The Publics and the Arts | ADN Satellite Symposium 2017

LHN: So, from a broad perspective that we had just now from David, we are going to get more focus, where we have three very distinguished speakers who are going to talk a bit of their works, and maybe, further develop ideas across the ideas that come out. We are going to start with the public and the arts, and the public here, I just want to point out here, that there were a lot of discussions when I invited the speakers to talk about the public and public spaces. The public here—for my own definition—really ranges from the different publics, the different communities, communities of interests and special interests, to public spaces that are architecturally, geographically, psychologically and of course intellectually and emotionally (different). So, let me just do a brief introduction of the speakers that we have today. From my life, there is Shawn Chua, from Singapore. Shawn is a researcher and artist based in Singapore, where he is engaged in the archives of The Necessary Stage. His research and teachings have focused on the ethics of discomfort, embodied archives, and uncanny personhood. He is also currently teaching at the Laselle College of the Arts, and at Singapore Management University. He also serves on the Performance Studies’ International Future Advisory Board. 

And then we have Kok Heng Leun, who is the Nominated Member of Parliament, as well as the Artistic Director of Singapore’s forum theatre company, Drama Box. Alongside with directing sixty plays, Heng Leun is also a strong believer in engaging the community with his works in promoting a critical dialogue about the world that we live in. Short as it may be here, I believe that there will be a lot more that he will share with us later on.

Last but not least, from Australia, we have Rachel Swain, director and dramaturg of Intercultural Dance Theatre and Performance Researcher with Marrugeku. She is the founding member and co-artistic director with Yawuru dancer and choreographer, Dalisa Pigram. She specialises in creating platforms for indigenous and intercultural choreographies and dramaturgies in dance and in facilitating intercultural and trans-indigenous practice-led projects to redefine contemporary arts practices. 

So what happens today, or for this round table, is that I will invite each of these speakers to talk about their works, or some of the ideas that they may want to discuss for about five to eight minutes, if they like. Then, we will open it up to a discussion, and we will follow it up by further opening it up to the floor. Shawn. 

(0:00 – :3:21)

SC: Before I begin, I just want to put it out there that I usually speak quite quickly, and I just had two cups of coffee. If I get a bit frenetic, just calm me down.

So I guess what I will be doing is… I have put together a provisional framework of sort. I am not so much talking about specific works, and these are my recent thinking about tours as performances, and performances as tours, and the recent burgeoning of these works. I am calling this framework, “rough guides,” and I am thinking of roughness and the notion of roughness through the works that we may speak about. So I am calling it “rough guide”s on one level because these are really preliminary ideas that I am working through. Secondly, the notion of roughness is really something that is discomforting, incommensurable, in that it is on the contrary to smoothness, the smoothness of simulation, or the smoothness of certain kind of experiences.

So, of course, the notion of tours, I am thinking of tours in a kind of etymological sense, of the turn. This comes from the old French term, “turn” and I guess most of us are familiar with the discourses about in-happenings, in-flexes, and in-situations about the notion of bringing theatre into the streets. For me, I am not so much interested in the notions of crossing thresholds, to make things more real, but I am more interested in the turn. The kind of frictions that are necessary that makes moments of the tour become uncanny. I am more interested in the turns that happen as a kind of result of these forms of frictions.

The first work that I am going to speak about, and of course, these works that I am going to speak about are all made this year, or last year. But, of course, there are precedence to this kind of walking performances, or, mobile performances. The first work that I am going to talk about is State of Motion: Through Stranger Eyes. State of Motion was a kind of performance… It’s not a kind of performance, a tour, and an installation-tour that was set up, designed, and developed by the Asian Film Archives. The part that I am going to talk about is this tour that happens in five film sites in Singapore, (and) across the different films that have used Singapore as a kind of landscape, upon which different kind of narratives are projected upon. So the notion of Stranger Eyes is trying to catalyse on the kind of uncanny lenses, through which we think about spaces in Singapore. 

This is actually a shot from The Wild Eye, which is one of the films that is being referenced to. 

We call it an exhibition tour, and basically at each of these film sites, there is a kind of… They would invite the artists to respond to the site and to the film, and design a kind of provocation. I am just going to leave this (slide) up here for a bit so that you can see how they are pitching or framing the experience. We have strange encounters and we have films served as rackets of collisions between people and spaces. The notion of friction has begun to come out. It’s not so much about trying to simulate these different kinds of narratives or imaginaries, but to produce these notions of what I would call, roughness. 

What was very interesting for me about this experience was at the start—before you go on this tour—you begin at the pavilion of the National Library Board (in Singapore). They would screen excerpts of each of these five films before you actually go on the tour. For me, this is an important entry point or initiation point for the audience-participants. 

I am just going to show you a very quick clip. This excerpt is from Paolo Cavara’s The Wild Eye which was made in 1967, and it came from the genre of mondo-films. These are pseudo-documentaries that tend to be quite exploitative and sensationalist. What Paolo Cavara is doing here is that he is responding to that genre of films by incorporating these kinds of aesthetics. Let me show you bits of the excerpts that were shown.

I would have shown you the entire film, but we have no time for that. But, it was brilliant! So what happens here that is very interesting is that because the audience-participants start the tour by watching these films, it initiates (them) to a particular position to occupy. You begin to relate to the environment, almost as if you are an extra in the filmset as well. Rather, the environment, I quote and unquote, or the actual environment, begins to be imbued with this kind of cinematic layer, as we go to these places afterwards. This begins the first kind of friction that happens: the friction between the actual and the real, the actual and the virtual. By virtual, I don’t just mean the cybernetic forms of reality, but also the contrasting imaginaries that surround the space. It is a brilliant and reflexive moment that happens in this film that comments on our experience later on in the tour.

I want to very quickly, talk about the works, the artworks that were created in respond to the film. One of which is Godwin Koay’s Cover and Concealment. This is one of the locations at Golden Mile Food Centre, which is along Beach Road and it is also the Army Market. This was in response to the film, Shohei Imamura’s In Search of the Unreturned Soldiers in Malaysia in 1971. What he did was… When we arrived, this was our first destination. We got to arrive at this place. We have left off the bus, and we were told, okay, the artwork was concealed somewhere in this place, and we would have to find it. The thing was, we didn’t know what we were looking for. That became a fascinating moment where the collision really occurred. You were kind of, engaging with the space, in a way where you were wondering, “Is this part of the artwork? What are these extras performing there?” (This happened) especially so when you start going up to the third floor with the vendors selling all the wares. Of course, the work itself was this series of banners that were hung. You can see the banner that was hung. You can see that they were hiding in plain sight. The banners themselves had contradictory messages and rhetoric, like “take cover behind the screen” and other military metaphors and languages. 

So the notion of “extras” is something that is quite interesting to me because usually, when we think of this kind of participatory works, we tend to associate emancipatory politics around it. We confuse mobility… We think of passive and seated audience as automatically, passive, somehow. If you are made to run around, you are somehow more participatory and liberated. Anyone who has participated in those kinds of works would know that just because you are running around in the space, it doesn’t mean that you are more engaged, or that structural agency is in the works. So, (Nicolas) Bourriaud here, is responding to (Guy) Debord’ society of spectacle. We are now in this society of extras, where everyone finds the illusion of interactive democracy, and more or less, truncated the channels of communication. There is a lot more to unpack here, but I don’t want to waste my time. We will talk about this in the discussion later. 

(3:26 – 16:30)

LHN: Calm down. (16:31 – 16:32)

SC: Another work that—I will come back to the State of Motion—in this year Singapore International Festival of the Arts, there were a lot more of such interesting participatory and interactive works. Works that shift the dynamics of what it means to consume, or, what it means to be an audience, or what it means to be a spectator. As part of its O.P.E.N. series, one of their works was a commission of filmmaker K Rajagopal, who was adapting Bali Kaur’s Inheritance into this film, called Lizard on the Wall. In this work, audience-participants experience the work as an extra. You go on set, and he is making that film. You are participating as one… You become part of the screen, and you become part of this filmic world. 

It starts at TheatreWorks and you are transported to this secret location. Depending on which day you go for, and what scene is being filmed that day, your experiences would defer. What’s interesting about the guiding process is that it is partly ethnographic as well because, on my day at least, it was led by one of the actors, and she would kind of initiate us and talked about “oh, how many of you are familiar with the Punjabi wedding” and she would talk about… It was kind of a crash course on the kind of cultural world that we are going to inhabit. Then, we would put on the “costumes”—that was a moment that was slightly problematic for me as well, about this ethnic costuming that happened. But that’s for the discussion that will be opened. But the moment that was the most interesting for me, and slightly problematic for me, was the kind of fetishsisation of authenticity that is happening in these kinds of works. The reason being when we are talking about this type of tours, the privileging of the authentic, or, the real, the experiencing of a place that we wouldn’t have access to, and you are going to have insights to the process of the still maker. It’s this wonderful moment where Rajagopal would turn to us and say, “You guys have been waiting for a long time, right? But, you are the real star! These actor are the extras of the film.” That language of talking about how this is the authentic experience is something that I am trying to work through as well.

