st Arts & Culture Prize ONG Keng Sen

Transcription

1 st Arts & Culture Prize ONG Keng Sen Born on November 20, 1963 *Winning the prize at the age of 46 Singapore Theater Director (Artistic Director of TheatreWorks, Festival Director of Singapore International Festival of Arts) (Mr. Ong at Intercontinental Hotel, Singapore, on July 13th 2014.) In September 1997, at Shibuya BUNKAMURA Theater Cocoon, Tokyo, Mr. Ong Keng Sen served as the stage director for Lear. The actors and staff were from the six countries of Singapore, Japan, China, Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia. The role of Lear was played by Naohiko Umewaka, an expert of Japanese Noh drama, in Japanese, while the role of the eldest daughter, who kills Lear, was played by Jiang Qi Hu, a performer of classical Chinese opera, in Chinese. Also, the Indonesian Gamelan was played, while Thai contemporary dance was performed. Several Asian languages were used for creating this drama. Unlike European countries and the U.S., Asia has totally different religions, cultures, and traditions, depending

2 on the area. What he aimed to express was the dynamism of Asia itself. He incorporated the motif of Shakespeare s King Lear into the problems shared in Asia today, such as changes in generations, struggles for power, and aging society. He first became deeply interested in Japan in 1993, when he was studying cross-cultural performances at the Tisch School of the Arts in New York University as a Fulbright student. One of his classmates, who was an international student from Japan, translated Sandakan Hachiban Shokan (Sandakan No. 8 Prostitute House), a nonfiction work by Ms. Tomoko Yamazaki. He was also moved when watching a documentary by Mr. Shohei Imamura. The work featured an interview with the last karayuki-san (Japanese girls forced to travel to Southeast Asia in the Meiji or Taisho eras to work as prostitutes) in Southeast Asia. Mr. Ong likes documentary works. After returning to Singapore, he worked on a drama based on the theme of karayuki-san. He says: When I was a child, I saw a photograph of a beautiful Japanese woman in kimono at the National Museum. This was the first time that I encountered karayuki-san. Singapore is a trade center connecting the East and the West. There were many prostitute houses. However, I didn t know that they were burdened with their dark past until I read the novel by Ms. Tomoko Yamazaki. They were poor women forced to come to Singapore from Amakusa and other parts of Kyushu. They truly represented the sad history of human trafficking. At New York University, I learned that the theater is a place for constructing society, culture, and politics. I practiced this theory for the first time through this drama. An Australian scholar researched inquisition and investigation records by the police in Singapore. These records contained many vivid descriptions on violence against women from Japan and China, as well as on how they had been killed. Incorporating various elements from these records and other documents remaining in Singapore, Mr. Ong completed the drama. When Mr. Ong wanted to create another stage art with the theme of Southeast Asia, the Southeast Asia Center (currently the Asia Center) of the Japan Foundation (headquartered in Tokyo) contacted him. He told the organization about his idea to work with actors from Asian countries. The first result of this idea was Lear, mentioned at the beginning of this article. Launched in 1995, the project ran for three years, entailing many heated discussions until the completion of the final version of the work. He says that the work changed the inside of him, and that it was a turning point for him as a stage director

3 (Scene from Lear presented in 1997, Photos provided by the Japan Foundation). Afterwards, he aimed to establish a foundation to help people from different Asian countries to interact with each other. Under support from the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, he launched Arts Network Asia. This organization began by providing small-scale subsidies, approximately 10,000 dollars, to be used as air fare so that people could gather together. The organization provides funds to be used as a resource to prepare for starting something new. The purpose of the organization is to promote dialogue within Asia, with the focus on grass-root level interactions between people. He insists: Behind support from countries are political structures. Such support is sometimes influenced by a change in government. It is most important to secure opportunities for people to enjoy open-minded interaction. Art is abstract. Unlike well-digging or specific instructions on agriculture, art is not practical. However, art gives people hopes for their lives. I believe that all art is an intangible asset that goes beyond time and space. Some of the reasons why he focuses on the relationship with Asia lie in his birth in Singapore and how he has grown up. Mr. Ong comments: Singapore is an immigrant country without its own tradition. On the other hand, Taiwan, to which people emigrated in order to escape from communized China, has traditions brought by such people from China. In China, the home country of my parents, the Great Cultural Revolution has disrupted the country s traditions. Our ancestors coming to Singapore used to work as poor farmers or longshoremen on the Chinese mainland.

