Description
Praise for the Book
“This stimulating and thought-provoking book tackles the multiplicity of dramaturgy in Asia, raising questions about what dramaturgs do, and how dramaturgies evolve in relation to context and change. In a cogent and eclectic manner, the combination of texts grapples with diverse modalities of dramaturgical thinking and rethinking, informed by the regional practices of dramaturgs and artists. As we navigate a world that is becoming increasingly complex, this is a rare and significant compilation that everyone, artists especially, must read.”
— Marion F. D’Cruz
Dancer / Choreographer / Producer / Educator
Founder Member of Five Arts Centre (est.1984)
About the Editors
Charlene Rajendran is Co-Director of Asian Dramaturgs’ Network and has worked as dramaturg on interdisciplinary and community arts projects including Kepaten Obor (2022), In the Silence of Your Heart (2018), Both Sides, Now (2013-2018), Ghost Writer (2016), and The Malay Man and His Chinese Father (2016). Publications include Changing Places: Drama Box and the Politics of Space (co-editor, 2022), Performing Southeast Asia: Performance, Politics and the Contemporary (co-editor, 2020), and Excavations, Interrogations, Krishen Jit and Contemporary Malaysian Theatre (co-editor, 2018), academic articles and creative texts. She is an Associate Professor at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
Peter Eckersall teaches in the PhD Program in Theatre and Performance at the Graduate Centre, City University of New York, and is an Honorary Professorial Fellow, University of Melbourne. Eckersall holds a PhD in Japanese Studies and an MA in Asian Studies from Monash University, Australia. His research interests include Japanese performance, dramaturgy and theatre and politics. Recent publications include Okada Toshiki and Japanese Theatre (Editor with Barbara Geilhorn, Andreas Regelsberger, Cody Poulton, 2021), and Curating Dramaturgies (Editor with Bertie Ferdman, 2021). He is currently a member of the research team Towards an Australian Ecological Theatre (Australian Research Council 2021-23). He is dramaturg and cofounder of the Melbourne based performance group Not Yet It’s Difficult.
Daniel Teo is a freelance creative who writes, shoots photos and videos, and designs. He previously worked as a researcher, archivist and documenter at theatre development space Centre 42 for seven years, where he oversaw the development of a Singapore theatre digital archive, and documented theatre-makers and their creation journeys. He has also been an on-and-off theatre critic and arts writer, writing about theatre and the performing arts for publications such as ArtsEquator and Esplanade’s Offstage.
danteohb.com
Chong Gua Khee is a performance-maker, director, dramaturg, and facilitator. Across her work, she seeks to create and hold intimate, playful and porous spaces for bodies to encounter each other. Gua Khee is committed to CITRUS practices, a loose working group she co-founded in 2021, that hopes to deepen conversations around better practices in the arts. Other recent projects include directing dance theatre piece Before You Go (2022), co-directing Tactility Studies: Where Our Lost Things Live (2022) at the National Gallery of Singapore for the Children’s Biennale, and co-curating residency platform Arts-Business x Business-Arts (ABxBA) Residencies (2021-ongoing).
guakhee.com
Nah Dominic is currently a PhD candidate at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, where he is examining student responses to ethically oriented Literature pedagogies in Singapore schools. He previously served as Company Dramaturg of The Second Breakfast Company, having worked on restaging early Singapore theatre plays including The Singapore Trilogy (2021) and The Moon is Less Bright (2018). He has worked with ADN as a rapporteur for several events, including ADN Lab 2018 in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
Ugoran Prasad is a fictionist, dramaturg, and performance scholar. An Artistic Associate of Garasi Performance Institute, Yogyakarta, he has participated in and developed some of the institute’s main works and programmes since the early 2000s. Initiating and co-chairing Majelis Dramaturgi, a dramaturgs’ knowledge exchange network since 2017, he currently leads Akademi AntarRagam, a deschooling programme based on expanded dramaturgy and social practice. He is a PhD candidate in Theater and Performance at the Graduate Center, City University of New York.