I am just going to skip through these narrative stops of my detours.

Coming back to State of Motion, one of the works was by Choon Lin, and she was responding to The Wild Eye, which was the work that you saw. I want to go back to it because she initially proposed that it would happen at Hong Lim Park, and so they have received the licenses from NParks— 

(16:31 – 20:01) 

LHN Sorry Shawn, but I am going to quickly stop you there, and ask you to give us a little context—especially for our Australian audience—on the significance of Hong Lim Park and Speaker’s Corner. 

(20:02 – 20:09)

SC Okay. The Hong Lim Park is one of the few spaces in Singapore where you are allowed, okay, wait, it is the only one (place) in Singapore where you are allowed to voice your discontent; although it has to be first approved, right, and you get the appropriate licensing. 

(20:10 – 20:30)

LHN Sanction democracy. (20:30 – 20:31) 

SC That is another discussion there. What was very interesting about this work was very shortly before the actors were actual exhibitions that happened, the license was revoked because the film that it was responding to dealt with issues of the Vietnam War. So it was not the work itself but (pointing to the screen) the sculpture that you see, you know, it would degrade with time, as it dealt with the weather elements and etcetera. This work was placed in the National Library, the National Library Board at Bugis, where we started, than the Speaker’s Corner. And so we were left off to stop, and we saw the absence of the work. That for me was another moment where I thought about friction and thinking about the tour. What was the friction that was happening between the kinds of bureaucratic, or, what’s the broader conversation that is surrounding this discussion about public spaces. What are the parameters of this space? How do we experience this space, and who gets to decide the rule and establish these rules and the parameters of the public. Thinking about that, and in conversation with—on the other hand, the private experience about the tour. The private experience of the tour meaning the experience that is circumscribed by the performance and the narrative of the performance, and the ruptures that happens in between. How do you deal with rove audience? What happens when the audiences are drifting about? For example, in this work, what if the audiences don’t look out for the banners, and instead think, “I’m just going to have a drink instead.” Or, like people who refused to engage.

So this notion about space also reminded me of another work: Kinda Hot by Spell#7. It was in 2004 where they first moved in to Kerbau Road, which is along Little India, and they wanted to propose a work, a tour, that guide people through the spaces in Little India. It was designed for 6 people, and of course, this was ultimately revoked because of licensing. It is because there is a rule in Singapore, and I think it is about the idea of thinking about public spaces in Singapore, because you can’t avoid the kind of regulations that govern publicness and public performances, which I won’t share, and Heng Leun will share more about. Anyway, with this particular work, there is a rule that says that any kind of performances cannot have audience interaction that exceeds 15 minutes. So in the end, they didn’t do this, but they decided to create another work called “Desired Path” that involved an audio tour instead, and an interesting product to that story was that they eventually received a grant from Singapore Tourism Board to further develop the work. 

Okay, I am running out of time so I won’t speak too much about this, but the other two works that I was drilling up was the comparison of this work by Open House by Holland Village, where again, it takes it in the form of a guided tour— 

(20:33 – 24:07)

LHN Sorry, you have to explain a bit about O.P.E.N. House. (24:08 – 24:10)

SC Okay. So Open House (O.H.) is a kind of… It’s known for creating these… again, artistic intervention insights on domestic spaces. With this iteration called Holland Village, there would be three different tours that would be happening. There was the Hakka Cemetery… What was interesting for me was about the dynamic of these works was that… There was a kind of modular structure that was happening. They wanted to privilege the intimacy that was happening, so each group has about 5-6 people involved. What was most fascinating for me about those tours was that O.H. has a tradition of making this kind of works, and a lot of people who come back and participate in these tours were also people who had initially volunteered their houses for the site-specific interventions. So, I realised that there was a kind of community that was being generated. So, most of the audiences who were joining these tours weren’t coming in cold—it wasn’t their first time engaging in these works. They were already “experts” to varying degrees. What was quite refreshing about these tours was that I noticed—at least in my group—people were volunteering and intervening into the narrative or the guide, and offering their own expertise and experiences of Holland Village. That kind of friction, alongside with the usual linearity of scripted tour made it a robust and fascinating (tour).

I wanted to contrast this with the Singapore Heritage Festival, which it is also beginning to learn, or, ripped off this kind of performance/tour/experience—the “capture-lising” of this kind of experience economy; what happens with the qualification of authenticity and etcetera. So, Caldecott Hill, very briefly, is this place where Singapore media and broadcasting place is. It is also very heavily guarded, and we usually do not have immediate access to this place. So, with the Singapore Heritage Festival, this Caldecott Hill is now I believe largely defunct, as they have now moved to a new campus. One of the specific works that was happening was again a tour, but, this time, it was led by a senior broadcaster who was working in Mediacorp. So, he was kind of offering his own insights and guiding (us) around this place. So, here, the fictive dimension is not something that is explicitly addressed. But I think where I want to lead us to with all of these are the roughness. The kind of proposition that I want to make is to think about friction, is the moment of reflextivity that happens. How do we think about friction as being disruptive. This is actually a quote from James Frieze, in his book, Reframing Immersive Theatre, he says, “The friction between design and experience affords the combination of distance and escape that facilitates genuine participation, glitches, awkwardness, and processual incompatibilities are, in short, a defining part of immersive participation, rather than that which must be eliminated for immersion to occur. So, for me, although I see the rise of these tours, I kind of wish for more—or desire for more—roughness in the sense that I desire more…  A certain kind of reflexivity of these works thinking of themselves as tours, or, as walks, rather than as a kind of mobile theatre that is moving around. How does the tour deterritorialise both the site as well as the performance itself? Rather than thinking about the performance simply as an in-text thing that moves around to various places. 

To end off, I will just outline a few of the propositions that I have been making about friction. So, on one hand, friction is about the actual and the virtual; the simultaneous engagement of the everyday space and the subversion of those spaces to the voices. It’s not as though when we go to these spaces, we are automatically in one role or the other, but it is a kind of simultaneous inhabiting of both worlds.

Secondly, I want to think about the notion of porosity in these tours. How do we consider and how do we reconsider the positions of these extras; the society of these extras. How do we reflexively create performances of these tours that afford these kinds of openness to be directly engaged. How do we think of discomfort. Again, anyone who have gone through participatory works will understand that discomfort is a huge part of these works. Right, or awkwardness. Even if it is the awkwardness of just “I refuse to go out to these open spaces”, “I don’t want to participate in these things” or that you are thrust into this environment and you seem to be on this secret game to hunt for clues and everyone else in the public are watching you. “What are these strange aliens seemingly to be doing? Invading these spaces?”

(Thirdly) the thinking about the friction between the public and the private. How do we consider who is setting those parameters, or about the privatisation of our experiences of the public spaces. The fragmentation of the guiding voice—that kind of was a point that was brought up in the tour for Holland Village. And the point about thinking about voids. The voids in these tours. Beyond thinking simply about the narrative stops in the tour, and thinking about sites as these empty spaces to be filled in, whether if it is about loss, or, this rhetoric that comes up a lot when we talk about heritage, what is the memory or things that will be lost in this absence. So, how do we reconceive these spaces? Not as sites of voids, but in a sculptural way, kind of like a subtractive sculpture. This is a found world: how do we dramaturgically sculpt this into a performance? I will end here, bye.

(20:33 – 30:38)

LHN Breathe, breathe. We will move on to Rachel, right? (30:39 – 30:54)

SC I guess during the tech changes I will just make one more point. I think what I am also proposing is… why we think of this notion of gaps and voids is because we are always thinking about the form of the script, right? How do we think about tours with choreographic forms? Thinking about the movement of bodies. Instead of thinking about these narrative stories as having a beginning and an end, how do we think of it as a kind of landscape, where everything is presented already, and therefore audiences have very diverse ways of engaging with these experiences. And drifting through these experiences. 

(31:00 – 31:39)

LHN Well, we are still working on the technical, but don’t worry about it. I already want to plant a thought in in terms of linking David’s presentation to what Shawn is talking about. The one thing that I picked up on is motion. The idea of motion and these bodies that David talked about, in terms of bodies of democracy, and ways of listening, and then, moving, and then now, you are talking physically moving. But, the moving here is quite contrasted with the fact that there is no agency. For me, ya, I am already thinking of that kind of links. But ya, just as a kind of start point. Now, I will pass the time to Rachel, and we will go deeper into another realm.

(31:39 – 32:27)

RS Okay, thank you very much. I will also like to acknowledge that we are meeting here today on Kaurna Land. My acknowledgment to the elders, past and present that are continuing to the survival. I will also like to acknowledge some of the works that I am talking about today was created on Yaru Country, in the far north-west of Western Australia and I will be talking about a very unsettled moment of my own that happened on Bardi Jawi Country that happened quite recently. 