4 They had little culture. All they had was simple folklore handed down orally. It is safe to say that no real artistic tradition existed, which means that people needed to create a new tradition on their own. In the autumn of 1945, right after the end of the Second World War, at the age of 18 Mr. Ong s father came to Singapore, through a connection with his uncle, and at the age of 13 his mother came through a connection with her brother. Since the land of their hometown in China was not suitable for agriculture, they hoped to make their fortune in the new land. To these young people, Singapore was a utopia where they could seek for their fortune. Subsequently, his father became an accountant. He soon realized that in the then Federation of Malaya, ruled by the U.K., it was impossible to do business without English proficiency and that English was essential to make the most of the chance, making him enroll their children in an English school without any hesitation. Mr. Ong s eldest brother became a diplomat, and then served as the Secretary-General of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Mr. Ong went to the Protestant-Methodist Anglo-Chinese School. When he was a second-year student, he met an instructor of drama, which was the starting point for his interest in the arts. The instructor s optimistic attitude affected him a lot. The school was active in the fields of literature, debate, speech, and drama. Since he liked debating, he decided to study law without thinking deeply about it. But he soon began to question the law. He says: Justice was a strange existence to me. Under the law, a person makes a judgment regarding guilty or not guilty. But the law is a mere rule, and justice is simply a part of a legal system. Once you learn about the prescription, you will become negative about the law. No absolute justice exists there. In the faculty of law, he had as many as 200 classmates. After graduation in the top ten percent of the class, he began to work at a law firm, where he continued to ask philosophical questions about his future. He felt that even if he disappeared, nobody would realize it as there were many good lawyers unlike in the theatre where there were few professionals. He left the company only 10 days after he completed his apprenticeship there and joined it. He asked himself many times where he was needed. Turning back to his life, he found that he was needed by drama. Since there was no university in Singapore where he could specialize in arts, he had no opportunities to study drama as his specialty. However, there was a small theater in his university, and he so continued his involvement with drama. Without considering what the spectators would like to see, he just presented the drama that he himself enjoyed. In those days, few people aimed to pursue a career in the performing arts. He was not sure whether his style was appropriate or not, but anyway, he decided to move forward. It was not long before his activity attracted one organization s attention. It was

5 TheatreWorks, a non-profit organization, where he continues to work to this day. Who is Singaporean? What are the arts of Singapore? To find answers to these questions, in 1988 while he was still a legal apprentice, the organization requested him to devise performing arts appropriate to Singapore, such as new dramas and performances. Performing arts entail communications between the stage and the spectators. They are quite different from the visual arts in that they feature both spoken language and body language. He comments: Born in Fujian Province, my mother speaks only the language Xinghua. I, her son, use English for stage direction. This is because English is my language. I cannot speak about philosophy or culture freely using my mother s tongue. What are the histories of me and my family? How can I relate the histories with the fact that English, which used to be a foreign language to my family, has become my native language? I have been considering these questions since when I was young. Arts have connected my memories together as I make productions from this history. However, language has definitely affected distant memories that I m not aware of. I haven t experienced anything about my home village in China. My memories have broken off. Mr. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong o, an African writer, insists that people need to decolonize their memories and that colonization comes from language. Mr. Ong says: When people consider something in English, the archetypal image relating to English comes up in their mind. This applies to French and German. People s minds are controlled by the cultural background of the language that they use, and in a word, this is unconscious colonization. While considering these themes, he met Noh drama in Japan, which made him suddenly realize the real importance of tradition and how people can maintain the connection with tradition while living in a modern society. He states that Japan has enabled him to understand the true significance of the fusion of modernity and tradition. In the 1990s, he was deeply engaged in Japanese performing arts, especially Noh drama, and met Mr. Naohiko Umewaka, a Noh shite or mask performer. He invited Mr Umewaka to perform as Lear in 1997 and once again in the brand new production of Lear Dreaming in Heis now planning to produce it in Paris in 2015, with Mr. Umewaka still in the leading role. Along the way, he forged friendships with many traditional performing arts of Japan such as Mr. Mansai Nomura, a Kyogen farce performer, and Gojo Masanosuke, Nihon Buyo dancer. Presently, the relationships between Japan and neighboring countries are worsening. Mr. Ong feels that by establishing the Japan Foundation and launching support for culture as an intangible asset, the Japanese government has successfully changed its negative war

