#1 Saturday 2 October, 8pm: b-quartet + mux (pictured left)
The Substation Theatre
Admission: $15 & $10 (students), available from The Substation – phone: 6337 7535 or email mishaal@substation.org
Presented by The Substation
Read below for the bios of the bands.

MUX – Associate Artists of The Substation
mux is a collective formed by bani haykal, luqman hakim and siraaj anwar; out to experiment and devise new performances weaving sound design, music and text.

mux’s approach to performance deals greatly with the coexistence of lateral storytelling and layered, yet minimal, sound and music compositions. the stories they tell incorporates stream of consciousness, almost always resulting the text to become more of an ambient than a direction leading towards an end. their interest in discovering new methods to deliver the crux of a given piece has resulted the trio to explore further into film soundtrack, sound design and live foley.

the collective works extensively with guitar pedals, phrase recorders, microphones and various appliances and props to generate live sound samples. aside from sound ambient, their music works are written and arranged to allow the trio room to intensify the songs, complimenting the nature of the text and its delivery.

within the collective, bani haykal writes and experiments with prose / monologues / poetry / screenplays, often exploring the bleak nature of existence intertwined with fictitious backstories and characters. luqman hakim is a musician, guitarist and songwriter for his band Tinkerbell’s Open Cascade. in mux, luqman performs the main musical compositions, arranging the pieces to offer fluctuating temperament accordingly. siraaj anwar is a sound effects manipulator whose array of props includes an electric shaver, a glockenspiel and wind chimes, creating textures of the performance. aside from doing sound effects, siraaj plays bass for local rock band, Page.

B-QUARTET

Since late 1999, B-Quartet has been wandering. The band disregards genres and conventions in search for the proper musical language to express the ideals which they hold dear to their hearts. The language conveyed isn’t about being unconventional but about challenging conventions varying from songwriting to delivery.

Being winners of the 2002 Yamaha Asian Beat band competition, B-Quartet is made up of two pairs of brothers who happen to be cousins as well. They blend funk, jazz, metal and progressive rock into a blindingly tight set, reflecting their eclectic tastes in music. Playing with a telepathic ability, their technical prowess on their instruments and their exquisite vocal harmonies have enchanted and mesmerized audiences, winning them fans everywhere they go.

They have been hailed as one of Singapore’s “most exciting live acts” by The Straits Times Life! music journalist Sujin Thomas in his article on B-Quartet that was published on Friday 6 May 2005.

Editor of online KL-based music site Think.com.my, Chris Chew votes B-Quartet as the best Singapore act for Baybeats 2007, “Expanding to a six-man lineup, B-Quartet’s bipolar collection of jazz-rock tunes haunted their way into total recall, particularly ‘Shoebox’ with its progressive swells and thoroughly gorgeous melody.”

B-Quartet has released 2 records, tomorrow is our permanent address (2008) and conformity has replaced consciousness (2010), both under Aging Youth Records.

Saturday 28 August to Sunday 5 September
The Substation Theatre
Admission: $5 (concession for students, NSF, senior citizens and Friends of The Substation) / $7
For all ticketing enquiries, please call 6337 7535 or 6337 7800
The Box Office opens from 2pm to 8pm (weekdays only) and just before showtime.

Presented by The Substation Moving Images

Check out the website with the full programme and synopses – click here!

The 6th Singapore Short Film Festival is back! Launched in 2001 by The Substation Moving Images, the festival aims to champion the short film format, increase its profile and encourage Singapore filmmakers to expand their horizons through exposure to international and Southeast Asian shorts.

This year’s highlights include Young Love, a collection of films exploring the butterflies in the stomach to the gut wrenching anguish of heartbreak; Horizons, films transcending the usual borders of space, nature and time; and The Kids Aren’t Alright, films that speak of the psyche behind children, adolescents and youths of today. Also included is the S-Express traveling short film series, featuring works by Asian film talents from around the region. Featuring S-Express Singapore, S-Express Thailand, curated by Sanchai Cotirosseranee (Thai Short Film and Video Festival) and S-Express Philippines, curated by Francis Cruz, Dodo Dayao, Richard Bolisay (curators / film bloggers). The Philippines segment will be paying tribute to the late Alexis Tioseco, previous S-Express Philippines curator, and his partner Nika Bohinc, who passed away last year.

