ABOUT
Jean Tay
Judge, 24-Hour Playwriting Competition
Jean Tay graduated with a double-degree in creative writing and economics from Brown University, USA. She has written over 20 plays and musicals, including “Chinatown Crossings”, "The Shape of a Bird", "Senang", "Sisters", “Everything but the Brain”, “Boom” and “Plunge”. Jean also wrote the books for the musicals “Great Wall: One Woman's Journey”, “The Admiral’s Odyssey”, and “Man of Letters”. Her plays have been performed in Singapore, US, UK, and Italy. She has been nominated four times for Best Original Script for the Life! Theatre Awards, and won for “Everything But the Brain” in 2006. Her plays “Everything but the Brain” and “Boom” have been used as 'O' and 'N' Level literature texts for secondary schools.
Jean is the founding Artistic Director of Saga Seed Theatre, which aims to provide a platform for new writing in Singapore.
Zizi Majid
Judge, 24-Hour Playwriting Competition
Zizi Majid is a playwright / director whose work advocates for a shared humanity. Plays include “How To Gild An Eagle” (Finalist, Columbia@Roundabout); “Return To Fall” (Finalist, Blue Ink Playwriting Award (Chicago); Semi-Finalist National Playwrights Conference; Semi-Finalist Bay Area Playwrights Festival; Reading, Last Frontier Theatre Conference (Alaska). “Being In Time” (International Human Rights Arts Festival, NYC), “Coast” (Climate Change Theatre Action, NYC), “How Did The Cat Get So Fat?” (nominated Best Play, Life! Theatre Awards, Singapore) and “Yusof” (Pesta Raya 2015, Singapore).
Zizi was Artistic Director of Teater Ekamatra (Singapore) garnering multiple awards during her tenure. She is the recipient of the Young Artist Award (NAC, Singapore) and Fellow of WP Theater’s 2020-2022 Lab, NYC. MFA Columbia University.
Sim Yan Ying “YY”
Co-creator, (un)becoming &
Judge, 24-Hour Playwriting Competition
Sim Yan Ying "YY" is a theatre artist based in Singapore and New York. She creates as a director, performer, and writer, and is particularly drawn towards intercultural works that challenge existing forms and boundaries. Original works include: “Where Are You?” (WILD RICE, Mabou Mines), “Who’s There?” (The Transit Ensemble, New Ohio Theatre), “I Love White Men” (Caveat NYC, Ars Nova ANT Fest, Dixon Place), “Without Reason” (Esplanade), “06:58” (The Substation). Her works are both experimental and accessible, physical in nature, and reflective of a diversity of lived experiences.
YY is currently an artist in the Mabou Mines SUITE/Space program and Fault Line Theatre’s Irons in the Fire. Training: BFA NYU Tisch, 2017 SITI Company Summer Intensive. simyanying.com. IG: @simyanying
Nabilah Said
Co-creator,(un)becoming
Nabilah is a playwright, editor and poet. Recent work includes “Angkat” (2019), which won Best Original Script at the 2020 Life Theatre Awards, and “Inside Voices”, which won the Outstanding New Work award at London's VAULT Festival 2019. She was a dramaturg for “Where Are You?”, directed by Sim Yan Ying, which was presented under WILD Rice’s Directors’ Residency Programme in 2021. She has also presented work with companies such as Teater Ekamatra, The Necessary Stage and Bhumi Collective. She is the founder of collectives Main Tulis Group and Rupa co.lab.
Nabilah is currently the editor of regional arts website ArtsEquator. She has an MA in Writing for Performance from Goldsmiths, University of London. nabilahsaid.com
Arielle Jasmine Van Zuijlen
Performer, (un)becoming
Arielle recently graduated from the School of The Arts Singapore with a specialisation in Theatre. She is currently pursuing her passion for acting. Having had the opportunity to explore multiple roles in the theatre industry, including actor, stage manager and sound operator, Arielle is excited to learn and explore as much as possible from those around her, and engage in any opportunities to create meaningful, wonderful theatre.
