JOURNALS | diasporatheatrearts

ARTICLES

Exporting Local to the Global: Excavating and Dramatizing Local Narratives for a Global Audience

From currencies to commodities! trade to tourism! music to movies! itseems no one is untouched by the waves of globalization lapping againstlocal shores. Is it a new chapter in the history of man's civilization or has it been around in an earlier entry called *colonial imperialism" ,as it also affected the modern world of the 20th and 21st centuries? Is the impact positive? Is it unstoppable? The process of globalization has become a buzz word of our time! dominating so much of our economic! political and cultural life in the world today that it is impossible to ignore it in the theatre arts.

I Not Stupid, I Can Dance! Exploring Kinesthetic and Musical Intelligence in Youths-at-Risks at Northlight School, Singapore.

Despite the development and achievement in educational research in recent years, most notably in the field of multiple intelligences (MI) spearheaded by Howard Gardner, many schools and institutions are still stuck with old-school teaching practices and testing methods. The perpetuation of traditional, literacy-based, syndicates like the General Cambridge Examination in all government schools in Singapore, implies that only a very narrow band of the MI spectrum is being tested, resulting in many students being branded as "slow" learners. Singapore has one of the most stratified, competitive and stressful education systems in the world.

Don’t Cross the Line!” - A Journey Negotiating Ethical, Social and Political Boundaries as an Artist Working with People with Disabilities in Fringe Communities.

Through a retrospective examination of my various collaborations with charities, Non-Government Organizations, schools and special interest groups, I aim to interrogate my interactions and artistic processes working with people with disabilities and the agencies and institutions that are set up to serve their interests. I will trace and describe my experiences working as a theatre practitioner, highlighting the significant performances that have informed and shaped my work in the field of disability art. From my initiation effort “Rippling Earth, Moving Sky” commissioned by Very Special Arts Singapore and presented at the 4th Abilympics in Perth, Australia, 1995; to my latest play “Bringing Up Ben” selected by the Singapore Drama Educators Association and presented at the Theatre Arts Conference 2013, Singapore, the spectrum of communities I have worked with includes the hearing-impaired, the visually-impaired, people with physical disability, youths with intellectual disability, people with down syndrome and individuals with autism. The discussion of these community art practices will be framed within established scholarship in the fields of disability studies, disability aesthetics, embodied ethics and the government of disability. This reflexive introspection and theoretical analysis are intended to produce praxis in my future community art practices that are guided by a set of principles that respect the person’s rights to accessibility, autonomy, inclusiveness and integration.

Adapting Journalistic Writings for a Drama cum Scriptwriting Class to preserve the Collective Memory of the Chinese Diaspora

Singapore is a multi-racial country made up of ethnic groups of Chinese, Malay, Indian and Eurasian origins. The Chinese forms the majority group with about 75% of the population. Most of them are descendants of migrants from the southern Chinese provinces of Fujian and Guangzhou who fled their villages in early 20th century to escape war and poverty. Today, most of the Chinese here are first, second or third generation Singaporeans who identify more with the young city state rather than the ancient culture of mainland China. Yet, just a generation ago, many Chinese here referred to their native country as their motherland and visiting China was referred to as “Dui Deng Suan”, a Fujian dialect expression that literally means “returning to the land of the Tang Dynasty”. Most Chinese Singaporeans have only a faint memory of their Diaspora history where their ancestors migrated here as economic refugees to this tiny British outpost that has grown into the prosperous nation that it is today.