In a sharp contrast to Shawn’s, I am going to tell a very small anecdote of a very little moment in a hope of this very little moment has a whole lot of worlds within it. So, I am just going to show you an image of part of that moment. When we started an email discussion—a kind of fragmented email discussion about four weeks ago—Shawn sent an email and said that he was going to talk a bit about these tours in Singapore, and the idea of multiple gazes working in different directions of these tours. Right at that moment when I downloaded the email, I was in a remote community called Ardyaloon, or One Arm Point, which is… So, for those of you who aren’t from Australia, if you know where Perth is, which is on the West Coast of this enormous country, then you get on a plane and you fly two and a half hours north of that and you will get to Broome, where our company is based in. Then, if you get on a four wheeled drive, and you drive four hours north of that, up the Dampier Peninsula, you get to Ardyaloon. And then, like what I had to do, I had to climb up to the lighthouse where you can get some phone reception, and then I downloaded his email! So… I just wanted to talk about this little moment that is about dramaturgy in public spaces, and being there in Bardi Jarwi Country, we were presenting on the first night of a five weeks tour—that finished last night in Canberra actually—of Gudirr Gudirr, which is performed by my co-founder and co-artistic director of Marregeku, Dalisa Pigram. I think of the work as a ___ (34:52) with the video arch of Chinese aboriginal artist, Vernon Ah Kee, and I will be talking a little about his work here. I was the dramaturg on this particular work, and I worked in collaboration with senior Yaru lawman, Patrick Dougson (? 35:09) whose works… You know, along with David, I think that the dramaturgy… Everyone collaborating on the work works on the dramaturgy of the work, including the dramaturg. In our company, we have never been able to have a singular dramaturg. We always have different people that work on the work and the dramaturgy in different ways. So, Patrick doesn’t like to be called a dramaturg because he says he did not study dramaturgy. But, we understand that he is working on the dramaturgy of our works. 

So, I just wanted to talk a little about this little moment when I was thinking about Shawn’s email, and I had this rush of memories that assaulted me; a very unsettling moment. I was standing a few meters back from the audience in this performance, and it was taking place at the basketball court of the local school in Ardyaloon. I was kind of… I was between this audience, the audience who was sitting at the court, or the benches, and the other audience who was sitting in the bushes, further back behind the performance area. I was kind of… Very nervously back there because a) Dalisa and I were quite freaked out, to be honest, about presenting this work in the community, and b) because there were many camp dogs around, and I was trying to work out if I was going to have to go on stage and chase the camp dogs away. Dalisa and I are both terrified of dogs, so I was kind of standing back there, sweating, because I was wearing my city jeans to try to fend off those mosquitoes and the sandflies, but I was also way too overdressed for the temperature. 

Ardyaloon is a tiny community of about 400 people. As I have said, it is right up in the north-west, and we have performed for the first time two years earlier. The first night that we performed there was with Cut the Sky, which was a fairly large piece and it dealt with indigenous perspective on climate change. The people in the community drove past in their cars kind of peaked out of their windows and had a look, but very few people stopped and almost no one came to see the first performance. The people did come—I had been careful to get the production manager to put a lot of light for the audience—for the space in front of the show—and people who did come stayed a long way away from the light and sat back in the bushes and kind of hid where I was, behind there. The next night, the cars drove past again, and people stopped and I think about fifty people, or thirty people watched on the first night, and we had about fifty the second night. Now, this night, two years later, there were about a hundred and twenty people, which was very exciting for us.

The show starts with a scrolling text, which I am going to show you here. As probably many of you know, Broome has a special history in this country because it was exempted from the White Australia policy, due to the pearling industry, so there was many interracial relationships between various Asian workers in Broome and the local aboriginal communities. However, what was often seen as an utopia existed under an incredible amount of government control, and this text was written by this inspector who was writing to the very ironically called, the “Chief Protector” of the Aborigines, AO Neville, an eugenicist and a very evil man. He was describing the people of these relationships as possible racial domestic slaves for the White people out there.

The kind of intensity performing Gudirr Gudirr for this community is that there were a lot of people, or, descendants from that night who are from these relationships of that era. In fact, Dalisa had spent quite a lot of time in that community as a young person—in that very school—and I guess there is a kind of closeness and intimacy that I want to talk about. In terms of a touring work, how these multiple gazes have worked in different directions in terms of the people in the community, their own lived experiences, the contents of the work presented, and Dalisa performing it that very night. 

Throughout the work, Vernon Ah Kee’s video portraits… and I will just show you a few images of Dalisa performing the work here—they are not from that night. Vernon Ah Kee’s video portraits of people from Broome of mixed Asian and Aboriginal descents flicker on the harsh video screen. They looked back at the audience. In this community tonight, the portraits include families of audience members, people who had attended this school, including one Malaysian-Aboriginal man who died on the road into the community two months earlier. We have carefully negotiated for permission to show his image on the night at the request of his family. To my mind, these portraits are also looking back to the latter from the opening scene. They stared back with resistance and survived well across time at the genocidal policies implemented by the government in this state, and incessant control of people’s lives. 

Here too, although this is not a roving public performance, the gazes are moving in multiple directions. Here, in Ardyaloon, the reverse gazes share an intimate space. A closeness of bloodlines and shared experiences. This community, at the tip of a tiny peninsular, home to pearl farms and mangrove systems, shares Broome’s mixed Asian indigenous identities and the legacy of government’s policies.

Dalisa has created a specific scene in the performance in response to her experience to the tie turning (41:31) to the community in the 80s. As I stood and sweated, Dalisa performed a show that I have witnessed at least forty times myself. I had flashbacks about the audiences at other locations. They were also very present to me that night. I was thinking about the show in Broome, just four hours away, or in Sydney or Melbourne, of Luxemburg, of Lubecks Habour in Germany, where moving speeches were made, still filtered through anthropological intent. They spoke about acknowledging the suffering brought about by colonisation. In Bruges, Belgium, where I felt a wall of resistance to the experience. Of London, on the land of the colonisers. Of Toronto, where the resonant pain brought out strong responses from those audiences. Of New Caledonia, where Vietnamese Connect audience members came up to speak about their own experiences. Also, performances in the Kimberley, in other remote communities like Fitzroy Crossing and __(42:28), which also contribute directly to the suicide statistics the work addresses. In these communities, I sensed a similar stoic-ness, as the audience here are squaring up to the content of the work, a preparedness to meet it heads-on, as there is no escape from the epidemic facing their own young people who look at them in the face every day.

While I was thinking about Shawn’s email in the dark behind the show, I could feel how the work’s construction has had to open its arms to the multiple public. To function in different ways, and to do different things in different contexts. Night after night, Dalisa’ greatest gift to the audience in each location is to allow herself to feel the material she is delivering, offering to the audience, no matter where they are from, the possibility of observing in solidarity, the grief, and pain, and suffering on hearing the appalling statistics shown in parts. 

As I reflected on the demands on dramaturgy for touring works, I thought about how I must create a paradoxical space to acknowledge the differences in the gazes, to work them differently, to literally do different things in different contexts, frequently accepting the shortcomings of what we can deliver in any particular space. But, at the same time to make space for a common humanity that reaches across the distance of difference to create a space for solidarity for listening, and for growing knowledge. 

I just wanted to leave you with this slide, which is of the dress rehearsal the night before that night I was talking about, with six boys from the local community who wandered into watch—it is their school ground after all. It’s their country, there’s no walls, and they are the traditional owners. One thing I wanted to say was that to perform in these remote communities we have quite an extensive process of negotiation with the traditional owners of the country, and the content of the work is very thoroughly discussed with them beforehand. This piece, you know, includes a polemic on decolonisation for Aboriginal people themselves facing change themselves that includes a… Dalisa has embodied an Asian indigenous dance language that she presents. It includes a video footage of young men fighting each other violently, and children filming the footage extensively to put it on Facebook and create further humbug which is a practice that happens up there quite a lot, and an extreme rant that anyone who's seen the show will know, included a lot of expletives. 

The community decided yes this is absolutely content deemed suitable to be performed in our school. So, these young fellows wandered in. They watched the show. It was perhaps the most intimate public space that the work had been performed in, and I listened in as Dalisa spoke to them after the performance, wondering what they would ask about. One of the boys asked, “Was that a true story?’ He was talking about the fishing story that Dalisa tells in the show. And she said, yeah, and she tells the story in Aboriginal English—in a local Creole—and she said, “Yeah that was when me and my dad went up to Bard Creek,” which is not far away from that spot. He said, “Did your out? Did your dad’s arm get stuck on that crab hole?’ asking specific details about the use of the crab pot when catching the mud crab in the local way. “No,” she said. “What do you reckoned?” she asked, “A little bit weird?” “A little bit,” said the boy nonchalantly, “A little bit weird”. In his voice I heard how this contemporary dance while was very likely the first dance piece he has ever seen, really wasn’t that very weird for him at all. 

