Live Fringe

FOREIGN BODIES/ A LONG TABLE ABOUT DIVERSITY ON STAGE

Skin in SIN (Singapore)

5 – 7 January 2017, 8pm

Esplanade Recital Studio

75 min with no intermission

A Long Table About Diversity on Stage

7 January 2017, 3pm
Esplanade Recital Studio

Fringe Highlight • World Premiere

Price

$25 | $19*

*Concessions for students, NSF, senior
citizens and persons with disabilities

Rating


RESTRICTED 18

MATURE THEME AND COARSE LANGUAGE

Biography


What do you do with a foreign body?
You either remove it or get used to it.
Adjust, grow, and assimilate.

In our march to 6.9 million people in Singapore—many of whom are imported—how do we make space for each other? Let's start by taking off our clothes! In trying to understand what might be a ‘new normal’, perhaps it is the expatriates who might have something unique to share.

A cast of all genders and bodies from the community in Singapore come together to form Singapore’s first diverse, politically progressive burlesque troupe! Produced and mentored by Eugene Tan (Becca D’Bus, RIOT!) and Madge of Honor, diva of high performance burlesque, they create a burlesque revue like no other. Everyone's been an expat, except Madge, who is a Foreign Talent.

What do Foreign Bodies do?
We take our clothes off.

 

SKIN IN SIN is a brand new burlesque troupe, birthed through this production, with an eye towards performing, thriving and making a (very naked) mark in Singapore. Endeavouring to be as diverse as possible, the multicultural members of Skin in SIN are, for Foreign Bodies, being drawn first from people who have lived some kind of expat experience—either returned Singaporeans, or people who were born elsewhere and now call Singapore home. In the future, Skin in SIN will expand its membership to include folks from all walks of life and a diversity of lived experience.

 

RELATIONSHIP TO ART & SKIN

No popular performance form indulges in putting skin on display quite like the contemporary resurgence of burlesque. Is there skin? Miles of it. Is it artful? Well….

At the heart of the rampant racism and xenophobia experienced in Singapore is a culture that has no practice in responding to the other. But what if the other was naked? What if skin, our favourite way to identify race, was placed front and centre? What if nearly naked performers were both vulnerable and empowered at the same time?

What if we got serious? What if we also got sexy?

 

A LONG TABLE ABOUT DIVERSITY ON STAGE

7 January 2017, 3pm
Esplanade Recital Studio
120 min with no intermission

For ages 13 and above

Free Admission
via registration at longtable.peatix.com

Most of us agree that artists, producers and presenters should make, fund and present works that reflect the diversities of the world we live in. Yet what do we mean when we speak of diversity? Who gets to decide if a work is diverse enough? How do we do diversity?

Eugene Tan, producer and mentor of Foreign Bodies, kicks off a free-wheeling conversation with artists, producers, presenters and audience members on their challenges faced and ideals for diversity on stage.

Originally created by Lois Weaver of seminal lesbian performance company Split Britches, The Long Table is part conversation, part performance art, and an open-ended, non-hierarchical model of public engagement that democratises the discussion model, making all participants performers.