Download the full programme line-up here!

PU is a double bill play name Outsiders and Hanuman.

OUTSIDERS: The play starts off with a brawl among unknown strangers outside a club due to unforeseen circumstances. They hide in a warehouse nearby where they share their stories to pass their time. Little do they know that they are connected in one way or another as the story unfolds.

HANUMAN: The Awakening: A fictional tale of one of the empowering figures in Hinduism, Hanuman. The play revolves around a Mathan a boxer who finds himself
immersed in a realm of dreams when he is knocked down early in the round of a championship match. He questions reality when he comes face to face with Hanuman, the Lord of Valour who is also known for his loyalty and strength in the Hindu religion. His reality is in question when he is caught between realms of reality and dreams.

For Performance Open Call 2010, The Substation has selected RE:gina is Dead! by Melissa Quek, Elizabeth de Roza and Gilles Massot to be presented at The Substation Theatre.

A dark Theatre. Rustling sounds set the nerves on edge. In the blackness shapes are barely visible, but it feels like paper is everywhere. Somewhere a chalk outline.

Is that Regina? Why is she dead?

That’s up to you to decide in this interactive performance that defies categorisation. Part Installation part performance, the more you act, the more you’ll see.

Thumbprints, artifacts and bodies – images and symbols that point to one thing. You decipher the clues.

Dates: 16, 17, 18 September 2010
Time: 7pm to 7:45pm (First Session), 8:15pm to 9pm (Second Session), 9:30pm to 10:15pm (Third Session)
Matinee on 18 September 2010: 3pm to 3.45pm (First Session), 4.15pm to 5pm (Second Session)
Price: $10 (concession) $15
Maximum: 15 people per session

To get/reserve the tickets, call the Box Office at 6337 7535 (weekdays only from 2pm to 8pm) or email: chris@substation.org

About Performance Open Call 2010

The Open Call programme was first initiated in 2008 as a visual arts platform to support and realise critical and rigorous visual arts proposals. The new Performance Open Call expands upon the current focus of the programme by inviting artists to submit proposals with a strong performance element.

About the Artists

Melissa Quek

After graduating from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Melissa performed with the Ad Deum Contemporary Dance Company in Houston, Texas. Dancing in Kuik Swee Boon’s Silence, she represented Singapore at the 8^th Asian Arts Festival in Beijing and recently performed in the SIDance Festival in Seoul. Melissa has choreographed and produced a number of full length works including No Strings Attached, a 2009 M1 Fringe Festival Commission. Melissa is currently Programme Coordinator for LASALLE College of the Arts, School of Dance, and writes dance reviews for the Business times.

Elizabeth de Roza

Elizabeth de Roza specializes in movement-based performances, drawing from traditional Asian theatrical training/performing methods and contemporary practices. Over the last three years, she has been invited to present her solo works and working methodology at four major International Magdalena Theatre Festivals; Rhode Island USA (2005), Singapore, (2006) Santa Clara, Cuba (2008), Transit – Odin, Denmark (2009). She presented a performance installation exhibition, Un-written in Belgrade, Serbia in Real Presence 2008 and attended and presented a performance cum lecture, The Karang Guni Man imagines Utopia at the 15^th Performance Studies International (2009) in Zagreb, Croatia. Elizabeth is currently working in LASALLE college of the arts as the Programme Co-ordinator & lecturer for the BA (Hons) Theatre Arts programme, and recently completed her Masters of Arts (Fine Arts) in 2008. Most Recently, she presented a paper on ‘Contemporary Theatre’, conducted an intensive 5 days performance workshop and presented a performance at Contemporary Theatre Festival in Myanmar, organized by Theatre of the disturbed & Alliance Frances.