6 image in Southeast Asia. He comments: Arts and cultural interaction will never lead to control over others, but to equal sharing, causing two-way, or multi-way inflows. If people in different countries seek to understand each other, not only arts, but also communications between them is necessary. Why are people in China still angry about the Second World War, and why do they try to express their anger through action? Although nearly 70 years have passed since the end of the war, there is a possibility that people in China have not recognized the Japanese mindset yet. Mr. Ong believes that the arts and culture (as two distinct spaces) are needed once again to ensure that both Japan and China understand each other. He comments: China is currently emerging into the world. Immersed in a capitalist culture characterized by discarding everything after using it, the country is not trying to look at its intelligent cultural capital. Japan invested a lot of money, human resources, and time in its cultural capital during the so-called bubble economy period from the late 1980s to the early 1990s. Now, when I visit Japan, I feel that the rich age of arts and culture in the 1990s is coming back as people are once again investing in inter-personal relationships and not just consumerism. What s wonderful about the Fukuoka Prize is that it has continued to provide support for arts and culture constantly for 25 years. However, there is one thing that is different from the 1990s, namely the flood of information due to the development of IT. He continues: Although information spreads globally, the amount of the information is too large, which often makes the actual meaning miss its target. Ironically, in this age of excessive information, it is necessary to consider how to communicate properly. The Internet can be described as a new form of encyclopedias, but people usually only check the information that appears high in their search results. In this sense, the information of the Internet is actually rather limited compared with that from encyclopedias. Everybody believes that the Internet is a new world, but it s just an illusion. When producing a stage play, theater directors always consider what the limits are. Some people say that this global world today is borderless. However, many invisible borders still exist and I am not just talking about national borders. While considering these invisible borders, Mr. Ong has tried many activities in rural areas in Asia. One such effort is the Flying Circus Project, which ran for three years from 2002 in Luang Phabang, a historic city in Laos. This was a project aiming to unite the world by gathering together artists from Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, China, Japan, Singapore, and India. Under the project, the artists stayed in Luang Phabang for one week to learn about the city, and then for another three weeks to create a local project with the communities in

7 Luang Prabang. Also there was a project to revitalise traditional entertainment into a contemporary version, which would provide a livelihood for old masters and young students. Using the Internet and digital media, the artists also served as a window to connect the closed city to the world. In this way, both the artists and local people studied together, and revived six out of nine stories of Ramayana, epic poems handed down locally, leading to the establishment of a system under which local residents could earn money by producing the drama. He adds: Children of 16 years old were making short films and other communication projects with extraordinary artists and trying out the Internet. When I was a child, I was influenced by a drama instructor. I hoped that our project members could be just like that instructor. ( C h i l d r e n s t u d y i n g traditional dance in Luang Phabang, Laos, Images C ourtesy of TheatreWork(S) Ltd ) Presently, he travels around the world as the Director of the Singapore International Festival of Arts. However, this kind of traveling is different from what he used to do. He can no longer stay in one place for a long time, experience the culture of people living there, nor enjoy talking with them without haste. He can stay in one place for only a few days at longest, and quickly moves on to another city after finishing his meetings. He says: It is often necessary to summarize a concept and see a thing from a bird s-eye view. But for artists, it is more important to feel local people s daily lives and culture in a down-to-earth style. It is also important to have a dialogue with local people. This creates reality. The current problem is that neither politicians nor thinkers face reality. While describing the excellence of their country s public transportation, politicians are actually in a chauffeur-driven car; they may never have actually taken a train! This is totally weird to me. The Singapore International Festival of Arts is the result of a considerable change from

8 the 35-year festival led by the government, after a two-year discussion. He comments: To change a framework, it is necessary to see art and society through a special lens. It is essential, not to see art as merely a form of entertainment, but to focus on art s fundamental, intellectual, open, and emotional aspects. (Mr. Ong directing Singapore International Festival of Arts, Images by Jeannie HO. Courtesy of Singapore International Festival of Arts) The theme of the festival s preview event held in July 2014 was Open hearts, Open minds, and Open spaces. Mr. Ong continues: Arts help you open yourself to new encounters, and satisfy your curiosity. Art should never be stereotyped. Open the door of your imagination, and try new things. It is not an exaggeration to say that art means to live your life. The arts are directly tied with your life. When I work on a piece of art, I always remember that art is not something just to laugh at or cry over, but something to extend my imagination. By creating art, he provides something for the audience other than consumerism. He says: Many people work as professionals in the daytime. They need to leave their true-self somewhere behind, and this is why they play totally different roles in the daytime office hours and at night. Breaking into this gap, the arts help people move from negative space to positive space, and liberate them. I believe that this is the job for me and other artists. At the Singapore International Festival of Arts held from August to September in 2014, Mr. Mansai Nomura staged Sanbaso. Mr. Ong comments: He will sustain the next generation in the world of Kyogen farce. While understanding the tradition, he is trying new things. In a way, he serves as a bridge. We need to search for connectors who can serve as bridges in the fields of culture, arts, and academia. This is because without these connectors, we cannot cross the bridge to reach the other side. The scene with the lighting flashes linking the lightning embroidery in the skies