About the Contributors
Akanksha Raja is an arts writer and researcher who has penned reviews, artist profiles, critical essays, research papers, production synopses, grant proposals, and social media content. She spent three years as assistant editor for ArtsEquator and is a regular contributor and collaborator with Esplanade’s Offstage, having most recently co-curated Home Grooves, an exhibition about Singapore’s live music venues. She has documented, moderated discussions, and reported on creative and dramaturgical processes for organisations such as Drama Box, Emergency Stairs, The Substation and Singapore Drama Educators Association.
Anuradha Kapur is a theatre-maker and professor. Her theatre work has travelled nationally and internationally and she has taught in universities in India and abroad. Her writings on performance have been widely anthologised and her book, Actors Pilgrims Kings and Gods: The Ramlila at Ramnagar was published by Seagull Books, Calcutta (1993, 2004). She completed her term as Director National School of Drama, New Delhi in 2013, and is presently Visiting Professor at Ambedkar University, Delhi.
Bilqis Hijjas works as a creative producer and critic in contemporary dance, and manages the private arts residency Rimbun Dahan outside Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. She believes in showcasing the diversity of the Malaysian dance community, supporting women to be arts leaders, bringing dance to audiences outside the theatre, and encouraging everyone to develop a critical voice.
Cheng Nien Yuan is a Singaporean performance scholar and dramaturg. She is presently a Faculty Early Career Award Fellow at the Singapore University of Technology and Design. She obtained her PhD in Theatre and Performance Studies from the University of Sydney in 2020. Her work explores the politics and poetics of storytelling in the digital age, intercultural theatre, and oral histories in/as performance.
cheng-nienyuan.com
Corrie Tan is a researcher, facilitator, dramaturg and critic from Singapore. She works at the intersection of care ethics, collaborative performance practices, and new articulations of performance criticism in Southeast Asia, and is completing her PhD in Theatre and Performance Studies on the joint programme between King’s College London and the National University of Singapore. She is contributing editor with Southeast Asian arts media platform ArtsEquator and assistant editor with independent academic collective AcademiaSG.
corrie-tan.com
David Pledger is a conceptual, media and performance artist, and a curator, writer and futurist who operates at the intersection of art, technology and science, and explores their relationships with society and culture. His ideas-led practice builds artworks and public events of scale. His works are notable for engaging publics in productive and provocative ways. Pledger is founding Artistic Director of not yet it’s difficult (NYID), one of Australia’s seminal interdisciplinary arts outfits.
davidpledger.com
Gee Imaan Semmalar is an activist, scholar, theatre artist and filmmaker, who uses art as a tool to explore identity, history, citizenship, caste and political action. He completed his postgraduate studies in Arts and Aesthetics from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and is currently working on a trans legal history project as part of his doctoral dissertation at the Kent Law School, U.K. He co-founded Panmai Theatre group along with Living Smile Vidya and Angel Glady in 2014.
Guy Cools is a Belgian dance dramaturg. He has worked as a dance critic and curator. He now dedicates himself to production dramaturgy and research/writing. His recent publications include In-between Dance Cultures (2015), Imaginative Bodies (2016) and Performing Mourning (2021). From December 2022, he is full-time professor in the dance department of UQAM-Montreal.
Huang Suhuai is a visual artist and graphic designer based in Singapore. She graduated from Lasalle College of the Arts with a bachelor in Fine Arts. In 2020, she received the International Takifuji Art Award from the Japan Traffic Culture Association. Suhuai is also into literature and theatre. She has written and translated more than ten theatre plays, including plays for young audiences.
huangsuhuai.com
Hiromi Maruoka is President of the Japan Center, Pacific Basin Arts Communication (PARC) and Director of the Yokohama International Performing Arts Meeting (YPAM, formerly TPAM). In these roles, she provides opportunities to connect people with people, and people with places, both in Japan and overseas. She is Vice President of the Open Network for Performing Arts Management (ON-PAM) and also one of the founders.
