Festival Pass holders only, first come first serve (please provide us with your contact info in the custom form provided. You will be provided with a password)
$12 single entry tickets, only at door (non-pass holders)

Bodies in History: Physical Masterclass, Public Presentation
A public presentation by the participants of Bodies in History: Physical Masterclass led by Didik Nini Thowok(ID) Wang Bin (CN) and Liu Xiaoyi (SG), showcasing to an audience what they have discovered over the intensive 5-day workshop.

Our bodies are not just flesh and blood. They are also institutions with cultures and stories. Our bodies influence how we move, how we think and how we create.

Both Kunqu and Javanese Dance carry with them hundreds of years of history. Their bodies are treasures, shaping the development of various traditional arts in Southeast Asia and Asia.

How are these traditional body vocabularies related to the institutions of the day? How is it related to the theatre of today? How can practitioners learn the treasures of yesterday and turn it into the treasures of today?

Capacity: 80

Artists: All participants for Bodies in History: Physical Masterclass
17 December, 3-4pm
Venue: Blue Room@The Arts House

Javanese Dance and Kun Opera Masters Showcase
Wang Bin from Nanjing is a master of Kunqu, and China's first-class actor.
Didik Hadiprayitno is one of Indonesia's most well-known Javanese dancers, choreographers, and mask performers.

Both Kunqu and Javanese Dance carry with them hundreds of years of history. Their bodies are treasures, shaping the development of various traditional arts in Southeast Asia and Asia.
Join us for a rare public showcase of these 2 masters, presenting their craft in its purest form.

Capacity: 80

Artists: Didik Nini Thowok (ID) Wang Bin (CN)
17 December, 4-5pm
Venue: Blue Room@The Arts House

Open Rehearsals
"One Table Two Chairs Triple Bill Presentation" is not a production but an experiment. An experiment is about something to be proved or disproved within a set framework.

Join us in the rehearsal room to observe our artistic processes and creative frameworks.
Witness firsthand how intercultural dialogue develops into an artistic creation, step by step, piece by piece, by our directors and actors.

Capacity: 80 per session

i) Session 1
Artists: Makoto Sato (JP)
15 December, 7-10pm
Venue: Blue Room@The Arts House

ii) Session 2
Artists: Liu Xiaoyi (SG)
18 December 7-10pm
Venue: Blue Room@The Arts House

iii) Session 3
Artists: Danny Yung (HK)
20 December 1-4pm
Venue: Blue Room@The Arts House

Body Dialogue: Open Workshops
How do theatre doyens Danny Yung and Makoto Sato approach space and the body? How do they approach history and culture?

These workshops by Danny Yung and Makoto Sato will provide an intimate opportunity for audiences and participants to learn about their approaches in theatre, from content to structure, from experimentation to creation.

Capacity: 30 per session

i) Session 1
Conducted by: Makoto Sato (JP)
Date: 16 Dec, 7:30-9pm
Venue: Blue Room @ The Arts House

ii) Session 2
Conducted by: Danny Yung (HK)
Date: 19 Dec, 7:30-9pm
Venue: Blue Room @ The Arts House

Director's Talk
A candid dialogue session between the three participating directors of Southernmost.

Danny Yung is the Artistic Director of Zuni Icosahedron. Makoto Sato is the Artistic Director of Theatre Zakoenji. Liu Xiaoyi is the Artistic Director of Emergency Stairs.

How does an Artist become planner, leader & driver? When does the artist become an Artistic Director ?

How will they compare and critique institution building and creative development between the groups they lead, as well as Hong Kong, Tokyo & Singapore?

Capacity: 200

Speakers: Danny Yung (HK), Makoto Sato (JP), Liu Xiaoyi (SG)
17 December, 7-8pm
Venue: Living Room@The Arts House

Open Forum
This open forum will feature Singapore most prominent artists, arts managers, academics and policy makers in a public forum

The conference will consist of six invited speakers and Danny Yung as the forum commentator.
What is intercultural theatre in Singapore at this juncture? What is the point of an intercultural dialogue? Through this forum, we attempt to understand our own baggage, limitations and strengths, and why these exist. The next step will be to define, and then redefine intercultural theatre in Singapore.

Capacity: 200

Invited Speakers (To be updated)
20 December, 7-10pm
Venue: Chamber@The Arts House

Festival Debrief
Witness an honest and open critique session of Southernmost, by all participating artists.

Criticism might be the most important aspect in the development of arts and culture. Only by critiquing the now, we can experiment the future.

What comes after critique? What is the next step? How do we connect the stage and the audiences, how do we connect creation and criticism? How can we connect the present and the future?

