Singaporeans find it hard to know their 'original' art

SINGAPORE (JP): Like in other countries with diverse populations, Singaporeans sometimes find it difficult to identify their "original" art.

Located in a region referred to as a crossroads between East and West, life here is flavored by the many ethnicities making up the country's inhabitants: Chinese, Malay, Indian, Eurasian and others. Business expatriates from various countries also add to the variety.

Christine KHOR Seok Kee from the Singapore Tourist Board says Singapore is like "a melting pot" -- an easy term to describe the mixture of people here, regardless of whether the cultures really blend.

She says visitors to the small island state "can get a taste of arts originating from Asia to Australia, from Europe to Africa or America."

These different cultures have intertwined and colored what is now referred to as Singaporean art, she says.

Some artists are not quite content with such a view and are still searching for the country's "original" art.

Art centers like the Necessary Stage theater company, the Substation multi-arts center, the Stamford Chinese language theater and dance company and the Telok Ayer performing arts center play an active role in what they see as a never-ending search.

T. Sasitharan, Substation's artistic director, and Alvin Tan, Necessary Stage's artistic director, are among those who stress this search in their work.

"We should search for our own culture. At the moment I don't think there's a really distinct (thing) which you can call Singapore art... People are looking for something which they can call theirs. For me the most exciting thing is in the search itself," Sasitharan says.

Such a search is one of Substation's goals, he says.

"We are encouraging a wide variety of artists to search, to experiment, to find something which they can keep as their own."

Substation, established in 1990, is the brainchild of playwright-dramatist Kuo Pao Kun. Sasitharan describes the center as a home for artists and art lovers to explore and express themselves.

The center has an art gallery, a 120-seat theater, a dance studio and a garden courtyard for performances, all contained in a compact three-story building.

"It's a place dedicated to the research, interaction and practice for the creation of an original, indigenous voice for Singapore's arts and culture," says Sasitharan.

The center plays host to a variety of arts, from local playwright talks to storytelling, from Chinese traditional puppet shows to techno-theater performances.

The center also offers courses, including in Chinese calligraphy, yoga and film appreciation.

Hundreds of exhibitions, theater and dance performances, courses, talks and workshops and interdisciplinary events have been held at the center since its establishment.

Alvin Tan, founder of Necessary Stage, says it is difficult to define Singaporean art because the term is too general.

"If I describe the arts, it would not do justice to the plural dimensions of what is currently developing."

The company's main objective, he says, is the development of a Singapore theater that reflects Singaporean voices, needs, ideas, hopes and concerns.

"What I can do is to describe what Singapore theater means to Necessary Stage and how we go about it in our practice."

The company, established in 1987, also focuses on art education and has tried to develop indigenous works under "a multi-dimension of society" in which English has become the common language.

"Basically, we go about it collaboratively (with artists from various backgrounds) and are devising a methodology which we have been developing over the past 10 years of our existence. The starting point of our work is local or indigenous," Tan tells The Jakarta Post.

"We believe that the more rigorous we are at drawing from ourselves, given time, the world could recognize both the uniqueness and the universal themes in our works."

The theater's approach is English-based and includes various other languages and dialects in its works. This includes the vernacular use of English here called "Singlish" -- the dialect visitors to Singapore love to take home with them, including on T-shirts.

Tan explains that Singlish includes a colorful intonation, cadences and syntax that surface when Malays, Chinese, Indians, Eurasians and other ethnic groups use English.

"We also explore local idioms, themes, issues and quote from socio-cultural and historical contexts in our work."

Although it has a resident playwright and director, the company works collaboratively with actors from various ethnic and social backgrounds "so that the indigenous essence informs the work," Tan says.

He believes the collaboration helps gain access to various cultural systems and thoughts and also "makes us question our own stands so that other viewpoints can be represented in the work".

Tan says such an approach is an attempt to relate to the heterogeneity of Singaporean society.

"We are in the process of developing a performance vocabulary in which nonliterary elements like visuals, audio and performance become privileged and considered as important as the word." (ind)