Body Text
Why is a project like Desert Blooms needed?
It’s weird how so many of us are going back to the archive and embracing documentary theatre. This year especially, there’s a greater, top down-stimulated interest in history.
For queer people in Singapore, we don’t have enough of a historical narrative. I think a certain one exists among some queer intellectuals, but it hasn’t been mythologised the way, say, Stonewall has. A myth is any narrative that becomes important to the origins of a community, whether it’s King Arthur, or Gilgamesh or LKY.
There is a certain mythologisation of moments, like in the films Tanjong Rhu and Bugis Street. But what I realised as soon as I said I wanted to look at queer theatre from 1985 to 1995, is that this period has got a lot in it. We have the redevelopment of Bugis Street. We have the Marxist Conspiracy. We have Josef Ng. We have the Tanjong Rhu and Rascals incidents.
What I want to show is that the artistic revolution during this period is part of the shift in the national queer consciousness. It’s not just what queer people think of themselves, but it’s the way people in Singapore regard the queer community, waking up to the fact that they exist, developing feelings about them, whether it’s paranoia, disgust, or otherwise. For example, when Mergers and Accusations was advertised, it wasn’t advertised as a queer play. People just turned up and were surprised. The small number of people who could be called a mainstream audience then were suddenly confronted with queerness and given the opportunity to empathise. And it was happening in all four official languages.
I would like there to be a sense of heritage. If you’re queer and if you choose to see yourself as part of the queer community, you should have a Singaporean heritage to look back on. And literature and drama is a part of how this heritage emerged.