Capacity: 80

All Participating Artists
24 December, 10am-12pm
Venue: Blue Room@The Arts House

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Artist introductions

Danny Yung (Hong Kong)
An experimental art pioneer and one of the most influential artists in Hong Kong, Yung is a founding member and Co-Artistic Director of Zuni Icosahedron. In the past 40 years, Yung involved extensively in multifarious fields of the arts, including theatre, cartoon, film and video, visual and installation art. Yung has been involved in over 100 theatre productions as director, scriptwriter, producer and/or stage designer. His theatre works were staged in cities across the world. In 2008, Yung created the commissioned theatre work by Hong Kong Arts Festival, Tears of the Barren Hill which reflects on the innovation of traditional Chinese theatre and the institution of cultural exchange. It won him the Music Theatre NOW Award given by the International Theatre Institute of UNESCO. At the Shanghai Expo in 2010, he presented in cooperation with the renowned Japanese theatre director Makoto Sato The Tale of the Crested Ibis as a cultural exchange project, which combined for the first time the elements of Noh and Kun theatres, as well as traditional arts and cutting-edge (robot) technology. Yung developed on the concept of the Crested Ibis, or Toki, and has curated the annual Toki Festival since 2012, as an effort to enrich young Kun performers' experience, and to promote exchanges between contemporary and traditional performing arts in Asian regions

Sato Makoto (Tokyo)
Sato was born in Tokyo in 1943. In 1966, he founded the Free Stage Company and opened "Underground Free Stage" a venue in Roppongi, Tokyo. His most important work was centred on the activities of the theatre company known as the "Black Tent." The company's first production in 1970 was The Dance of Angels with Flaming Wings, an adaptation of Peter Weiss' Marat/Sade. In the 1980s, Sato and his colleagues developed a new concept of "Asian Theatre" centred on a critical re-evaluation of Japanese society. He collaborated with several South Asian companies and more recently has collaborated with European theatre companies. Sato has attracted media attention as a director of opera, dance, revue, drama, and the marionette theatre company, Youkiza. From 1997 to 2002, he was the first artistic director of Setagaya Public Theatre. He is at present the director of Kamome-Za and of the Suginami Culture Association.

Liu Xiaoyi (Singapore)
Liu Xiaoyi is multi hyphenated theatre practitioner-a director, actor, playwright and teacher. A creator who continually pushes the boundaries of theatre, he is regarded as one of the most prominent young artists in Singapore. In 2016, Xiaoyi was the recipient of NAC's Young Artist Award. He is currently the Artistic Director of Emergency Stairs. In 2002, Xiaoyi started work in Singapore theatre, and became active in the local scene as a practitioner. Over a decade, Xiaoyi was first recognised as an excellent actor, and was once recognised by Zaobao as "an influential performer, and one of the most promising actors of our generation". With a long performance track record, he is oft regarded as one of the most skilled actors in Singapore Chinese theatre. His passion for language too made him one of the most active playwrights in Singapore Chinese theatre, with a flair for poetry and imagination. In 2014, Xiaoyi conceptualised and directed FLUID, which won Best Playwright at the Straits Times Life! Theatre awards. As a director, he focuses on theatre with a strong experimental edge, with a focus on creative discourse and thought, and his works are often polarizing. In recent years, his directorial works have been nominated multiple times in the Straits Times Life! Theatre awards for Best Director and Best Playwright.

Didik Nini Thowok (Jakarta)
Didik Hadiprayitno, better known as Didik Nini Thowok, is one of Indonesia's most well-known dancers, choreographers, and mask performers. His performance style carries on a tradition of Javanese female impersonation by a male dancer, which originated in Javanese palaces in the eighteenth century with males playing females because of Islamic ideas on the impropriety of women mixing with men in the same performance. Didik's study of cross-gender performance throughout Asia and the world fuels his playful, modern performance, which involves solo mask dances that combine mysterious androgyny and comic sexual impersonation. Didik Hadiprayitno was hosted by the Department of South and Southeast Asian Studies during February and March 2004. During that time, he conducted workshops on a range of topics, including dance traditions of Sunda, Java, and Bali; masking traditions of Java and Bali; and Southeast Asian transgender traditions. He also presented class lectures, worked with students, and participated in public performances. The Department described him as a "truly energizing presence on this campus," and noted that he was able, while here, to discuss aspects of his research that cannot be revealed in Indonesia at this time, particularly the persecution and massacre of transgender shamans and performers in 1965-1967 by the Indonesian military regime.

Wang Bin (Nanjing)
Wang Bin is a director, China's First Class Actor, the incumbent Art Director for Jiangsu Province Performing Arts Group, and the former Vice President of Kun Opera Institute. Wang Bin was under the tutelage of opera masters Zhou Chuanying, Shen Chuanzhi, Zhang Shilan, Gao Jirong, Wang Shiyu and so on. He has coached and directed Kun opera, Peking opera, Huangmei opera, Yang opera, Fujian opera, Shaoxing opera, Xi opera, Wu opera, among other large scale performances. He has won the Mandarin Director Award, and his directed work of Peony Pavilion won the "2005-2006 Jiangsu Province Stage Art Boutique Project Award", among other accomplishments.

Sun Jing (Nanjing)
SUN graduated in 2005 from the Jiangsu Drama School. He specializes in the hualian (painted face) roles. His teachers include Zhao Jian, Zhou Zhiyi, Yang Cai and Huang Xiaowu. He has won prizes at the Kunqu National Youth and the golden award at the Sixth Jiangsu Red Plum Chinese Opera Awards.

Southernmost: 1 Table 2 Chairs Project 2017


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