(32:28 – 46:37)

KHL Good afternoon everyone. Thank ADN for inviting me here. After sitting through two days of conference where you sit there and you know, passively taking in information at levels that seems fairly foreign to you. Coming here… It is really quite a comfort…

(47:15 – 47:41)

LHN I'm going to give context again. A few of us here from Australia and from Singapore participated in quite a momentous forum for two days, which was an Australia and Singapore forum for, and with, cultural leaders. It was called the Cultural Leadership Forum, where people were gathered to sort of talk about possibilities of furthering networks, co-operations, collaborations between artists in all forms and genres.

(47:41 – 48:15) 

KHL Thank you. I felt a lot of resonance when David was speaking, and of course, Rachel. Some of the things I think probably will appear here, but in my own way, and I hope maybe then from there, we can have more conversations on it. I'm from DramaBox and I am the Artistic Director of the company. We started first actually as a Chinese language theatre company, for the very simple reason… I feel more comfortable in that language… That's my… My mother tongue is actually Cantonese and Teochew. However, I am more comfortable in Chinese language because I learned that in school. Well, so, you know, I felt that there wasn't any language that connects to me rather emotionally. And at the same time, I wanted to do my plays for my parents to watch because they don’t quite agree to me doing theatre. So I thought doing that in that language will help, but, well, my dad still didn’t see my plays. 

Well, this is my company. I'm the only guy there. So it is a company whereby we work quite collaboratively. However, we've been going through a lot of changes also because of how the company has changed over the years. So we started from being a Chinese language theatre company and over the years, actually we find that the more socially engaged kind of theatre works we do… You realise that in order to create a kind of dialogue in Singapore, you probably cannot work with just one language and neither can you work with just two languages. 

I always think that there is a myth or even a kind of a belief that bilingualism is actually what would help Singapore, or how Singaporeans would communicate. But my sense in actual fact is actually much more diverse. In fact, I think the whole multilingualism—the ability to handle more languages—or the different languages existing usage is actually much more real than what we believe it to be. 

Now I will start… We have been around for about 25 years and actually the last 15 years we've gone through quite a huge changes. I will start with a very quick description of a piece that we just did. It was done in 2015 as part of Singapore International Festival of the Arts. It was part of a trilogy. We were looking at land contestations in Singapore. As you know, Singapore is small, which means that how the land is being used has always been an issue, and all our land belongs to the government. That’s where the power concentrates. So, power, and legitimisation all comes within it, and land is one of the critical issues there. In the particular piece, we are looking at one very, very old cemetery that is in Singapore and which houses about 30,000 graves there. It is right in the center catchment of Singapore, it is a beautiful place, and it is called Bukit Brown, and it has a lot of old cemeteries there, and it has a lot of our previous ancestors and those are illuminaries (51:27), and they have been buried there. The government wanted to build a new road across which would then… they will have to excavate about 3,000 most beautiful graves at one of the most beautiful parts of this area. 

At a time in 2015—the context is the government has just finished an election, losing some seats for the first time, about some seven seats for the first time. That, for Singapore political situation, was really an earthquake for the ruling party. Then, they started to promise the possibility of actually having more dialogues, especially with different Singaporeans and they started having this whole exercise called “Our Singapore Conversation”. 

When this incident happened, there was this attempt to want to have conversations with the NGOs—the non-governmental organisations—who looks at heritage, to see how they could actually mitigate the damages. However, I think for the heritage groups, any excavation would be a kind of harm that cannot be undone. And I think both started at a wrong footing. In the process, the discussion, the negotiation broke down to a point whereby there were a lot of conversations… I wouldn’t say conversations, but a lot of posting that happened on Facebook that you find the government, or the Minister involved, finding the NGO difficult to manage and felt betrayed by the NGO. The NGO felt that the government was not sincere in the dialogue.

I decided then to do a piece on that, which I did an early morning piece at 5.30am in the morning, where you go to the cemetery and you perform to a movement piece with no words and with a piano. As the lights come, you would sense two parts of Bukit Brown. One part where it is scenic and beautiful, the other part where holdings are up and you can imagine where all the excavations and building web. In the evening we have a verbatim piece, which, you know, I was quite fortunate to have this opportunity to actually interview the NGOs, as well as the Minister who wanted to have his say. But what happened is… So we had this verbatim piece in the theatre that talks about this, this issue. I thought that wasn't enough. So then I designed a piece with another colleague, which we wanted to engage the public to not just talk about… I think when things happen in theatre, because of its size, or the number of people or its accessibility, you probably will only reach out to a particular group of audience. But, by having another piece in the public outdoor venues in community spaces you actually then invite other kind of audience and that was this piece, The Lesson. 

Now, it was actually a very interactive work that set up a fictitious scenario that the government has decided to build a MRT station or what you may call a subway station, in a mature estate in Singapore. So, seven existing sites were earmarked as possible sites for the new subway station. The seven sites were one, an old temple that houses a columbarium where people will put up ashes in an urn there. Secondly, a cluster of one room flats that are usually for the poorer people or elderly. The third site would be a marshland with a wonderful biodiversity. The next site is a wet market, which is where locals would usually gather and have, you know, a lot of interactions. And one more site that we have, which is a halfway house that had… This halfway house are where the people they have been operating there for some time. Then, a hospice and an old cinema that has become a weekend or evening haunt for workers in the evening, after work, or during the weekends. 

What happened here is that a representative of residents from the estate will have to vote to decide which of the seven sites to be removed so that this new subway station can come in. However, their votes must be supported by the Singapore public, which means they have to get the Singapore public to agree to their decision. Of course this is a scenario that we set up. Now, who are these representatives or residents of public? There were actually, you know, just audiences. The representatives of public were actually people who we had made an open call, and they will come to us and there were about 15 of them for every night. We would give them a briefing for about one, one half hour to explain what the whole thing is like, and with information about the seven sites, their history, and we actually want them to assume their ownselves to come for the performance. So, when the performers come, the public will come. Then, you will all sit together to deliberate this. So, there is always a structure within it wherein by there was voting argument, discussion, even like, you know, articulating your needs. To the point that everybody must vote. First the residents must vote. If they have agreed to remove a particular site, then they must persuade the Singapore public—who are the rest of the audience—to go with them. If not, the final decision will go back to the government. 

This piece was also incidentally performed in 2015 and that was when there was an election. That was actually very exciting for us because as people were voting, talking about what is it that we need as a community, they also started to think about what it means, when I need to go to the polling station the next day to vote. What kind of governance do we want, how should we be represented. Now, every evening, we have artists facilitators and so they would argue, debate, negotiate, lobby contest, and then vote. Every evening, different outcome would emerge, but, in the process, the facilitations would allow the participants to ponder on issues of democracy, community needs, inclusions, privileges and entitlements among others. In fact, Shawn has actually done a study on some of the votes that happened that showed some very interesting data on how people vote. According to their ethnic preferences or even know the kind of background they come from. 

As a company, we do not see theatre as just as a product or a kind of transaction or entertainment. I think, we think that in theater there is actually a building of relationship. But, at the same time, I think I would say… As what Rebecca Solnit puts it nicely whereby the purpose of activism and art is to make a world in which people are producers of meaning, not consumers. 

As a company, we believe that theatre can make people see the world with a critical lens and to ask questions about what they have seen. In other words, if I may, quote, or if I may borrow from ___ (59:17), where he talks about the aesthetic experiences as the shifting of sensibilities. Where what you usually do not see or has been there but not noticeable to you, because of the aesthetic experience, it now becomes visible. What you have not heard or not, or have heard but make no sense to you now become audible and you are listening to them intensely. Then what was previously not felt, not sensed, or you have been insensitive to it, now become real, and alive. Art, a lot of times, activate our memories, and memories could be narrative of stories or emotions that may been blocked, forgotten, or blocked out. It helps us to remember, it wakes us from this, which I think is very important, especially in Singapore where the plague of amnesia caused everything to be forgotten. A lot of times, it is due to the comfort that we have, that is provided a lot in Singapore, that you tend to forget many things of the past. This amnesia actually served to desensitize us, making a lot of things that are visible becoming invisible. Of course, hurt becomes unhurt. At the same time, the imaginative play in the art inspires one to think about possibilities, which I believe the power of imagination gives hope. Art, which evokes this aesthetic space of memory and imagination, shifts sensibilities, inspires hopes and imagination. 