Gilles Massot

Gilles Massot came to live in Singapore in 1981 after studying architecture and eventually graduating in photography. His work has been extensively published, and his approach to the art of travelling has resulted in many fine art exhibitions in France and South East Asia. Gilles’ work covers a wide range of styles, techniques and forms of expression, ranging from visual, to writing, to performing arts, to education, to event organiser. In 2007 he published his second book, “ Retro Specks Future Pixs: the Book”, which summarizes his thirty years of research on the theme of time, space and their relation to photography and painting. His first book “Bintan, Phoenix of the Malay Archipelago” was published in 2003. This venture into the fields of history and ethnology had a profound influence on his artistic work which has since then dealt with these topics as in the case of Valbelle, Myth or Fiction?, the title of his MA completed in 2006, or the piece The Space within the Space within the Space recently presented in the Singapore Art Museum for the exhibition Transport Asian. He currently lectures on photography at LASALLE, faculty of Fine Arts and photography history in ADM, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Brian O’Reilly

Brian O’Reilly works in the fields of painting, drawing, collage, sound & video installations, moving images/live cinema, electronic/noise music, and he is a contrabassist focusing on uncovering inaudible textures and acoustic micro-gestures through the integration of electronic treatments and extended playing techniques. Currently he is a lecturer at LASALLE College of the Arts School of Contemporary Music in Singapore.

Koo Chia Meng

Chia Meng has made 2 short films previously, namely ‘Empty Heart’ and ‘Man in a Snow Globe’, which premiered at the Vancouver Singapore Film Festival 2009. He also produced video multimedia for theatre, including Nelson CHIA’s ‘LIV’ as part of the Singapore Arts Festival 2009, ‘Bondage (2009) by Drama Box, ‘The Lower Depths’ (2010) by Theatrestrays and ‘White Soliloquy’ (2010) by Toy Factory. Chia Meng’s graduating short film ‘HOT!’, from his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Digital Filmmaking at NTU, premiered at the 6th Singapore Short Film Festival. He is currently exploring video workshops for youths, dance films and possibly, a new short film.

Conversations 2010 #2
Performance Lecture by our Associate Artist: diskodanny
Friday 1 October, 7:30pm
The Substation Theatre
Free Admission

Can absence be enacted, captured… in fact seen in a film? Can the viewer see what is there but not apparent, fill in the gaps for himself and construct his own movement from memory?

In his presentation, diskodanny goes in search for liminal spaces that elude us because they exist as empty gaps. These spaces are found during the enactment of a movement. They cannot be seen explicitly but they exist so obviously that we take them for granted.

Diskodanny is an Associate Artist of The Substation.

daniel k (aka diskodanny) is currently studying in the MA Solo/Dance/Authorship programme at the Universität der Kunste in Berlin. He has also studied Fine Art & Critical Theory at Goldsmiths College in London under a Public Service Commission Scholarship (1997-2001), as well as Choreography at the Laban Centre for Movement & Dance (2000). His performance work have travelled to Edinburgh, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Bangkok and Yogyakarta.

In 2007, daniel k was listed as #1 “Faces to Watch” by the Straits Times and his performance, “Vermillion” was listed as one of the top performances of the year. In 2008, daniel was given the Young Artist Award (Dance) by the National Arts Council. In 2009, the Singapore Arts Festival commissioned “Q&A” which also represented Singapore at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Between 2002-2010, daniel k taught Art in Tampines Junior College and in Hwa Chong Institution (College, Art Elective Programme)

Conversations 2010 are all about The Substation engaging all genres/disciplines of artists from everywhere who are interested to have dialogues with the local community, local artists, or both, for meaningful critical artistic/cultural exchanges. It will also allow us to engage non-artists – such as cultural workers, activists, etc who want to engage art practices in a meaningful and critical dialogue.

Love and Lust Live!
Thursday 30 September, 7:30pm
The Substation Theatre

THE BOOK IS ON SALE NOW AT KINOKUNIYA!

A special guest reader for the night: Koh Chien Mun!

Desire, yearning, greed, passion. The steamier side of Singapore will be explored in this live reading performance at The Substation Theatre on 30th September. Celebrating the launch of Monsoon Books’ short story anthology Love And Lust In Singapore, eight writers such as O Thiam Chin, Dawn Farnham, Michelle Koh, Damyanti Ghosh, Marc Checkley and Felix Cheong, will perform their works that delve into the rawest of human emotions. The ticketed event – for adults only – will be accompanied by food and drink and a Q&A session with the authors. All profits from this event will go to the book’s charity, the WISH arm of the Adult Literacy Programme of Singapore.

