Tan Shou Chen

An Essay about Southernmost Festival 2019

January 29, 2020January 29, 2020

As an observer of Southernmost and writing this response essay, I found myself asking a nagging question – Why should a handful of international artists gather, spending our carbon footprint, to verbalize and analyse the experience of meeting the Other?

I propose two frames in this essay to help deepen the analysis of my question: 1) Tranculturalism; and the more cynical sounding 2) clash of civilisations.

Bag o’Love

November 28, 2019November 28, 2019

For the past 6 years, this little bag has been my constant companion when I teach public speaking at NUS. It served a very practical purpose of carrying some form of chocolate for students who needed something to take their minds and bodies out of stage-fright, or as a calming chew after a particularly disastrous […]

On Interculturalism and Transculturalism

November 10, 2019November 10, 2019

Excerpted from Svetlana Klimenko (2003) Shakespeare, Chekhov and the Emergence of the Transcultured Self in Denmark, Language and Intercultural Communication, 3:2, 151-157, DOI: 10.1080/14708470308668099 ” I use the term transculture as it was put forward by Russian scholar Mikhail Epstein, who introduces it in the following way: The quality and merit of culture is its capacity […]

What To Do From Here (Lisbon, 2019)

July 24, 2019August 10, 2019

First, one runs through the city. Next, one stops and creates. Alongside others, they do this repeatedly. The audience chooses to roam, indulge, be treated, or even bored whenever they choose to stop. That’s the basic dramaturgical structure of O QUE FAZER DAQUI PARA TRÁS_versão expandida / WHAT TO DO FROM HERE_expanded version by João […]

Lisbon, 2019: Wandering

July 15, 2019July 24, 2019

I’ve been wanting to connect with other art and theatremakers in my time here in Lisbon and staying indoors, one does not. So I wandered, and wandering can lead you exactly where you want to be. On my second day here, on my way down from Hangar in Graça, I wandered into an open gate. […]