Her past works include her performance as Nenek and King Paduca in her school's production of “Smartbutt” by Jean Tay, Jillian Swift in “Radiant Vermin” by Philip Ridley and Uma Rajan and Vernon Cornelius in a self-devised performance in collaboration with NLB to commemorate the pioneers of Singapore.
Chanel Ariel Chan
Performer, (un)becoming
Chanel is a freelance theatre practitioner and creator. Chanel has performed in various international platforms and festivals. Some of her local acting credits includes “Mine” (Wild Rice), “Offstage 3.0” (Emergency Stairs), “Three Fat Virgins Unassembled” (T:>Works, N.O.W. 2021), “13.13.13” (T:>Works) amongst others. Chanel was also a spokesperson for AWARE’s Aim For Zero campaign (2018-2020).
IG handle: @chanelarielchan
Isabella Chiam
Performer, (un)becoming
Isabella is an actor, puppeteer & theatre-maker. Trained at RADA with a MA in Theatre, she has performed internationally, collaborating in productions across Asia & Europe like “The Story After Ah Q” (HK/SG), “The Commuters” (The Knotted Project, UK) & “Round the Moon” (HK/JPN/SG) Isabella was also twice-nominated and won for 'Best Ensemble' at the Life! Theatre Awards, and is a NAC Arts Scholar.
Isabella has a deep interest in movement, collaborative devising & actor training, and continues to teach acting & theatre-making at the tertiary level. Isabella is an Associate Artist with The Theatre Practice, and is a founding member of theatre collective for young audiences, Five Stones Theatre.
Suhaili Safari
Performer, (un)becoming
Suhaili is an artist both in theatre and music. Since 2005, she engages herself in various theatre productions both locally and overseas, such as “Inside Voices” (2019, Lazy Native) which won Best Outstanding Work at the annual Vaults Festival in London. Although Suhaili occasionally crosses her work into television and voice work, her greatest passion is to advocate for minority voices, which includes her most recent production with Drama Box, “Tanah°Air” (2019).
Suhaili also involves herself in acoustic folk, neo-soul gigs and various music collaborations from “Sounding Now’s Open Spaces” at YST Conservatory (2019), The Observatory’s “Playfreely” sessions, in particular, “No Man’s Land”, an all-women music improvisation (2017) and most recently SAtheCollective’s “ThirdSpace Sessions – Voce” (2020).
Cheng Nien Yuan
Dramaturg, (un)becoming
Nien Yuan is a performance scholar and dramaturg. She received her PhD in Theatre and Performance Studies from the University of Sydney in 2020. Her recent theatre credits include “Who’s There?” (2020) at the New Ohio Theatre Festival, “Where Are You?” (Singapore, 2021) at WILD RICE, and the live digital experience “PASSAGE” (2021) with the Random Disturbances collective.
Nien Yuan's performance scholarship centres around the politics and poetics of storytelling in Singapore. She is currently a researcher at the Intercultural Theatre Institute.
A Yagnya
Dramaturg, (un)becoming
Yagnya is a collaborative theatre maker and Japanese translator. Yagnya’s playwriting credits include “Between 5 Cows and the Deep Blue Sea...” (read at Esplanade’s Raga 2020), “The Oven Story” அவன் கதை (3Pumpkins, 2020), “Hi, Can You Hear Me?” (Playwrights’ Cove 2020), and “subTITLED 1.0” (Bridging the Gap Collective, 2021). She has also co-written for GroundZ_0’s “Prism of Truth” (Huayi 2020), interpreted for ITI’s Noh Theatre Module, and acted in “Goddesses of Words: Angry Indian Women” (Textures 2020).