Ziarah + Cerita Cinta (Visit + Love Story)
A double-bill written and directed by The Substation’s Artistic Director Noor Effendy Ibrahim
Thursday 14 to Saturday 16 October, 8 pm
The Substation Theatre
Admission: $20 and $15 (student concession), available at The Substation Box Office
In Malay with English surtitles

Supported by The National Arts Council, The Substation, Arts Fund and Lee Foundation.

Thursday 7 October & Friday 8 October, 8pm
Saturday 9 October & Sunday 10 October, 3pm & 8pm
The Substation Theatre
Admission: $25 (excuding booking fee)
Tickets are available from

How far would you go to quench an unquenchable desire? As far as angering the gods? Would you dare push the boundaries of mortality?

The award-winning Metamorphoses by Mary Zimmerman is a playful and contemporary retelling of the evocative and timeless myths as told by Roman poet Ovid. These compelling stories, at times haunting, at times cheeky, offer a captivating reflection of the human condition. Both sensually beautiful and darkly macabre, these narratives are as human as they are immortal. In this fresh staging by COLLAB Theatre Ensemble, you are invited to enter the realm of Zeus, Midas, Orpheus and Eurydice, Eros and Aphrodite. Plunge into a world where gods and Man intertwine.

Friday 29 October, 8pm
The Substation Theatre
Free admission

Ang Gey Pin is a Singaporean theatre performer and instructor currently working in Europe.

During this event, Ang will demonstrate her creative processes and engage the audience in a conversation about how she develops her works. Focusing on particular fragments of her performance, Ang will introduce a body of research on interweaving text and songs into performance, and her investigation into an approach to develop and deliver these performance elements. Ang will also discuss the impulse behind her creations, how the various performance elements build a montage and flow in a ‘creative stream’, and her relationship with her work.

Ang Gey Pin, a Singaporean artist currently working in Europe, is a pedagogue, director and actress. Early on, Ang participated in Grotowski’s final Objective Drama session at the University of California-Irvine. Once back in Singapore, she co-founded Theatre OX (1995-2007). As its artistic director, she led Theatre OX’s research into Chinese performative elements and performances in unconventional spaces, in many instances under the scheme of artist-in-residence at The Substation (1996-1997).

Ang was a member of the Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards (Italy) for nearly a decade, touring across Europe and Asia with the company’s Project The Bridge: developing theatre arts. She performed lead roles in the Workcenter’s One breath left (UBU Special Award, Italy) and Dies Irae:  My Preposterous Theatrum Interioris Show.

Working since 2006 as an independent artist, Ang teaches, performs and collaborates with various international artists. She has presented works, acted as artist-in-residence and pedagogue at the Grotowski Institute (Poland), Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, LASALLE College of the Arts (Singapore), the University of Kent at Canterbury (United Kingdom), Wesleyan University and Yale University (United States), among others.

Ang has created and performed to audiences in Europe, Asia, North and South America. Some phases of her work are featured in scholarly journals and books dedicated to intercultural theatre, including The Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards’ ‘Opere E Sentieri’ (Volume I, Bulzoni Editore, 2007), Paul Allain’s “After Grotowski: The New Generation” (New Theatre Quarterly 18.1, 2002) and Cláudia Tatinge Nascimento’s Crossing Cultural Borders Through the Actor’s Work: Foreign Bodies of Knowledge (Routledge, 2008). Ang holds a Bachelor of Arts degree with distinction from the University of Hawaii-Manoa and is a recipient of theatre awards granted by the Singapore National Arts Council.

Works she created, performed and collaborated include:  By the Way (2006), Winter Never Come Spring Already Arrived (2007), Feast of You Shen (2008-2009).

A new work entitled Wandering.Birds will be presented at Esplanade-Theatres On The Bay, The Studios April /May 2011 season.

Conversations 2010 are all about The Substation engaging all genres/disciplines of artists from everywhere who are interested to have dialogues with the local community, local artists, or both, for meaningful critical artistic/cultural exchanges. It will also allow us to engage non-artists – such as cultural workers, activists, etc who want to engage art practices in a meaningful and critical dialogue.

Three Notes of Nature
An exhibition by Tien Yang

Yang Tien is an artist, animator, writer, actor, story specialist, educator, father and husband. His professional CV can be found here http://www.nutsidea.net/zerostate/?page_id=12