One of the theatrical forms that we used a lot is forum theatre. I think a lot of people will know that the form is very interactive, but it is at the same time, shifting passive spectators into what you call spect-actors, or some would call the emancipated spectators. And the purpose is to rehearse possible changes and transformations on stage. Forum theatre tells stories about people at a margin at any age. It could be elderly who are alienated in our fast changing society, the youths-at-risk, the foreign workers who have been exploited by employers or sex workers who have been put to health risk as well as discrimination. And these are the topics that we have dealt with. But what we also do is that with the permission of the community, we have put this work in the public space, in the open. That's where it becomes sensitive and difficult. That's why the title At the Edge, in the Open. (1:01:58)

There is this ethical consideration that when you put this community and the stories out in the open, would you put them into, you know, close scrutiny, and how would they feel about it. But, I have my own reason for doing it. I will articulate this few reasons. First, a lot of times of marginalized, or the people at the edge, they feel that they are alone. They have to face the problems themselves. I think as sociologist ___ (1:02:31) has wrote, “Social problems are experienced as individual, rather than a collective, and we feel compelled to seek” what he calls it as, “biographic solutions to systemic contradictions.” So, which means the individual, it becomes an individual issues, because you're not capable. You're not disciplined. That's why you cannot fit into the system that's why you fall out of the system. A lot of time the marginalised are actually being reinforced, or told that the system is working perfectly well, it’s just that you need some help, and so what we do is that we create safety net for you to continue to be in that. In that sense, a lot of times, this kind of narrative that is provided a lot of time by the government would actually isolate the marginalised even more we can then feel even more alienated. In fact, sometimes it will make them doubt their capabilities to solve the problems. If this persists, many may not even want to reach out for help and risk being even more isolated. Even when agency extends help, it only further entrench the ideas that the issue lies in the individual failing. By individualising the issues, the systemic problem is not examined and the marginalised are seen as a liability to the society. The people who are forced out of the system feel that they are basically ineffective. That is why we felt that it was important. Then, at the same time, to also realise that this kind of systemic thing is not just perpetuated by the government: we, the others to the marginalised, equally perpetuates such impressions by not being able to see all of these issues that are happening around us. 

After negotiation with the community and when we are able to come to a kind of agreement, they will have to put out the stories in the open. We would also like the other community to see that they are part of this systemic issue of oppression that happens. Of course, one way to break away from such isolation and alienation is to form alliances and alliances can happen between people of the same community. But, at the same time, it should also happen with people outside of this community so that this community doesn't feel really very much isolated. But the choice to make these stories open means that we have to ensure that this is a safe space for the public to want to participate, or the community feels that they can talk about the issues that they have. And that is something that we have to work a lot on. I think there are a number of ways that we approach it. One, I think, having a safe space means that (having to think) what does having a safe space needs. For me, I think we all would agree that having a safe space means the possibility of us being able to agree to disagree, being able to contest, and being offended. 

Singapore is a strange place where by we feel very uncomfortable being contradicted and being offended. Now, the current narrative that we have in Singapore has always been this and it comes from the government: to collaborate, to be cohesive, to have social and communal bonding. In fact, this is the narrative that none of this government has been using and hoping that all this will do. However, I think Jacques Ranciere also has also put a very interesting thought to this whereby, “If art is summon, then to put this political potential at work in reframing a sense of community, mending the social bond. Once more, politics and aesthetic vanish together with in ethics”. Which means in the word or in the name of, you know, creating social bonding, you may then not look at the systemic issue that exists there.

Now, so which means, how do we then also create a safe space where we can have contradictions, contestations, disagreements, and consensus. That's where in forum theatre, whereby the work of a joker in forum theatre becomes very interesting. Boal describes the Joker as a difficult data. In one on one conversation with him, and I like that word because or, I think. Charlene has used this word, benggangku (1:07:38). Which means you are actually complicating the problems or making it difficult, so that we will be confronted and not just take the easy solution. It's always very easy to say I respect you and you respect me and say, “That is empathy”. I think that is empathy working at a cognitive level, but empathy must work at an emotive level at the same time. But because we are so clever, rash and intelligent nowadays, and most of the governments are so intelligent, they rationalise with empathy, but in a very cognitive way. If you do not experience the anxiety of the marginalised, it makes it very hard for you to make decision in their shoes, from their perspectives. It's easier for you to then go back and say, “I understand you. But, you know, this is where our position is. But I heard you!” But is that really hearing, really listening. 

In forum theatre, you have the Joker that actually creates this very interesting space that allows difficult conversations to happen. So that's one. And that is something that we have been using a lot in our work including The Lesson, where the facilitators will constantly be the one moderator which somewhere, quite like what David Pledger was talking about in his work, whereby the moderator must be able to navigate, to challenge, to sometimes be the listener, and sometimes to be the challenger. 

The other aspect of it, which I think is important, is that you need to create a kind of a public space that is safe and yet open. To do it in an open public space can sometimes be a problem. Just like you have to negotiate with the first nation people when you are using the space, we have to negotiate with the government in using their space. They were always afraid that you know, when you have too much of the people gathering together, you may become a riot. This is how our shows look like in our earlier days. You can see that there is actually a simple setup, and we never do a raised staged and people are actually sitting on the floor, and sitting around. Just like you know, Rachel’s experience, the first time we did it, we didn’t understand space, and people sit far away, and they just don’t want to engage. As years goes by, we started to navigate the space, we look at human traffic, we look at how people move, we look at how people are placed. If there were already wooden chairs that were already at that location, we would make sure that we would hide that. Because if you put my stage here and assuming that some people would sit there and watch, in the end, you will create a void here because no one would come in. We actually have to keep negotiating with that physical space so that it can be opened. But at the same time, how to create such a way that you know it also become a very close and yet very warm space where people can talk and argue, and be honest in the process. Of course the Joker play a very important part of this process, but creating that warm space is also equally important. 

Nowadays, what we find is that, in fact, even for my company we've been doing it for so many years and even when I'm a Nominated Member of the Parliament, I would have some, some government or some community or some estate who would be rather worried about us putting our work there, and they will be saying that, “Hmm, I don’t think I want this company there because they will be raising difficult questions” and we still have to navigate in that process. 

Currently, what we have just created is this huge inflatable thing called GoLi. It houses about 250 to 200 people, but what it does is that it actually brings a lot of eyeballs. Whenever we set it out, it takes about 12 people at any one time. We set it up you and we actually get the, the public and community, you know, engaged, just by the setting up. They will be asking you what is happening and then they start joining you in the process. It is designed such that it is open yet it is close, and it is very useful for us to use it as installation, but at the same time for some difficult work, that we feel that in a way the audience must feel comfortable to be in. The Lesson is actually done inside there, to allow openness and porousness, but yet at the same time, it also allow the people inside there to know that they are in control. I wouldn’t say in a controlled environment, but a safe environment for them to actually dialogue.

Now, the last thing that I want to say is another work that also articulate our approach is actually an idea I borrowed from Mark Peh (1:12:57) from Malaysia. He talked about something about a multi-plug and I thought that was a very interesting idea because of some of the topics that we deal with for example end of life. It is a very complex topic that deals with health care, social services, individual values, social systems, political systems, and to make one play about it, to address it, becomes difficult. So, the multi-plug then would then mean, from that same source of the topic, how do I create different kind of modular performances, installations, different disciplines, so then it engages people at different levels based on different topics. 

In this project Both Sides, Now, which is… It started in 14, 15, 16, 17. 18, 19, ya, 6 years. We will… it should end in 2019. The operation has always been like that: the topic of end of life, but it engages audience at different levels. From simple interactive activities, to talks, to performances. But most importantly, an element there that I thought was very important, was to create spaces for people to speak. Actually, it is more for people to be listened to, which I would call in our work, that listening aesthetics. This is I think, sadly lacking in a lot of times in the world that we live in. We work with a lot of facilitators, and then we would work with them, train them, help them, so that they are always in the site, and whenever any audience encounters any of these works, it is not just the encountering that becomes important, but after that encountering, the conversations that this audience would have with our facilitators, became part of the performances. Within the design of the space, we would always be constantly looking for wide space, such that they would feel comfortable sitting down, and just to speak to our faciliattors and they would be listened to. In the listening, we then decide what we can do, and we would have social workers, and different people there who would help them to navigate that process. This listening aesthetics becomes very important, especially in the way we are looking at this end of life issue, where in the end, we are actually dealing with a big taboo subject in Singapore, especially for a lot of Asians. It is not just about dying, but a lot of times, it deals with their personal values, and how their personal values—for a lot of times—in contestation with the political and cultural landscapes. Thank you. This is all I have.

(47:15 – 1:16:00)

LHN The presentation took a little bit longer but I think it was necessary in terms of trying to understand the different contexts and situations and cultural and social spaces that we are talking about. One very quick observation between the three is that when I started the conversation going with the three of you on emails about public spaces, I did have a member say, "Okay, let's talk about public space and not just about the physical space". But what was interesting was that all three presentation actually had an important, essential things to say about dramaturging, physical spaces, that then allow for the dramaturgy of emotions, of thoughts, of politics, of desire of all these kinds of intangibles, as we call it, to emerge from the kinds of works that were created or that were observed. As always, obviously most apparent in in what Heng Leun is talking about just getting to know the space, navigating the space, physical space of the Singapore public. Then, linking it to Rachel, where I now have a different sense of what we mean when we say the marginalized is really pushing the margins geographically. Coming from Singapore, one margin to another margin is 45 minutes away. Yeah. So it is really a political margin that we're talking about. But, in the works that you do, it spans space, physical space, and there is like a cyclical, and then going into the politics and then the social and the cultural.