Yagnya wants to create socially conscious works that challenge her audience into breaking out of echo chambers. (un)becoming will be popping her dramaturge cherry. @iggyeggieggyagnya
Jevon Chandra
Multimedia Designer, (un)becoming
Jevon (he/they) is an artist and art worker. Taking on the forms of installations and time and context-bound interventions, his projects estimate the interplays between doubt and belief, as present in acts of caring, meaning-making, and holding faith. Working across disciplines, he has presented at platforms such as SIFA (2021), Singapore Art Week (2021), Fujinoyama Biennale (2020), and Esplanade Flipside Festival (2019). In the performing arts, his recent works include sound design for “Hot Pot Talk: The Measure of a Meal” (2021) led by Chong Gua Khee and Kokila Annamalai, being artist co-lead in “PASSAGE” (2021) with the Random Disturbances collective, and multimedia design for “Who’s There?” (2020), a digital theatre piece for New Ohio Theatre’s Ice Factory Festival.
Presently, Jevon is an active member of art collective Brack and transnational performance collective ROOM, and is working on conceiving practice as a long-term endeavour sustained by collaboration, decency, and patience.
Johanna Pan
Scenic & Costume Designer, (un)becoming
Johanna (she/they) is a Costume and Scenic designer for Theatre, Film, Dance and Opera, a textile and visual artist, a teacher of art and costume design from Kindergarten to University, host and co-producer of the podcast “Dirty Laundry: Unpacking the Costume Closet”. They first discovered theatrical design while competing in the creative thinking competition Odyssey of the Mind and has never looked back. Johanna’s artistic practice is centred around decolonizing the imagination, breaking down the notions of feminized labour, and anti-racism.
Johanna continues to harbour hope for a more sustainable humankind in the face of adversity and dreams of a future filled with equity, inclusion and diversity. MFA NYU/TISCH, BFA Ithaca College, www.johannapan.com @jpandesign
Tini Aliman
Sound Designer, (un)becoming
Tini is a sound artist and designer, field recordist and audio technician who works at the intersection of theatre and film sound design, live sound art performance, installation and collaborative projects. Her research interests include but are not limited to, forest networks, spatial acoustics, bio-music, botanical histories and the variables of data translations via biodata sonification.
Tini has been involved in projects and exhibitions across Asia Pacific and Europe. Her recent projects have been presented at National Gallery Singapore, NTU Center for Contemporary Art, Biennale Urbana at Caserma Pepe, Venice and Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei.
Shivani Rajan
Stage Manager, (un)becoming
Shivani is a graduate from the BA(Hons) Arts Management programme in NAFA (Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts), is currently the Company Manager for Jazz Cats Pte Ltd and a Freelance Production Stage Manager. Her fascination with the arts started as a dancer in the Indian classical dance form, Bharatanatyam. Since then, her pursuit has brought her to many productions with diverse people, collaborating as the Production Stage Manager.
Some credits include: “ETA 9 Mins” by Main Tulis Group (Stage Manager), Launch of Digital Archive of Singapore Tamil Theatre by National Library Board (NLB) and the Tamil Digital Heritage Group (TDHG) (Production Stage Manager), “In The Silence of Your Heart” by Esplanade (Assistant Stage Manager).
Catherine Ho
Assistant Stage Manager, (un)becoming
Catherine graduated from the Intercultural Theatre Institute (ITI, formerly known as TTRP) in 2016. She is focused on devising original works primarily as a bilingual theatre practitioner. She was last seen in Pathay Nimidam 2020’s Athey Athey and River Hongbao 2021’s Bring On The Bull. She has also directed a laboratory piece under Pink Gajah’s Magic Lab, Alter Egos and then helmed the actor’s training wing for the following cycle of the lab.
Catherine brought her solo, “Recurrence” to Bangkok Theatre Festival 2018 and was nominated for “Best Performance by International Artist”. She is now incubating her work, “Because I’m Me!”, at The Artground, under the initiative “GroundBreakers”. Catherine believes strongly in using theatre to engage and provoke people’s minds.