Jae Lee Kim is a dramaturg, researcher and curator based in Korea. She worked as a dramaturg of Korea National Contemporary Dance Company from 2013 to 2014. She is a lecturer at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul and the co-editor of the Society of Dance Documentation and History. She currently works in the contemporary performing arts and visual arts as an independent dramaturg, and is a member of Tangerine Collective.
Janet Pillai is an Independent Consultant and Resource Person advocating for cultural sustainability. Her fields of research and specialisation include arts education, cultural heritage education and cultural mapping. Pillai’s early career as a young people’s theatre director was focused on collaborative and integrated arts processes. More recently she concentrates on research and programming for socially-engaged arts initiatives in partnership or consultation with community, local agencies, institutions, and professionals. Pillai also conducts capacity-building training for planners, cultural workers and agencies seeking to understand, engage with or co-create with community.
Janice Poon is a Senior Lecturer and Discipline Leader in Playwriting and Dramaturgy and Academic Project Officer in the School of Drama at The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts (HKAPA). She inaugurated, develops and teaches both the MFA and BFA major programme in Dramaturgy at the HKAPA. She is also the Artistic Director of Hong Kong Dramatists and a veteran theatre artist and cultural practitioner engaged in cross disciplinary and cross cultural dramaturgy, playwriting, directing, curating and theatre-making.
Jean Tay has written more than 20 plays and musicals, which have been performed in Singapore, the US, the UK, and Italy. She is also an adjunct lecturer for playwriting at Nanyang Technological University. She is the founding Artistic Director of Saga Seed Theatre, set up in 2015 to bring Singaporean stories to the stage, and provide a platform to showcase and nurture local talent.
Jo Kukathas is an actor, writer, dramaturg and director. She is one of the founders of The Instant Café Theatre Company in Malaysia, best known for its political satire, its FIRSTWoRKS new play programme, and theatre reflecting Malaysia’s diverse ethnic, linguistic, religious, migratory composition. Kukathas has run arts spaces, produced/curated festivals, staged productions, and toured/worked/collaborated in Singapore, Brazil, Taiwan, Japan, Australia, and Indonesia.
Ken Takiguchi is a theatre manager of Setagaya Public Theatre in Tokyo and a part-time lecturer at Tokyo University of the Arts. Formerly a research fellow at National University of Singapore (NUS), he obtained his PhD from NUS specialising in theatre translation, intercultural theatre and cultural policy. Ken also works as a dramaturg, translator and producer.
Lim How Ngean is a Malaysian-born dramaturg, curator and producer. He has dramaturged contemporary dance performances in Singapore, Cambodia, Thailand, Japan, Indonesia and Australia. In 2016, he founded Asian Dramaturgs’ Network. He worked on a transnational curatorial project called Jejak-Tabi that presented Asian contemporary performers in Asian cities (2016-2018).
Linda Mayasari is Director at Cemeti — Institute for Art and Society, where she has worked since 2010, as well as a member of the associate curator for the Indonesia Dance Festival. She completed her Masters programme in Cultural Studies at Sanata Dharma University. Her personal research explores the intersections of art, politics and post colonialism in Indonesia.
Andayani is a translator and interpreter working between Indonesian and English. Since 2007, she has translated numerous books, essays, poems, articles, speeches, documents, academic papers, reports, interviews etc., for publishers, journals, newspapers, magazines, governmental institutions, NGOs, and other organisations in many countries.
Ma Yanling is a performer and arts manager based in Singapore. She is the Company Manager at Centre 42, where she has worked since 2014, steering and producing many of its artist residencies and platforms for new writing and dramaturgy development. She continues to lead the administration and facilitation of the Asian Dramaturgs’ Network’s operations. As a contemporary dance performer, she has most recently co-created Remotes X Quantum commissioned by the Singapore International Festival of Arts in 2022.