And then with Sean painting this picture of the touring, which is very urban-centric in a way. I'm looking at the aesthetics of these urban centers and how then they are responding or how artists are responding to it. Again, it is the creating of these spaces that allow for political ideas to come out, allowing different ways of social commentary even. But it all seems to start with actually creating a physical space, first and foremost. That, to me, is quite apparent here, which was also quite interesting. Anyone would like to pick up and talk a bit more or have any other questions for each other about what we've been hearing, looking, and seeing.

(1;16:05 - 1:18:39)

RS I guess I would like to say that we actually perform in theatres quite a lot, but all of our works are designed to also be able to go into remote communities and so we're not normally considered public space artists, which I think was the first thing that I said to you. But the communities that we engage with our public, I guess more than our kind of spatial relationship shoots. However, technically, like every, you know, the lighting designers have to make a lighting design that has an A, B, and C version and although I showed a space that did have some overhead options, all our shows are designed to not have that as well. So there's a very big focus on the design of taking that on board from the beginning. But I think, in a sense, I was more picking up on the idea of the tour, but thinking about how it affects a company that tours a lot into a lot of different publics and a lot of different situations around the world and the kind of impossibilities. But also the possibilities of dealing with that and how that has shaped, you know, fundamentally shaped the dramaturgy in our work and the collaborations within the work to, from the outset be able to be thinking of creating a work from multiple publics and multiple points of view and multiple national experiences. Looking back into the work, and we frequently, I think, every work we've made, at least in the last decade and a half, we have had collaborators from the northwest of Australia from remote communities, collaborators from urban centres, and collaborators from Europe and West Africa. The people are always talking about what they see and what they don't see. More often what they don't see and don't understand in the work--

(1:18:44 - 1:20:58)

LHN     The unheard and the unseen.

(1:20:59 - 1:21:00)

RS Yup. I think our work has been shaped by just the fact that we exist to break down walls between remote and urban contexts and between national and international perspectives and that has driven the dramaturgy network.

(1:21:01 - 1:21:20)

SC I think one of the things that really arrested me was when you were opening about multiple publics and feeling the paradoxical spaces, right? I think that the notion of paradoxical spaces is perhaps what maybe I was trying to feel towards and thinking about roughness and friction, because I guess something that is very, that I'm slightly alarmed by is how these forms are very quickly co-opted by like Singapore Tourism Board or Singapore Heritage Festival, right. These notions or these particular rhetorics about fetishizing, authenticity, locality, heritage, etc. For me, the strategy that resists that is roughness, right, to question that kind of smoothness of narratives. I guess a term that sometimes comes about is a notion of resistant immersion. Right? So you're not completely immersed into this smooth virtual narrative. But you are kind of encouraged to find these ruptures, to just think about the paradoxes and then to question how are you positioned within these communities?

Just to give the context of I think, in our initial email thread, I mean, one of the points that I was drawn towards but didn't really manifest in the frantic presentation was this conversation about how does the tour marks are relationality. Because by calling it a tour, already, it marks that we are going into a kind of exotic space, right, and we are foreign to it. That really creates a certain kind of dynamic that's there. Then, how does the site unchart our experiences but I think that is something I'm very curious about. What are all these very dense field of cases that are happening right? We are looking at the performance-- The performance frame absorbs that, right, like a random passerby who is going past becomes absorbed into the performance frame. The shopkeeper you know becomes a kind of denizen of the site and becomes an extra, right? Do they have a voice, do they have agency, how do we acknowledge sometimes, very contentious relationships? Do we ignore them. How do we become very... Acutely aware that they are also being watched, especially when we are forced to also perform for them as well. So I think that's the space that... Yeah, that we alluded to and responded to.

(1:21:21 - 1:23:52)

LHN In terms of Singapore, urban planning, we all know that it is very planned. Everything is calculated to the nth degree by URA, the Urban Renewal Authority, Redevelopment Authority sorry. That to me is interesting when your works, Heng Leung, when you talk about going into these spaces. So it's already highly it's supposed to be designed to facilitate community building from an urban planning point of view. Yet, there are all these obstacles that you talk about, you know, wooden chairs. And they, it creates void, or it creates a unfriendly space. I'm curious, has anyone from URA comes to your performances and go, "Why did we not think of that?" In terms of galvanizing a more warm as you said, a warmer social space. Has anyone come from URA and said, "This should be looked at." 

(1:23:53 - 1:25: 05)

KHL No. Nowadays they are more interested in the way we do engagement so they do come and look at our work, and say, "Can I borrow your engagement approach?" Sometimes without permission. Yes they will. However, I think in terms of architecture… That's actually a very interesting question because it also goes with the way how this government thinks. I think in that kind of a big infrastructure, the government wants to have their own say in how to do it, and they always take them, you know, big picture from there on top, and so a lot of times the way they designed… I would say that they would have the design and they would have the final say and they would already have their own projections, although they would do quite a lot of consultations. Ultimately, it is a rather… A government that is very sure of themselves in this kind of policies. So, I don't have them coming to me. 

(1:25:05 – 1:26:11)

SC So it's… I mean it’s the performance of participation, right? As again, the society of extras. We are, we are creating this dialogue, but it's already determined etc. So at what point is, I mean is there, do you care, I mean the question that I always have is, you know, there are so many ways in which there you you can… There are lots of this staging of participation that happens right, but at what point does it percolate into a real dialogue or real conversation. 

(1:26:11 – 1:26:35)

KHL There are things whereby—Take for example the end of life issue when we first started doing it, it was really a commissioned by two very, I would say, progressive foundations who think that it is an issue that's important in Singapore. So there was no, no involvement by the government at all. But after the first iteration, the government team, the Ministry of Health, came and looked at it and they said, “Now I want to talk about it but as a government I cannot tell people how to die well, right?” So then they decided to inch themselves in a rather subtle way. So they'll say, “I'm going to give this money to the foundation. The foundation you will dispense the money to the company, but just don’t put our name.” So that's how they do so. And then they saw the second iteration that was even more effective. Then the next thing they do is that, “Okay, we want to see you in your next three years of development. But let me maybe do this through the Totalisator Board, which is like your lottery. Yeah. So, the lottery would give us the money, but whatever, or however, they can give some small amount,  just acknowledge a sister organization of this government, which is another stat board. At some point in time, you will be probably taking over this whole thing, and claim it as their own.

(1:26:35 0 1:28:09)

LHN Variable for a previous project of yours already right? Claiming it as their own (laughter from the crowd)

(1:28:09 – 1:28:15)

KHL Ya (1:28:15)

LHN Just on another note, Heng Leun. On the seventh and eighth of October in Sydney, there is going to be a festival of death and dying, where they will be looking at, you're looking at causes of, yeah, this is happening next week. 

I want to flip the question now back to Rachel. So, in terms of the particular project where you went into these remote communities. Do you think that such a performance would ever take place in a more urban environment in Australia, say in the cityscape. Would you put that particular show ever come into the concrete jungle?

(1:28:15 – 1:29:01)

RS Ah, well the pieces have been performed all over the world in multiple spaces but are you saying in, not in a theatre like—

(1:29:01 – 1:29:10)

LHN Not in a theate, notin a public space, and specifically Australia. I know it's gone out but here specifically in urban spaces in Australia, and what is, what does that mean. What are the implications of that.

(1:29:10 – 1:29:24)

RS Well, earlier, the company began in western Arnhem Land, in a community called Kumba Lanyon (1:29:32). We were based there for the first nine years. There was certainly no theatre or rehearsal room there to work in and when we move to Broome in 2003, there was also no venue in Broome for performance and there was no rehearsal space. We rehearsed in a pendopo kind of space. So there was a roof there, but no walls. And so, those logistical factors defined our early touring works; I think for at least… We are a 23 years old company. I think at least the first decade we made large scale outdoor performances and were performed. So there has been like… When they were in Sydney festival, Perth festival, they were always programmed outdoors. 

Europe, it was another situation because the festivals in Europe— That outdoor festivals tend to be people, places where people like eat a lot of sausages and drink a lot of beer and kind of often… I mean I don't want to generalize too much but don't want to think too hard in those contexts. So we found our works falling in the cracks between the kind of, especially, I mean, we are not really sure if we are theatre or dance, but we get sort of as dance these days. And so we were being programmed by the dance festivals, but they didn't have the, they weren't programming outdoor work and then we were being programmed by the outdoor summer festivals, but they kind of… Their audiences have a really different relationship with the space. So we started going indoors in Europe at that point, but our first decade in Europe we did, you know, large scale outdoor performances for 1000 people a night but generally on like a tribute (1:31:22), they call it a tribute. So, yes, absolutely, and sometimes they are ticketed and sometimes they are not ticketed or sometimes they're ticketed and free as well. 

(1:29:25 – 1:31:32)

LHN This is why I specifically want to know about this particular project. With the kinds of themes around it, how would that ever be considered in a city space. Say Adelaide downtown center, Sydney CBD, or Melbourne CBD. 