Salty Xi Jie Ng
Concept & Direction, Not Grey: Intimacy, Ageing & Being
Salty co-creates semi-fictional paradigms for the real and imagined lives of humans within the poetics of the intimate vernacular. Her practice manifests with humour, care, subversion, discomfort, a celebration of the eccentric, and a commitment to the deeply personal. With a longstanding interest in the gerontological universe, she founded “The Grandma Reporter”, a collaborative publication on senior women’s culture around the earth. She has made a feature film on busking, co-created the world’s first prison variety show, ran an alternative economy art space in a Singaporean mall, and facilitated the Senior Women’s Erotica Club.
Salty is currently artist-in-residence at the Singapore Art Museum exploring ancestor worship and ritual, as well as the editor of Conversations On Everything, a Portland (Oregon, USA) publication on social forms of art. Visit saltythunder.net
Anne Lee
Collaborator, Not Grey: Intimacy, Ageing & Being
Anne, 73, is a retired teacher who lives with her children and grandchildren. Her hobbies include cooking, mahjong and gardening. She volunteers with the Appropriate Adult Scheme for Young Suspects (AAYS) at the Singapore Children’s Society.
An avid performer, Anne has taken part in black box performances with Theatre for Seniors (The Necessary Stage), in the stage play “From the Belly of the Carp”, a flamenco dance performance for Silver Arts Festival 2019, “Prank It” with Mediacorp, and TV series “She’s a Terrorist and I Love Her”.
Ajuntha Anwari
Collaborator Not Grey: Intimacy, Ageing & Being &
Facilitator, Restorative Tonics
Ajuntha is Medicine Woman Asia a platform she created 11 years ago to showcase the healing plants of South Asia. She has over 40 years of experience in horticulture, health and wellness. She is well versed in the indigenous healing traditions of Jamu and Ayurveda and is a strong proponent of living foods. She has been coaching individuals, teaching at workshops and speaking at corporate events on the power and health benefits of natural remedies and food as medicine.
Ajuntha is teacher, yoga practitioner, speaker and an advocate for women’s empowerment. Ajuntha organises her workshops, health coaching, and speaking engagements through her project, Medicine Woman Asia.
Choo Ai Keow
Collaborator, Not Grey: Intimacy, Ageing & Being
Ai Keow, 81, has three children and two grandchildren. With performing, she is finally living the dream she had in her youth. In 2005, she performed for the first time, with DramaBox. She has been part of Glowers (2008-now) and The Necessary Stage’s Theatre for Seniors (2008-11).
Ai Keow has performed in many stage plays, films, and advertisements. In 2013 and 2015, she won best actor/actress awards for her roles in short films. She also enjoys tending to her many plants.
Dana Lam
Collaborator, Not Grey: Intimacy, Ageing & Being
Dana is a visual artist and writer, and an Associate Artist with Checkpoint Theatre. She most recently wrote and performed in “Still Life”, a monologue developed with Claire Wong of Checkpoint Theatre that incorporated a year of painting as process. Dana has performed in Jerome Bel's “Gala” (TheatreWorks, 2016), Joavien Ng's “Incarnation of the Beast” (TheatreWorks, 2015) and “Dream Country - a Lost Monologue” (Singapore Arts Festival, 2012). Her writing credits include the book, “Days of Being Wild: GE2006 Walking the Line with the Opposition” (Ethos Books, 2006). Her visual art has been shown in the Singapore Art Museum and the Substation Gallery. Her 500-piece installation work, “When Bellies Speak: You are your own work of art” was held at Hong Lim Park on 8 March 2015.
Outside of performance, Dana has worked as a newspaper reporter and volunteered with AWARE (Association of Women for Action and Research), serving as its President from 2000-2002 and again, from 2009-2011. She is currently working on a comic form artist book with Checkpoint Theatre.
