ARTivate - the youth wing of local theatre company Drama Box - is made up of a group of 12 passionate youths who aims to reach out to the community through the arts.
ARTivate was first established with the aim to provide a platform for youths who want to explore and gain all-rounded insight into theatre. Through a three-year program, ARTivate hopes to nurture a group of youths into cultured and socially aware theatre-practitioners in Singapore.
Using an O-A-O-R (Orientation-Artistic-Organization-Regeneration) model, these youths are trained not only artistically but also in organizational skills and production management. They will be exposed to different forms of theatre such as Forum Theatre and Newspaper Theatre. They will also be trained in other art forms such as music and multimedia.
Besides bringing awareness to the themes explored, ARTivators hopes to question, probe or even challenge minds. They want to engage audiences in discussion – to turn monologues into dialogues.
As 2012 will the last year of the pioneer batch of ARTivate youths, they will be putting up a piece of performance, Bus Stop, inspired by “Bus Stop” written by renowned playwright, Gao Xing Jian. This performance will be a collation of the trainings the youths had undergone for the past 3 years, as well as a critical perspective and evaluation of the script, in reference to the current society the youths are in.
许慧铃 Koh Hui Ling 艺术总监 Artistic Director
母性泛滥; 热爱人
着重于戏剧／剧场的应用与教学法
Overpowering maternal instincts
Loves Human(ity)
Aims at developing the use of applied drama / theatre
梁海彬 Neo Hai Bin
长着翅膀
在剧场里翱翔...
一个
鸟人。
The world's a stage...
I'm in the latecomer's queue.
I am currently an undergrad in NTU. My major is psychology and the most common question asked when I reveal that fact is whether I can read his/her mind. Honestly, I cannot lah. Currently, I am daydreaming about my future hoping to achieve 2 things i enjoy alot in life: Theatre and Psychology (:
Studying Accountancy in NTU and living a second life in theatre, where (fortunately) the former will end in 2012 May. Believes that there is a connection between numbers and the arts, or maybe, I am just living in denial all the time.
林慧萍 Lim Hwee Peng
法律系学生。
正在面临"刻年"危机。
志愿当长发公主。
Law student. Currently experiencing "quarter-life" crisis. Aspiring Rapunzel.
A post-graduate student from NTU Division of Chinese.
韩雪梅 Han Xuemei
热爱的东西太多，拥有的时间有限。
记性日渐退化，一年比一年老。
Carries an overwhelming amount of passion for an overwhelming number of things, coping with the limited amount of time.
Struggling against a degenerating capacity to remember, and aging year by year.
Like anybody else.
王放 Kate
在国大读书.
写这个东西简直比写任何论文还难！
An undergrad at NUS.
Coming out with this line is harder than any paper I've ever written.
谢秀彬 Entia Seah Siew Ping
南大中文系毕业。非常健忘，经常丢三落四。
热爱教育，喜欢和人接触。
Some people say that I look like an ah-lian when I’m quiet and sounds like an auntie when I speak.
I embrace all these comments and aspire to be an elegant ah-lian and intelligent auntie!
Graduated from “The Brainforest of Clementi” with an Honours degree in Life Sciences. As I am currently learning to write and direct plays properly, I do not have any work that is worthy of mention as yet.
The Green Man is part of Drama Box’s community project on Environment.
Conceptualized and organized by ARTivate, the event consists of:
- ARTivate’s thought-provoking plays on environmental conservation
- “The Flames” musical performance by girls from Andrew & Grace Home
- A mini bazaar that promotes environmental conservation
Selfish, written by Lam Dan Fong, reveals a story about the decision of a daughter -
to escape into a perfect new world or remain in the world of self destruction.
Plasti-City Kills the Cat written by Ho Kian Tong, explores the harm brought about by plastics to the environment.
What Matters? is a package of one forum theatre play and three fringe activities which explores the issue of race with the youths of today.
Through the series of fringe activities and the Forum Theatre play, ARTivate aims to probe further into the awareness of racial issues with the youths of today and understand the true meaning of harmony between races.
Forum Theatre Play
3 students of different races set up an Adventure Club in school. As they prepare to go on a new adventure to search for fugitive Mas Selamat in their club room, an accident happened in the school and conflicts arose within the group.
*The play is performed mainly in English with some Mandarin and Malay
Fringe #1: Race in School – Stereotypes and Others
The youths were asked to move, play, think and discover, thus finding the way of dealing with racial issues in real life.
Fringe #2: Movie screening – To Kill a Mocking bird
Based on the novel by Harper Lee, this award-winning classic film present racial issues vividly on screen.
There was a discussion session after the screening facilitated by Mr. Danny Yeo.
Sharing by young actors of Class Enemy from Bosnia
Fringe #3: Survival Ethnic Conflicts in Bosnia – a Singapore Arts Festival programme
Sharing by young actors of Class Enemy from Bosnia on their personal experiences of the war-torn times and how they have learnt to cope with growing up in an environment filled with violence caused by racial and ethnic conflicts.
