T:>Archive is an archive of artworks, processes, research and discourse projects, and curations. This archive includes entries that are commissioned, produced, or managed by T:>Works, as well as those initiated, conceived, or directed by its artistic director Ong Keng Sen.
T:>Archive is an ongoing long-term project. Forty productions are available for perusal in this first phase, with more to come in future phases.
‘Diaspora’ is a sweeping, panoramic performance exploring memory, migration, assimilation and the triumph of the human spirit, an intricate layering of music, video, and live story-telling.
The lives of yesterday’s Chinese rickshaw coolies and today’s construction workers from India is the central theme of TheatreWorks’ ‘Workhorse Afloat’.
‘Retrospective’ is conceived as an exhibition – a choreography of intimate movements and conversations, where visitors and performers experience how we use, consume and produce time.
Excavated from over 40 hours of oral history interviews from the National Archives juxtaposed with seminal texts and plays of Kuo, ‘Goh Lay Kuan & Kuo Pao Kun’ presents an intimate portrait of this pioneering arts couple of Singapore.
Working half way between concert and play, music and theatre, sound and meaning, Manuela Infante, Diego Noguera and Marcela Salinas explore electronic live processing and layering of voices to produce theatrical soundscapes and dispersed narratives about voices.
A 17-metre long ship traverses the hall, suspended. As if emerging from the ocean floor, it unloads hundreds of books sealed in beeswax. This is the imagined vessel steered by Dapunta Hyang Sri Jayanasa, the first Malay king of the 7th century Srivijayan Empire.
‘Because, The Night’ is a non-profit, second-hand bookshop that inhabits 72-13 for six nights, open between 10pm – 4pm; a space built for people who can’t sleep at night, a temporary home for insomniacs.
‘RE/PLAY Dance Edit’ explores the intent and meaning of re-production through bodily repetition of physical movements. The very foundation and meaning of dance is examined, performance as a format is subverted, and a fresh perspective on dance and performance emerges.
‘Incarnation of the Beast’ is a visceral confrontation of one’s most intimate demons, exploring the themes of obsession, ritual and tragedy, emoting sympathy with pleasure, discomfort with inexplicable excitement.
‘Retrospective’ is conceived as an exhibition – a choreography of intimate movements and conversations, where visitors and performers experience how we use, consume and produce time.
The 8th edition of ‘The Flying Circus Project’ focuses on Myanmar artists and contemporary expressions including performance and films, reflecting on the themes of memory, trauma and transition.
Excavated from over 40 hours of oral history interviews from the National Archives juxtaposed with seminal texts and plays of Kuo, ‘Goh Lay Kuan & Kuo Pao Kun’ presents an intimate portrait of this pioneering arts couple of Singapore.
‘Fear Of Writing’ portrays a playwright’s creative handicap – the writer’s block – under intense anxiety and scrutiny, uncovering the existentialism of self-censorship and freedoms in Singapore.
Evolution is at the heart of TheatreWorks, one of Singapore’s longest running theatre companies. For its landmark 25th year, it celebrates the ties that have shaped its journey so far in the ‘Friends’ Season – Tenderness For The Future’.
‘Diaspora’ is a sweeping, panoramic performance exploring memory, migration, assimilation and the triumph of the human spirit, an intricate layering of music, video, and live story-telling.
Inspired by the 1951 film adaptation of Tennessee Williams’s “A Streetcar Named Desire”, ‘Vivien & The Shadows’ is a soul-stimulating post-modern spectacle that melds film/performance, race, gender and sexuality.
In a museum, time is confused. What looks old may be a reproduction, what looks new is actually a stained glass window from 1887. ‘120’ will attempt to recast the National Museum of Singapore as a host of luminescent voices.
New York-based performer Karen Kandel weaves together stories from geishas, maikos (apprentice geishas), clients, their wives, okamisans (mama-sans), offspring of geishas and anthropologists, giving life to the secret world of the geisha.
‘like the cat…’ challenges the parameters of contemporary dance by working with narrative, the grand epic and a personal response of parallel dream universes, the identities of a revered Asian text and the outsider.
For the 2005 Singapore Season, acclaimed artist Ong Keng Sen presents an up-to-the-minute survey of South East Asian contemporary arts at the ICA London.