(1:31:32 – 1:32:54)

RS I can certainly imagine it being in a public space… Gudirr Gudirr is kind of very focused and distilled work. It's a solo, there's a real intensity about it. So, I mean, in Ardyaloon, I didn't actually have to chase the camp dogs off the stage but when we did Cut the Sky, the final scene if any of you have seen it. It rains on stage in the final scene and the dogs were like (makes dogs lapping sound) in the water. And there's a lot of kids running around in those shows in Ardyaloon so there's a lot of… It’s busy. So yeah, I think we can. She's, amazingly, tough. She can kind of cope with a lot happening around her so I can imagine that happening. But I think the, I guess the question is also about the content and the, like the… I didn't really, I was trying to stick to my time limit so I didn't really get to go very deeply into the relationship between the quotes that I showed in the beginning and the legacy of that history for young people in the Kimberley now and the fact that the Kimberley has one of the highest suicide rates in the world. There's, you know, there's a government inquiry going on at the moment about that. But you know those suicides statistics are very pertinent there but they, of course, are also national and they affect a lot of indigenous communities. The piece was performed in the last few weeks in Bathurst Newcastle in Canberra and they had strong turnouts from the indigenous communities and all of those places and amazing responses to that kind of very visceral nature of the work. So it's not… I mean what we try and do with our work is to create a space with a context of the Kimberley as speaking back to the wider global issues that the world is addressing and that's why we also made a piece of our climate change so we're not making intercultural indigenous work over there to be looked at as something that's over there and far away, but something that's speaking directly back to the issues that the world is dealing with. That's why we really believe in intercultural practices, something that the world needs now, because you know the issue of us being able to talk to each other is becoming more critical, like, week by week by week. To create a space where the gaze is going both ways, and the actual dramaturgy of the work demands the audience member to feel their own personal space in relationship to their content, and that often means that we're creating a space that the audience members don't quite understand. That's a really vital place we talk about a lot in our piece that people feel the experience of not quite understanding what's happening. That's actually a really critical space in intercultural practice, and we walk a tightrope in the dramaturgy of our work to create that space and not alienate the audience or alienate them too much. 

(We are) often working, you know, I'm not indigenous and so I won't talk too much about indigenous knowledge structures, but they can be very enigmatic, and they hide and reveal meaning to different people depending on where they are in terms of initiation, their experiences, their age, whether they're male or female, so they're like these kind of incredibly intricate knowledge structures that are both, allowing understanding and hiding understanding at the same time. So our works are often really enigmatic and kind of unapologetically so. We want the audience to experience, understanding a bit of what's going on but not understanding all of what's going on and how they are, where their position is in their own life and their own knowledge, and how they sit in relationship to that experience. That's a kind of very big picture response to your question. 

(1:32:53 – 1:36:18)

LHN Thank you. Yeah. I think it’s time we now bring in our audience on the floor. Questions, comments on three very, very rich presentation, but still very interconnected in many ways. Do we have any comments or questions to any of our speakers. Yes Alfian.

(1:36:19 – 1:36:42)

Alfian Sa’at So, first of all, thank you very much for such a fascinating presentations. I have a question for Rachel and one for Heng Leun.  For Rachel, have you ever encountered in doing this kind of intercultural work… As much as I think it's very important to secure the blessings as well as permission of visited community before doing certain work but have there been occasions when you felt that there was some censorship that was being exerted. For example they always say, oh, our people would not wear something like that, for example Then, do you feel like maybe you might need to take sides because sometimes the artist’s work is that of an individual that's trying to transgress or rebel against the norms of that community. So that's that's the question. Or if you haven’t, how would you actually try to deal with that situation in the future. 

For Heng Leun, it's interesting you know we're talking about the public and public engagement. But what if there are instances when, like for example, dealing with death, where there might be communities that don't want it to be public. They want these discourses to be contained within private spheres, then are we sort of like forcing or imposing a certain way to conduct that that discourse. Thank you.

(1:36:43 – 1:38:20)

RS I mean I would say yes, absolutely. We deal with that a lot. I think there are really different answers to that question depending on the really specific nature of what's going on. I mean, the first thing I would say is that we have worked very carefully for years to negotiate the experimentation that happens with cultural material in particular and, you know, I'm specifically talking about dance, to really be very very transparent about the experimental process, and to bring elders of multiple cultures in Broome and bring them in to look at the work. So that's the kind of fundamental position but I think, more specifically, we leave it up to the people from the specific communities to negotiate with their own community elders and take their own position in response to a specific set of issues. I mean one particular example I can talk about right now, which is a very complicated one but Cut the Sky, our last work, dealt with fracking, in particular, and it's an incredibly tense issue in the Kimberley. The Kimberley is the home of the Canning Superbasin and it's now called a super basin. The Canning Superbasin is 1/16 of the landmass of Australia. That's… Excuse me but a fuck a lot of gas that’s under the ground. That's a huge amount of gas and so the Kimberly's very isolated so there's, you know, it's hard to get to this gas but it is, there's a potential for 100,000 fracking wells there that can be fracked for you know 200 years. The Western Australian legislation which has actually recently changed with the new government but while we were making the work, the legislation was that anything under... You know this is very foreign to an indigenous understanding of land and atmosphere and minerals, but everything under the Earth's surface was able to be taken by government—whether it was a national park, whether it was farmland, station land or whether it was land under Native Title. So we, Edwin Mulligan, one of the collaborators on the work, who's a Warrda Lumbadij Bundajarrdi, from Kimberley, in a part of the country that was negotiating directly with blue energy and mining company over fracking licenses in their country, decided to tell that… Dreaming, that's a complicated word but the dreaming story for the guests in the performance. But that community had decided to go with brew energy on fracking and the mining licenses include gag orders. Basically. So if mining licenses negotiated with native title holders in this country, they basically sign a gag order that no one in the community is allowed to stand up and contradict the overarching decision. Edwin himself had to find, as an artist, and he works, I have to say very gently to take position on what he could say, and we got blow back from traditional owners in that community who were, who had decided to go with fracking, but we also got it from the energy company but Edwin. You know, we had to really go with Edwin, and what he was prepared to say and his own dialogue with his elders and his family who were against fracking. It's not my place, as, as the director of the work to take a stance on that. It's really creating a space where Edwin can do what he needs to do, but as Marrugeku, we're also having to negotiate that process with the traditional owners of the Native Title claim to that land so in any situation we would visit it differently.

(1:38:20 – 1:42:38)

KHL I think every time when you do a piece of work in the open, there must be… At least on our side, we do know that there are some people who may not even want to talk about it. So, in a lot of time, one of the things that helps to navigate that kind of sensitivity is to how you design the entire space, where it is open yet at the same time quite closed up so people can choose not to enter. Because we do it free, so people can choose, but if they do not want to be engaged, tell us, and walk off. Of course our facilitators become very important. They would not go out there and say you want to talk about this. Never. In fact, a lot of times, we just sit there and wait for them to come to us. I think that is where you actually, again, work with the rhythm of the space. When I say that I, I was never too… I mean, when you work inside a theatre, yes you are working with time and space all the time. But when it comes to working outdoors, that sense was even heightened more than ever. And it became a kind of intuitive things. There are a number of things you need to consider also. Who gathers into the spaces, what do they do usually, and where do they gather, and then you have to decide. Take for example one of the sites that we are now working at. There was this pavilion which I have always liked. However the pavilion has been occupied by this group of women who gamble there, every day—

(1:42:38 – 1:44:25)

LHN Sorry Heng Leun. When you say pavilion, coul you tell us, what do you mean by… Where is this pavilion.

(1:44:26 – 1:44:31)

KHL Inside a housing estate, between two of three blocks. So they have this little garden and there is this pavilion. They inhabit there, literally every day, for three to four in the afternoon, and they would gamble there. We wanted to activate that whole space. Now our problem is, we want to activate the whole space, we are going to intervene into their space. My question now is how do I actually start a dialogue with them so that if I want to activate it, would they allow me to do it—though it doesn’t belong to them. So they have used the space, they have taken over the space and even the town council—the local authority—has sort of left them to be. They gamble from Monday to Sunday. On weekends, there would be about 10 to 15 of them. So I think that these are the things that you actually need to do a lot of ground research and discussion, and negotiation with a lot of stakeholders around it. There would be people who would say, “Please do not come”. You jus have to respect that. But certain things are slightly more sensitive like faith issue, especially end of life issues. Especially when it comes to faith issues, then we also then have to ask ourselves, the content that we curate inside this problem. How is faith represented or could it be avoided in some way, but given that actually that the empty space allows for it to be converse, rather than to put it out. Sometimes, making it absent can become a strategy that you use to make that negotiation. We are constantly looking at this kind of dramaturgy, I would say. How to actually create the kind of absence or presence and that tension is equally important

(1:44:31 – 1:46:25)

Floor This is not the follow up question but actually a kind of minor contextualization to Shawn's presentation. This is regards to Lizard on the Wall. Because I am the festival director of the festival that commissioned Raja to do Lizard on the Wall. I don't think that there was ever the intention that it would be more than a situation where the audience became an extra in the film. It wasn't meant as a kind of a touring performance or promenade performance of sorts. It was just purely engaging, bringing a different set of audience into the performing arts through film. So I I just wanted to clarify that. I found it a little bit problematic, very honestly tell(ing) you, when you used the word that the film was attempting to appropriate authenticity. There was nothing of that. I'm just wondering how much of a conversation you had with Raja, post Lizard on the Wall to reach that particular conclusion because all it was doing was to make a film, like any film director, and that was platform, we were all very excited by as the performing arts festival, to see how we can cross discipline, and how we can actually bring in a film audience into performing arts. Of course, as you know, the O.P.E.N ‘s film programme that is curated by Bee Tiang (1:48:13), but also, this year, in SIFA , we have __ (1:48:18), who is a major filmmaker, and we have commissioned a film where the audience were actually observing the master work, again, the idea of what it means to be a performing arts festival. Is it just on performing arts, or, can we be working with film to enlarge that discussion at a space of the performing arts. Yeah, I just wanted to clarify that.

