The May-June 2011 edition of the Singapore Arts Festival has proved that Arts' festivals can be much more than just being another event on the arts' calendar of a city. Festivals are in constant danger of becoming too big, too impersonal, and effectively overrated. For all the wonderful things that Festivals may have to bring together under one roof, they are also an intense lesson for their organisers in managing logistics. In such circumstances, the festival's director needs to have a much defined vision, onerous as the task is. Low Kee Hong, General Manager of the Singapore Arts Festival is one such man. Under his leadership, the 34 year old Singapore Arts Festival, promoted by the National Arts Council in Singapore, is looking up and looking ahead. Going by Kee Hong's youthful perseverance and sensitive vision, its future appears to be bright.
Deepa Punjani
It is said that the Singapore Arts Festival has entered a new phase since you took up its management in 2010, and that the festival has become more people focussed by moving beyond individual shows. What was your vision behind doing so?
I took over the festival in October 2009, and went straight to preparing for the 2010-2012 trilogy Festivals that started with the first installment "Between You and Me." From a broader perspective, the Festival's vision as part of the National Arts Council was to make the Arts an integral part of people's lives in Singapore. The Festival, specifically, was therefore a way in which we work towards that broader vision, to play a critical role in raising awareness of contemporary issues, provoking thought and opening up avenues for discourse.
For example, the focus on commissioning works in the Festival helps with the overall development of the Arts, where a strong body of creative content from this part of the world is built, and where talents are discovered and groomed. As a platform, Singapore artistes are also connected to the International arts' scene through the Singapore Arts Festival, thus helping them to tap into more opportunities for artistic and professional development, and also paving the way for collaborative works.
For me, I come from a very simple persuasion. If Singaporeans don't want the Festival we will stop doing it. Shifting the Festival to become more people focussed is about raising the sense of ownership for this National level arts' event. It is also about the Festival having a responsibility to fulfill and a gap to fill. Looking at the current arts' calendar in Singapore, we already have many big names and famous productions such as 'The Lion King' by Disney being brought in by organisations such as the Marina Bay Sands. The Esplanade - Theatres on the Bay organises close to 17 genre festivals in a year. Understanding this landscape, the Festival needed to re-examine its role and see if there really is a need to replicate that by bringing in the so-called "big names."
To me, there is no need for that, especially for a Singapore that is as globalised and modern as it is today. The Festival now fills a gap that exists currently in the arts and culture landscape here in Singapore, and that is to create a platform for the people to engage with the arts and also for artistes to become attuned to the creative processes and the perspective of art making in Asia. The Festival should not be another platform where people go through the motions of buying tickets, sit and watch, clap and then go home with no resonance whatsoever. We want the Festival to be the place where discussion and thinking about the arts starts - that is why the productions also have a post-show dialogue, and that is why we have com.mune, our year-long participation and outreach programme for people to engage with the arts in their own way.
I was very impressed with the festival programming, and the number of things you have focussed on to involve the residents of Singapore, including children. What challenges did you face? Are you happy with the outcome?
It has not been easy, with so many things going on at the same time in a small country like Singapore. For example, we had the General Elections right before the commencement of the Festival this year. Also, there are more distractions out there, fighting for the attention of the individual. Singaporeans are so used to multi-tasking, and their attention span is getting shorter as well, and they have no patience to sit through a 1-hour production without looking at their iPhones. The general model of arts consumption here in Singapore also posed a challenge for us, where people buy a ticket, watch, clap, go home, and the cycle repeats, with the Arts having no resonance at all, in their daily lives.
Then again, it is precisely because of the challenges listed above which has led to the direction of the Festival today. For example, we created two pillars for last year's Festival - a Creation and People's Festival. And yes, I am happy with the outcome because I've seen people who do not usually engage with the Arts, come to the Festival this year, especially the younger and older folks. This year's programming has resonated strongly with many people.
Throughout the course of the Festival and even beyond that, I have had artistes, volunteers and strangers coming up to me to share their experiences of how the Festival had connected with them personally. It is this intimate level of engagement with each individual that the Festival is interested in establishing through its curated content. The Festival would have met its goal of reaching out to the public by instilling in them a greater consciousness of, and curiosity in the artistic process behind each production, and the desire as well as the initiative to participate in the Arts.
For example, there was an old lady who went for a production called WHEN IT FADES by local production company T.H.E Dance Company, and it was a contemporary dance performance. But there was a Hainanese lady who sang Hainanese folk songs as part of the performance. Hainanese, a form of dialect from China, has more or less disappeared from the Singapore culture. And this old lady shared during the post-show dialogue, saying that she knew nothing about contemporary dance, even after the performance, but that she was grateful for the Festival for thinking of her.
There is another example of Low Wong Fook, a director at Singapore Polytechnic International in his 60s, who stood in the rain for an hour listening to the broadcast of local cable radio station, Rediffusion's Lei Dai Sor at the Festival Village. The stories told in a variety of Chinese dialects transported him back to his childhood, where the master storyteller held court in many Singaporean households, something which has also disappeared from Singapore's art landscape. These are the people that the Festival wants to engage with, and in that sense, we have succeeded.
Some works such as the Indian contemporary dancer, Padmini Chettur's BEAUTIFUL THING 2 were specially commissioned for the festival. How do you choose the artistes you want to commission? And, how do you go about selecting the various other performances for the festival's programme?
