Questioning the relationship between consumption and exchange: Theatreworks' flying circus project, December 2000

Positions

Volumn 12, Issue 2, 2004, Pages 565-586

  Grehan, Helena ^a  

^a MURDOCH UNIVERSITY   (Australia)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 60949784240     PISSN: 10679847     EISSN: 15278271     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1215/10679847-12-2-565     Document Type: Article

References (39)

1. TheatreWorks is an international performance company based in Singapore. It was established in 1985. According to its Web site, "TheatreWorks has become known in Asia for its reinvention of traditional performance through a juxtaposition of cultures. . . . Under the artistic Directorship of Ong Keng Sen, TheatreWorks' concerns go beyond that of Singapore. It sees a strong synergy between nationalism and internationalism. . . . With this philosophy, TheatreWorks has performed in the cultural capitals of Asia and Europe since 1992 in major festivals and cultural institutions." See www.theatreworks.org.sg
2. Flier for the FCP produced by TheatreWorks, Singapore (2000)
3. Program notes for Desdemona at the Telstra Adelaide Festival (1999) 13
4. See Rustom Bharucha, "Consumed in Singapore: The Intercultural Spectacle of Lear," Centre for Advanced Studies research paper no. 21 (Singapore: National University of Singapore, 2000), 4
5. C. J. W.-L. Wee, "The 'New Asian' Modern in the Theatre: Cultural Fragments, the Singaporean Eunuch, and the Asian Lear," Centre for Advanced Studies research paper no. 29 (Singapore: National University of Singapore, 2001)
6. and Lee Weng Choy, "Ong Keng Sen's Lear and the Appropriate 'New Asia,'" Substance (Singapore: Substation, 1999)
7. In fact Ong sees Asian ritual as "a contemporaneous expression." TheatreWorks flier
8. Julie Holledge and Joanne Tompkins, Women's Intercultural Performance (London: Routledge, 2000), 182
9. Because there were many different languages spoken, translators were present at all times so that (relatively) smooth communication between participants was possible
10. Program notes for Desdemona, 13
11. This does not mean that there are constraints placed on what can be written about Ong's work. In fact scholars such as Rustom Bharucha, Jenny de Reuck, and I have critically engaged with Ong's work (in response to attending rehearsals and workshops) and are still invited to attend and respond to his projects. For more information, see Bharucha, "Consumed in Singapore"; Jenny de Reuck, "'The Mirror Shattered into Tiny Pieces': Reading Gender and Culture in the Japan Foundation Asia Center's Lear," Intersections: Online Asian Studies Journal 3.6 (2000), www.sshe.murdoch.edu.au/intersections/ issue3/jenny3.html
12. Helena Grehan, "TheatreWorks' Desdemona: Fusing Technology and Tradition," TDR 4.3 (2001): 113-25; see 115 for further discussion on the "new language" interculturalism needs
13. The FCP was an intense process. Artists arrived at Fort Canning Park (TheatreWorks' headquarters) each morning at around 8:30; they ate all meals on site and spent their days attending a range of intensive workshops, discussions, and improvisation sessions. The day finished anytime between 8:00 and 11:00 p.m
14. It must be noted that this division is arbitrary and serves only to provide some sense of the framework within which the workshop operated
15. Some of these rituals were open to the public and were advertised in the local media as part of the FCP's public outreach program
16. The Lamas attended the FCP for the first part of the process, with the Naxis attending for the latter part of the workshop. I attended the workshop December 11-21, and my analysis is based on my experiences during that period
17. This material was printed in the flier
18. Professor Krishen Jit is a key theater director and academic from Malaysia who worked with Ong Keng Sen in organizing and running the FCP
19. The principal funding for the FCP 2000 came from the following organizations: Ford Foundation, National Arts Council, Asian Cultural Council, and Philip Morris Group of Companies
20. Bharucha, "Consumed in Singapore," 4
21. For more information on this, see the Singaporean Government's Renaissance City Report (1999), Ministry for Information and the Arts, www.gov.sg/mita
22. Paul Rae, "Rates of Exchange: The Flying Circus Project in the Context of the Knowledge Economy" (paper presented at the International Federation for Theatre Research [FIRT] Conference, Sydney, July 12-15, 2001), 5. The quotation that Rae is referring to here comes from the Renaissance City Report (see above)
23. In terms of the structure and work practices of the FCP, there were no evident constraints from sponsors. However, the fact that the FCP attracted large amounts of funding does add to Ong's reputation and cultural capital. Perhaps it was as a result of the success of the FCP that he was invited to act as the curator for the In Transit project at the House of World Cultures in Berlin, 2002 (see n. 41 below)
24. Bharucha, "Consumed in Singapore," 10
25. T. Sasitharan, "Kuo Pao Kun and the Theatre of Tensions," in Images at the Margins: A Collection of Kuo Pao Kun's Plays (Singapore: Time Books International, 2000), 13
26. Kuo, cited in Bharucha, "Consumed in Singapore," 13
27. C. J. W.-L. Wee, "From Universal to Local Culture: The State, Ethnic Identity, and Capitalism in Singapore," in Local Cultures and the "New Asia": The State, Culture, and Capitalism in Southeast Asia, ed. Wee (Singapore: ISEAS, 2002), 130
28. Bharucha, "Consumed in Singapore," 13
29. It must be pointed out here that while the FCP was not set up to lead directly to a performance, some of the practitioners were involved in the TheatreWorks production The Continuum: Beyond the Killing Fields, which premiered in Singapore in October 2001
30. This is material I recorded in my notes
31. Rae, "Rates of Exchange." Rae attended the workshop as a participant and observer of the process, and his paper was written in response to this experience
32. Paul Dwyer raised this point in response to a paper I presented on Ong's work at the FIRT conference in Sydney, 2001
33. From my notes
34. Interview, Adelaide, 1999
35. I am grateful to Hans-Willem van Hall for pushing this point
36. Bharucha, "Consumed in Singapore," 47
37. Arts Network Asia was established in 1999 by Ong with the support of the Ford Foundation. See www.theatreworks.org.sg
38. This statement was made in Ong's interview with Schwerin von Krosigk and published on the Web site for the In Transit project, www.in-transit.de/ index_fl.htm. This is an in-depth and interesting interview in which Ong talks about his approach to intercultural projects. Ong curated the In Transit cultural exchange festival/project from May 30 to June 15, 2002. The focus of this project was to interrogate the politics of translation and the translation of ritual into performance, and in this regard it can be seen as an extension of Ong's work on interculturalism commenced in the Flying Circus Projects
39. Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987)