Speaker: Director Haris Pasovic and the cast of CLASS ENEMY (East West Theatre Company)
The Movie Screening is the second installment of Project Mending Sky: The Green Man, held in conjunction with Project Mending Sky: ME (补天计划之我).
Through movie screenings and post-movie discussion sessions ARTivate hopes to explore issues surrounding our Earth’s survival amidst the damages we are inflicting on her.
Documentary-Movie #1: Winged Migration
Teaching the audience how to make dustbins using flyers
Directed by Jacques Perrin, a noted actor and film producer in France, this Academy Award nominated movie records the flight of dozens of different birds from around the globe as they follow their navigational instincts and make the taxing journey to more temperate climates in the fall.
Documentary -Movie #2: The Greening of Cuba
Cuban farmers and scientists working to reinvent a sustainable agriculture based on ecological principles and local knowledge rather than imported agricultural inputs which remind us that developed and developing nations alike can choose a healthier environment and still feed their people.
The audience sharing
Documentary -Movie #3: The Power of Community
A follow-up to The Greening of Cuba 10 years later to see how the Cuban transitioned from a highly mechanized, industrial agricultural system to one using organic methods of farming and local, urban gardens.
Discussions facilitated by: Mr Danny Yeo and Mr Tay Lai Hock
*Language: English (with English subtitles)
Part of a double-bill during Singapore Drama Educators Association (SDEA) Celebrate Drama 2009
“CityS” is ARTivate’s first devised play. It is also ARTivate’s debut presentation following a year-round capacity-building process, during which the ARTivators underwent a series of training involving acting and playwrighting.
It is conceived and brought to satisfactory theatrical fruition by the collaboration of all ARTivators via a gradual process and accumulation of brainstorming and improvisation, under the guidance of devising facilitator Kok Heng Leun and director Koh Wan Ching.
“CityS” explores the concept of an inclusive city, in Singapore’s context, and in the context of our current highly integrated, globalised world.
In this play, stories from different aspects of a city are connected by a series of luggage sonatas which symbolizes a journey that questions the ideology constructed and perceived by majority of the society. Realities are confronted: autocracy, disharmony, discrimination, limitations, alienation, oppression and the likes. Does the decision of the majority always account for the minority? Will the elites ever consider the welfare of their downtown folks in this race to the top? Is that action you took out of free will or under the influence of others?
ARTivate hopes that audiences will reconsider the meaning of a truly inclusive city after watching the play and in turn, answer these questions for themselves.
Devised and performed by ARTivate Devising facilitated by Kok Heng Leun Directed by Koh Wan Ching
*Performed mainly in Mandarin. (English Surtitles provided)
This forum theatre performance is a wordless piece that comprises of 5 short pieces. Using a symbolic set design, and featuring live music accompaniment by ARCN TEMPL, this performance hope to transcend language and racial barriers, leading its viewers in discovering the power of censorship, with the aim of creating awareness in the communities about how censorship affects their daily lives.
However, just 3 weeks from our performance, MDA denied us of an outdoor performance license. The authorities gave an advisory for mature content due to the “sensitive nature” of the topics discussed, and claimed that we had to perform indoors in order to administer the advisory.
We stand by our position that the piece should be performed outdoors to reach as diverse a crowd as possible and believe that the issue of censorship should still be addressed. Therefore, we decided to withdraw the original piece from our programme, and replaced it with a new Forum Theatre performance, which discussed the problems of imposing silence and withholding information about important issues.
Devised and performed by ARTivate, this performance is the result of five months of training in Forum Theatre.
Comprising of five short pieces, imploring you to join us in discovering the power of censorship.
Directed by Kok Heng Leun, co-created with ARTivate Live music by ARCN TEMPL
Drama Box is Singapore's most prominent contemporary Mandarin theatre company. It is a professional non-profit company with charity status. Formed in 1990, it has since gained a respectable reputation for its acute sensitivity and perception in heightening social awareness and civic responsibility. Our productions remain fun and entertaining, yet thought-provoking and reflective.
Blanc Space
The Blanc Space was inaugurated in 2000 to provide a training platform for performers. In 2007, the company expanded Blanc Space to include programmes for budding directors and aspiring playwrights.
韓雪梅
母性泛滥; 热爱人
长着翅膀
我在南大念心理学科。心理学对我来说，跟戏剧的妙处不相上下。
就读南洋理工大学。
法律系学生。
正值后青春期的门槛状态。
热爱的东西太多，拥有的时间有限。
在国大读书.
南大中文系毕业。非常健忘，经常丢三落四。
在2009年毕业于新加坡国立大学的科学系。由于我目前还在学习编剧和导戏的工作，未能有值得一提的代表作。
爱与剧场牵手，与社会学接吻。
艺树人面试那一天，我告诉许慧铃："其实我想要做的是电影。" 