Everything in the Festival, right from the curatorial direction and theme, to the individual productions, is all based on discussions, debates, conversations and engagements that I have with the various artistes that I am either in contact with, have researched about, or interested in. And for me, I don't particularly curate based on geographical locations, such as a certain number from Europe, a certain number from the United States, and so on. For me, it all begins with one simple question, even for the commissioned productions - "What are you curious about?" From that conversation, I determine if the artiste's investigation is relevant and fit to what we are also trying to investigate here from our perspectives as Singaporeans living in Singapore and in this part of Asia. Asia as a continent is undergoing rapid developments, and also, it has become an important focal point for artistic discussions to take place because Asia's development stems from our own experience, and is one that is unique to us. Therefore, the Festival is Asian-focused because of the relevance to what we want to look into, and also because we want to develop Singapore as a platform for the region through this Festival.
I first met Padmini a few years back when she was working on a workshop project in Singapore. I was immediately drawn to her creative methodology and her investigations on the limits of the body. Personally I have always admired the work of Chandralekha, Padmini's teacher and the pioneer spearheading a contemporary re-invention of Bharatanatyam. I was curious to see where the next generation will take this. This led to a discussion about a possible commission for the Festival this year.
You have envisioned 2010-2012 as a trilogy, and are planning ahead another phase of the festival from 2013-2016. Can you elaborate on that?
Before I answer this question, let me just clarify that I don't have a particular fixation with trilogies, and if one, two or even four, festivals are required to create a certain curatorial thread and direction, that works for me too. The reason why we've done it in a set of three is also not because we think that at the end of three years, we can find an answer to what we're looking for. It is because I feel that the theme cannot be investigated simply in one or two years, and the interactions with the audience, if limited to that amount of time, would not give us sufficient time to evoke in them a certain understanding of themselves.
We've also increased the length of time taken to commission works to about two years instead of the usual 3 to 8 months so that there is enough time to delve deeper into a particular piece. As such, we hope that three years is a good length of time to conduct this investigation that gets deeper and more intense with each passing year. Next year, to complete this trilogy, we will see ourselves working with some of the artistes we've worked with for this installment so that we can continue some of the discussions started this year.
In terms of participation, we've seen how the Festival's year-long public participation programme, com.mune, allows people from the community to engage with the Arts directly. We've also seen how commissioned works like 'Mobile Karaoke' allowed people from the community to engage in the projects directly, and public participation and engagement is something that we will take to a totally different level next year, as people from the community will be directly involved in the productions themselves.
As for the next lot for 2013 to 2015, we are still in the midst of formulating our thoughts as we continue these discussions with artistes. What is emerging is perhaps a way of encountering the body. Something that is immediately familiar yet strange. I won't and can't say much now, but it seems we are creating a bookend to the first trilogy.
This year's theme has been about memory. Next year's curatorial theme is 'Our Lost Poems', which plays on the Taiwanese word for myth. One of the things that have stayed with me since we spoke is about how you wish to get young Singaporeans to be more sensitive about history and cultures. Is the 2010-2012 trilogy driven by this desire?
Just to provide a bit of context, last year's edition was 'Between You and Me' and for this year, the 34th edition, the theme was 'I Want to Remember', and yes, next year's curatorial theme is 'Our Lost Poems.' The broad statement completes the trilogy that we initially set out to do in 2009, with each year a deeper and more intense investigation and journey of self-discovery. Within each instalment of the trilogy, the statements made, guide the direction in which the investigation of our sense of place in time is moving towards.
For the 2011 theme, I would like to say that this was not about nostalgia or about remembering the past in the romantic sense. However, it was, for us, all about excavating memories, histories and even cultures that provide us with a reference point so that we may anchor ourselves first before we move on or continue to advance and develop.
The condition of erasure and forgetting is a common condition, and it does not apply to just Singapore, but also to a lot of Asian cities that are experiencing a lot of change. That investigation necessitates looking at parts of our history and parts of our memory that perhaps for the younger generation, there is no capacity to remember. For example, when I have conversations with someone just five to ten years younger than I am, and when I mention a particular building or an event that I grew up with, they have no idea what I'm talking about. For the Festival this year, this was something that we wanted to investigate.
Through the completion of this trilogy, and with the next installment, we want to evoke the individual as well as society's capacity for constant invention, creating or perhaps illuminating new meanings previously hidden or lost; to see that there are so many different approaches to reaching an understanding of ourselves and relating to the world around us. By excavating ancient stories - legends, myths, folklore, teachings that have been passed down from generations - we are provided with clues to unlock the past and shed new light on our present and the future.
You have the great advantage of bringing to your job a set of skills- that of a performer, director, scholar and arts manager. But is there any one particular thing that you are most inclined towards? Do you for instance miss being a performer given the demanding commitment of being the general manager of a big festival?
Hmmm from time to time I do miss directing. Performing not so much unless it is a very compelling project that someone thinks I am most suited for. But I have to say that being the director of the Arts Festival allows me to combine all my skill sets into one role. It's never a dull moment for me and I consider myself very lucky. Now, if I happen to squeeze some spare time and I am itching to create directly as an artiste, I tend to look toward lighting and set design. You leave the overall vision of the piece to the director and I bring to the table something that compliments. Less stressful that way and perhaps something more manageable time wise.
It is said that the Singapore Arts Festival has entered a new phase since you took up its management in 2010, and that the festival has become more people focussed by moving beyond individual shows. What was your vision behind doing so? 
You have envisioned 2010-2012 as a trilogy, and are planning ahead another phase of the festival from 2013-2016. Can you elaborate on that? 