Martyn Coutts creates public artworks which challenge understandings of space and place. Using performance, technology and interactivity, he constructs specialised dramaturgy that engages and enlightens. Martyn is a founding member of artist collective Field Theory, which was named Cultural Leaders in Live Art by the Australia Council in 2012. His PhD dissertation looks at the visual media used in Asian social movements.
Nanako Nakajima is a scholar and dance dramaturg based in Japan. She was Valeska Gert Visiting Professor 2019/20 at Freie Universität, Berlin, and a faculty member at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Canada in 2022. Her projects include Dance Archive Boxes at TPAM 2016, Yvonne Rainer Performative Exhibition (Kyoto), and Wang Mengfan’s piece with retired ballet dancers (China). Nanako received the Special Commendation of the Elliott Hayes Award in 2017 for Outstanding Achievement in Dramaturgy from the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas. Publications include Dance Dramaturgy (2015) and The Aging Body in Dance (2017).
www.dancedramaturgy.org
Ness Roque is an actor and dramaturg. Her practice is anchored by inquiries into transdisciplinary, feminist, and decolonial practices in theatre, contemporary performance, and education. She is part of Salikhain Kolektib, a collective of artists and researchers that use art and science in community-based projects. Salikhain recently participated in documenta fifteen held in Kassel, Germany, as part of the GUDSKUL Collective Studies programme.
nessroque.com
Robin Loon is an Associate Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies at the National University of Singapore. He is a practicing Dramaturg, Educator and Researcher. His research interests include Singapore Theatre, Theatre and Gender, and Theatre and Media. He is also a co- founder of Centre 42 and a co-director of the Asian Dramaturgs’ Network.
Rustom Bharucha is a writer, cultural critic, and dramaturg based in Kolkata, India. He trained as a dramaturg in the first batch of dramaturgy students at the Yale School of Drama, where he also completed a Doctor of Fine Arts. He was Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies at the School of Arts and Aesthetics in Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India from 2012 till 2018. He is the author of several books including Theatre and the World, The Politics of Cultural Practice, Terror and Performance and The Second Wave: Reflections on the Pandemic through Photography, Performance and Public Culture.
Shinta Febriany is the artistic director of Kala Teater in Makassar, Indonesia. For her dedication to theatre, she received the Celebes Award from the South Sulawesi government in 2007. In her work as a theatre director, playwright and poet, she is known to challenge gender stereotypes by exploring corporeality and contemporary urban conditions. Shinta is the head of Perkumpulan Nasional Teater Indonesia (The National Association of Indonesian Theatre).
Su Wen-Chi is a choreographer and new media artist who lives and works in Taiwan. She founded YiLab in 2005, an experimental group of new media and performance artists which integrates new technology with the performing arts, and creates new performing formats. Wen-Chi’s works have been presented internationally, including Asian Arts Theatre (South Korea), SCOPITONE (France) and Performance Space (Australia).
suwenchi.com
Tadashi Uchino received his MA in American Literature (1984) and PhD in Performance Studies (2002), both from the University of Tokyo. He was a professor at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (1992-2017) and received the title of professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo (2019). He is currently a professor at the Department of Japanese Studies, Faculty of Intercultural Studies, Gakushuin Women’s College. His publications include The Melodramatic Revenge (1996), From Melodrama to Performance (2001), Crucible Bodies (2009) and The Location of J Theatre (2016). Uchino has served in many Japanese academic societies, and is currently a contributing editor for TDR (Cambridge UP).
ZIHAN LOO is an educator and artist working in performance, dance, theatre and the visual arts. He received the Young Artist Award from the National Arts Council, Singapore in 2015 and won Best Multimedia Design at the 2017 M1-The Straits Times Life! Theatre Awards for his work on The Necessary Stage and Drama Box’s Manifesto. He is currently pursuing a PhD in performance studies at the University of California, Berkeley. loozihan.com
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