‘Sandakan Threnody’ tackles one of the most complex and difficult issues of our time: how to think about war and the crimes committed in its name. It uncovers the very different but nonetheless shared wartime experiences of Australia, Japan and Singapore.
Inspired by Gautama Buddha and the musings of travel writer Pico Iyer, ‘The Global Soul’ is a poignant tale of contemporary travellers in urban landscapes pursuing connection and contact.
In ‘Search: Hamlet,’ Singaporean director Ong Keng Sen gathers twenty European and Asian artists in his search for a new Hamlet character belonging to a modern Asian-European culture.
‘The Continuum: Beyond The Killing Fields’ is based on the real life story of seventy-five year old Em Theay, master dancer of royal classical dance in Cambodia, who survived the scourge of the Khmer Rouge.
‘The Continuum: Beyond The Killing Fields’ is based on the real life story of seventy-five year old Em Theay, master dancer of royal classical dance in Cambodia, who survived the scourge of the Khmer Rouge.
Contemporary Asia is the focus of the 2000 edition of the ‘Flying Circus Project’, with the proposition that religious rituals and traditional arts are contemporaneous within their contexts. This contextualisation balances the continued exoticisation of Asia.
‘Desdemona’ is a dreamscape of discovering the She within the He, of discovering the other within the self, of discovering another culture within one’s culture.
A major accident, involving actors from a play entitled “PIE”, occurs on the PIE on National Day. Coincidence or conspiracy?
‘Descendants Of The Eunuch Admiral’ weaves a powerful tale of castration and politics as it tells of ancient Chinese court practices and the legendary eunuch, Admiral Cheng Ho, who was responsible for China’s most extensive maritime expeditions in the 15th century.
Based on Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy, ‘Lear’ is about a young woman who plots to steal the throne and the kingdom from her father.
The lives of yesterday’s Chinese rickshaw coolies and today’s construction workers from India is the central theme of TheatreWorks’ ‘Workhorse Afloat’.
Set in the Suntec City Fountain, ‘Destinies Of Flowers In The Mirror’ is inspired by the Ming Dynasty classic, “Jing Hua Yuan”, and the Holocaust.
‘Six Of The Best’ uncovers the explosive shifts in a group of expatriates and locals on the day of the Michael Fay sentencing in 1994.
In ‘Mortal Sins’, a strange twist of fate brings Jacqueline Atria, newly appointed president of the Singapore Censorship Council and the nation’s moral guardian, and Rosy, striptease queen and star attraction of the seedy Eden nightclub, together.
Using a multitude of art forms including traditional Hokkien glove puppetry, shadow puppetry, Chinese Opera and martial arts, ‘Lao Jiu’ brings to life the clash of East and West cultures, the merging of the old and the new and the breakdown of the family unit.
‘The Lady Of Soul And Her Ultimate ’S’ Machine’ is a political satire about a government which decides that a nation needs more ‘soul’ to make it a more vibrant place.
Three young people – two sisters and a brother – are troubled by fear and guilt, harking back to their past. They decide to return to their childhood home in Kappan Road to encounter the fount of their troubles.
An earthy, comic, vaudevillean play, ‘Ozone’ fuses the traditional street theatre of wayang clowns with modern, vogue designs and futuristic new-age music.
A festival of Singapore plays from the years 1960 to 1990, ‘Retrospective’ is held in recognition of the playwright’s role in the national dramatic fabric.
A double bill directed by Ong Keng Sen, featuring the plays ‘Jackson On A Jaunt’ by Eleanor Wong and ‘As If He Hears’ by Chay Yew.
Set in Singapore in the mid-60s, ‘Beauty World’ is a musical melodrama about the adventures of a small town girl in the big city.
A heave, a tumble, a fond goodbye and our assorted heroes in ‘Army Daze’ are off on their first three-tonner ride down the bumpy path of recruit life.
‘Not Afraid To Remember’ focuses on the internment of Singapore teacher Elizabeth Choy by the Japanese during the Occupation in the 1940s.
‘Be My Sushi Tonight’ is an adaptation of “Goose Pimples”, the English black comedy by Mike Leigh about the steamier side of human nature.
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