(1:46:26 – 1:48:47)

SC Thank you. I think you're right. I never meant to say that it was, I think in the marketing and the framing of the work, it was never meant to be emancipatory or participatory even. What struck me was, in my experience how Raja started to to use that language like very much, and so that was what made me begin to wonder why are we, like hammering so much on this notion of the authentic because that never struck me until I went for the tour itself. So I mean, yeah, that was that was just that the point I was bringing.

(1:48:48 – 1:49:28)

(inaudible; the audience answered to Shawn but did not speak into the mic at this point. 1:49:29 – 1:50:03)

SC I think there's a lot of, I think a lot of these thoughts are very preliminary but I think it's really a response to seeing how there is, why are we, why are we so I guess… I guess the question behind participatory works is always the demands of your audience right, why is there this desire for the audience or on the audience to, to feel more, to feel more intensely to be more involved right and what's happening there is the question that I'm wondering about. I think definitely there are a lot more conversations that can happen right with all, with artists who are trying to play with these kinds of works and also perhaps more reflexivity… I guess more kind of explicit engagement with these works as tours, as participation to kind of unpack the strategies that are being deployed here. Thank you. 

(1:50:03 – 1:51:06)

Alfian Sa’at I do think that ___ (1:51:08) authenticity sort of haunts that work because it comes with a with a kind of baggage. I don't know whether you're aware of this but they did sort of a reading of Bali Kaur Jaswal’s novel, Sugarbread. It was such a controversy in Singapore because the readers were of Indian ethnicity and they put on very thick Tamil accents. Whereas the characters are Punjabi. Yeah, so you know, it speaks a little bit about how in Singapore, our notions of Indianare not completely nuanced in this instance. Stereotypical, ya. The reading was done by the people from Epigram Books, a publisher. So, I think it's good… It has got nothing to do with you here! But I did feel that what you did with SIFA… There was a bit of a project of redress that it was so screwed up previously, let’s try to approach something a bit more authentic. So, in a sense, couldn't escape that desire to be authentic or at least to be closer to the subject material which is Punjabi culture, then that horrible caricature that. Yeah.

(1:51:06 – 1:52:23)

(Inaudible as audience was not using the microphone; 1:52:24 – 1:53:43)

SC Sorry, just a quick respond to that. I think Adam Alston, he talks about immersive theatre. I think one of the things that he is really trying to recreate and so what's the position of the audience participant in works that are artistically participatory right? I mean not specific to Lizard on the Wall because we have established that that's not what it's trying to be, but I think especially in the emergence of these kinds of works that have such a huge or heavy labor demanded on the participant as co-creators, as co producers of the work, next to complete the work in various ways. I think Adam Alston is also talking about you know what does it mean to be co-authoring the work in some ways. Again, not in the context of Lizard on the Wall because the script was very much fixed. The part of the audience content is really just as wedding guests or various forms of extras to be kind of have a taste of that world, but not necessarily… There's never a promise that you could change it. So I think that critical distinction is very important in this conversation. Thank you for the clarification.

(1:53:44 – 1:54:50)

LHN How about a different question? Comments? Some other line of discussion or some other line of interrogation.

(1:54:51 – 1:55:03)

(Inaudible)

Floor Ya. I agree that friction is useful and we must all agree to disagree in its critique. It can be in a safe space. Maybe let’s move the discussion on another front. I’m just curious about the language. Even though we are all speaking English, we may need for cultural translation. So I'm just thinking. In general, in the Australian context, what does… When a work is socially engaged theatre, or work that speaks to a community, what does it mean to you? Because I think it could mean very different to me as a Singaporean watching Singapore theatre. So, I'm just curious about that in the context of activating the public and spiritual intervention—

(1:55:04 – 1:56:02)

LHN Maybe you can first go on by telling us what does it means for you that… Singaporeans—

Floor For me… Whenever a work is socially engaged, it takes on a very risky kind of approach? It touches on things that are tangible and they become very real to me. So for example, when I watched The Lesson in Singapore in my neighbourhood in Hougang. So, it became very real, and it was something really, really close to me. I'm just wondering what it means in the Australian context of, ya, I'm just curious, ya, ya, ya.

(1:56:03 – 1:56:41)

Floor It sort of flips into this authenticity stuff as well. It's the socially engaged work in Australia… I see it as a volume switch from 1 to 10 around agency. So, let's say, 10 is where the audience has complete control of the work, and the agency and the outcome of the work. And then, 1 is where they… The agency is…  Sorry the word is not authentic in a way, but given over, as a way to make it fun or participatory. Does that make sense. Well, I mean a lot of people say that participatory work is fun. You know, you get involved, you know you like… There are works where you tour, and it is not necessarily the agency is not authentic. You are given a character. You are given something to play out—the end will always be the same. Then, there is work that where your agency is met, say it is dialed up to 10, and that is community cultural development work in a way. It’s where the agency is given over to the group of participants who are working on the work and to control the outcome of the work.

(1:56:41 – 1:58:37)

LHN That’s one perspective. (1:58:37)

Floor That's one perspective. (1:58:37)

RS I think I might have misunderstood your question but were you asking about language? As in, cause you said we are talking in English, and you ask were you asking also about what language work is made in here in Australia? Aesthetics. 

(Floor answers without using the microphone) 

It's a big country and there are a lot of different works being made. I mean, we are very interested in a kind of disrupting and radicalizing partially notions about community cultural development actually, and aesthetics, in that context, and part of the way that we do that is we activate spaces of intercultural and international exchange so we work in a very remote area but we work with a lot of international collaborators and we also, for example, we were just about to start working in New Caledonia on a work commissioned for the eve of the referendum on independence from France there with a big international project. One of the aesthetics that's been really useful for us and people find quite kind of surprising about our work is that we work with a number of collaborations ___ (2:00:13) from the Flemish wave in Belgium, because we find that there's something that has come out of this very contested nationhood in Belgium that has been sitting behind the Flemish Wave and the aesthetics in that work that speaks in a very dynamic way in intercultural practice in the remote far north of Western Australia. (This is in) which is a process, you know, comes from Bausch, and from working with a task based process where the dancers are working with their own embodiment, their own stories, their own memories, and physicalities, and we work with a Flemish process that has a German history in a remote community and that produces a very specific aesthetic. It's quite raw and rough, and it has a very kind of… Individual type language to it. The dancers will create their own material. It has quite a poetic aesthetic. So, I think that it's important to keep our ideas about aesthetics in community cultural development practice very open and very dynamic and provoked them and bring in outside influences and work across spaces, as well as deeply in spaces. But that's just Marrugecku’s point of view that's a very specific one but it's a big country.

(1:58:38 – 2:01:49)

LHN Do we have any other burning question or comments?

I think one of the biggest frustrations I had here is that we always think of socially engage work or performances… We understand that we know the kind of research that goes into it in terms of the content and even in terms of the form of the performance or the event itself. I think what is happening here, what I'm hearing is that the research actually extends much further, and much more layered from dramaturgy of architecture to even dramaturgy of consultative voices. Ya? That extends into, like you said, different structures of knowledge, different ways of system beliefs, that go very far different from the original source of the source of the performance itself or the performance maker. This is interesting because then, new ways of researching has to be thought of. It keeps changing because of the kinds of issues that come out and because of the kinds of spaces that come out that then needs to be readjusted. But, the whole engagement with the social has always changed, even though we keep thinking that the social, the public, could be the same target audience, but it's not really. That, for me, what I'm hearing at different levels.

On that note, I'd like to ask you again. (Clapping ensues) We will reconvene again tomorrow at 930, where Charlene will give her keynote, followed by another roundtable, and then we will wrap up with a cross discussion between David and Charlene. Hope to see you again tomorrow. Thank you. 

(2:01:52 – 2:04:00)