9 and Nomura s costume (with similar lightning design motifs) which touches the floor/the earth is truly marvelous. Through this art festival, Mr. Ong aims to create social innovation in the field of arts. One such example is a collaborative performance with the Disabled Theater, which consists of 12 performers from Switzerland with mental disabilities. After attending a specialized actors school, they have become professional performers. Highly praising the theater s activities, he says that the organization has created a new and innovative field demonstrating that disabled people can work actively as professionals. During the arts festival, the theater s members stayed in Singapore after their performances for two weeks in order to spend time with local individuals from a special school and other support institutes such as the Down Syndrome Association. He states: In Singapore, people do not try to teach arts to children with mental or other disabilities. At school, of course, they teach some elements of music and arts, but there is no school specializing in the arts. I feel that it will be wonderful when talented students are discovered at such a school, and if these students can begin to find a way to work as professionals. Since artists can be excellent as professionals with people buying tickets to see their performances. I believe this is important. Born and brought up in Singapore, he feels that Singapore is constantly evolving as a new country. At the pier where he went with his parents when he was a child in order to travel to a nearby island, there is a resort hotel now. The Marina Bay Sands, a hotel consisting of three high-rise buildings connected by a roof-top swimming pool, is a new sightseeing spot. But to him, it seems like a mirage. There is no real life there. In Singapore, he always asks himself what his backbone is. He says: I believe that the most important thing to me is to establish human relations. What is always important to me is not a place, but people. Place has become less important for my memories. What he is most concerned about now among domestic affairs is the issue of immigration. While accepting many immigrants for the past 10 years, Singapore has not integrated these foreign workers into society. Restricting them under the strict immigration control law, the country does not accept them as citizens, but hires them at the minimum wage. He comments: In a way, such workers are like flowing sand, and so they have no loyalty to Singapore. How should we face these immigrants? The number of these so-called new Singaporeans has already reached two million, a third of the country s entire population. Something must be done to address this issue. Singapore was always an immigrant country. He has seldom regarded himself as a

10 Singaporean, but rather considering himself as an Asian is his natural style. In this situation, he is concerned about the young people in the next generation. If you want to change something, you need to act yourselves. I always tell myself to be aware that I am the factor to create innovation. I feel that our job is to make young people even more active. Human dignity is the most important aspect. Geopolitically, countries in Asia are separated from each other by the sea. Unlike Europe, Asia is not a place where people can cross national borders easily by train. In addition, different countries have different religions. Asia s strength is in this diversity. There are many problems in modern society, such as wars caused by religious differences, territorial disputes, environmental problems, and aging. He comments: Politicians put up walls, but artists can dismantle them, connecting different peoples. I can compare the role of artists to that of plasma, which is the connective fluid in the blood. This is why the arts must not be controlled. If controlled, the situation would be like the one controlled by the Nazis, art becomes propaganda. Now that he has reached 50 years old, he has begun to seriously consider that he needs to invest in himself to prepare for the next 10 years. He says: Plants grow big from their roots, and when they have grown up, the roots will die. This is applicable to human beings. If they always continue to release energy, the energy will dry out. You need to recharge your batteries. If you are an innovator, you need all the more to take care of yourself and make a new investment in yourself. You need to continue to consider what makes a change possible. In the Netherlands, the idea that people from 65 years old to 75 years old should serve society is so pervasive. Mr. Ong believes that today, when many people live to be 80 years old, people in their 50 s should spend their invaluable time recharging their batteries. He says that in order to stay healthy in their 60 s and contribute to society even more in their 70 s, people need to consider what they should do in the important period of being in their 50 s. Currently, he belongs to New York University. He has already spent three years in order to earn a doctoral degree. The theme is mondialisation. How will he form the world using not the theater, but how do individuals create worlds in their actual contexts? Which will he emphasize more, short-term contribution or long-term contribution? Mr. Ong concluded with these words: Spirit resides in Asia, and it always inspires me. Asia always gives me energy. Regarding Asia as my field, I intend to search for the further evolution of myself.

11 (Intercontinental Singapore preserves Peranakan artistry which harmoniously blends Chinese art and Malay style.)