Established in 1985, TheatreWorks (Singapore) is an independent and international performance company based in Singapore. It is an Institute of Public Character. It is currently led by Artistic Director, Ong Keng Sen and Managing Director, Tay Tong.
Since its establishment, TheatreWorks has staged over 200 productions and 2,500 performances in Singapore and overseas, and has reached an audienceship of over a million. TheatreWorks’ home is 72-13, a heritage building that was once a rice warehouse on Mohamed Sultan Road and next to the Singapore River.
TheatreWorks is a multi-faceted arts company but always working intensively across languages, art forms, disciplines and socio-political borders. Rather than residing stably in the staid singularity of one Art or one Culture, TheatreWorks believes in the idea of leaving one’s own position, one’s locality, and locating oneself in the unknown – to co-work and co-create in a third space. This vision has made Theatreworks distinct and sets it apart from other performance companies in Singapore.
TheatreWorks has two main red lines in its work: the first is the creation and presentation of inter-disciplinary and intercultural productions/programmes that brings together artists from across disciplines and cultures and from both the traditional and contemporary worlds. The second being Docu-Performances which are performances created from historical instances and phenomenon, archival materials, real-life experiences and living persons.
TheatreWorks/72-13 is dedicated to the development of contemporary arts in Singapore and to the evolution of an Asian identity and aesthetics of the 21st Century through a culture of differences. It asks, what is Asian in this age of globalisation, internationalisation, modernisation and urbanisation? Its works exist on the tension between modernisation and tradition; local and global. Representing the continuum between tradition and contemporary, the works are unafraid to be exotic and yet conceptual. TheatreWorks’ projects present the hybrid identity of the contemporary Asian and embrace the multiple realities.
For more information, visit the TheatreWorks website here.
TheatreWorks is a recipient of the National Arts Council’s Major Grant for the period from 1 April 2013 to 31 March 2016
TheatreWorks (Singapore) presents RE/PLAY Dance Edit 