Elsie Tan
Collaborator, Not Grey: Intimacy, Ageing & Being
Elsie struggles with the idea of a biography. She is in a state of wanting to strip off everything that has given her a sense of who she is. Her degrees, her work with children with special needs and teenagers on probation all seem far away and belonging to someone else. Even further away is the journalist who once believed she would change the world with her words.
Elsie considers herself 'bare naked' now and ponders when people want to know "who are you?"
Evelyn Fernandez
Collaborator, Not Grey: Intimacy, Ageing & Being
Evelyn, 64, is Catholic Eurasian. At 19, she left Singapore for a brief stint as an au pair (nanny) in Germany. She ended up staying for forty years, during which she married a German man, had two sons and became a single mum after 10 years of marriage. Evelyn then returned to Singapore and became legal guardian to her infant grandniece, who is now 12. Her sons and ward are her everything. Having lived in two different worlds, she has built more intimacy with Germany.
Evelyn's hobbies are reading, listening to classical music, and going to the theatre especially to watch ballet.
Faizah Jamal
Collaborator, Not Grey: Intimacy, Ageing & Being
Faizah served as a Nominated Member of Parliament from 2012 to 2014, where as a veteran nature advocate and environment educator, she focussed on weaving her environmental platform into every national issue, from education to health, from the economy to national development. Faizah considers voting against the government's contentious Population White Paper in 2013, on environmental grounds, as her most memorable Parliamentary experience. Formerly a corporate lawyer, Faizah is a pioneer in the field of Breathwork, a healing modality for mental and emotional health.
Faizah is one of the first few in Singapore to be a Certified Breathwork Facilitator in 2003. She continues to offer this work today.
Koh Lian Hiok
Collaborator, Not Grey: Intimacy, Ageing & Being
Lian Hock, 78, is a retiree who believes in now living the many dreams she had in her younger days. She spends her time training hard in ballet, violin, guzheng, singing and more. She has been dancing for years with a troupe currently based at Cairnhill CC, and has performed at many events, including the National Arts Council’s Silver Arts Festival, at old folks’ homes.
Lian Hock received the President's Volunteerism & Philanthropy Award in 2015.
Li Li Chung
Collaborator, Not Grey: Intimacy, Ageing & Being
Li Li has been retired from corporate life for ten years and returned to graduate school in London to study art history and contemporary art theory. She is the founder of Exactly Foundation, which commissions photography projects to visualize and dialog Singapore's social and political issues. She advocates change from within and self-motivation to be curious, be informed and to patiently change oneself and then society.
Li Li loves eating together in small groups, always ensuring that happy food binds and encourages.
Patricia Lim
Collaborator, Not Grey: Intimacy, Ageing & Being
Patricia, 60, has been a hairstylist and makeup artist/consultant for over 40 years, working with regional public figures and celebrities. She frequently imparts her skills, starting as a teacher at the famous Princess School in the 80s. She has also been a judge for numerous pageants including Miss International, Little Top Supermodel, and Teen Singapore. In 2015, she was given the Our Lady of Excellence award.
Patricia has two lovely sons and her passions and hobbies include singing, dancing, cooking, and selfies. She also loves Cosplaying with youths, and performs Yumi and Hippolyta with martial arts moves.
Pushpa Melvani
Collaborator, Not Grey: Intimacy, Ageing & Being
Pushpa was born in Hyderabad and is proud to be Sindhi. She was educated in Delhi, where she received training in handicraft, sewing, and embroidery. After graduating at 19, she married a businessman and moved to Singapore in 1958. She has two children and five grandchildren. Pushpa has had the good fortune of learning from various Masters on how to live a harmonious life. Hosting brings her immense joy. She enjoys creating new dishes for family and friends, as well as gifting them handmade cards and bookmarks made from recycled materials.
Pushpa loves to step out in style, and that's earned her the title of Sophia Loren of Geylang Bahru.
Saudah Marwan
Collaborator, Not Grey: Intimacy, Ageing & Being
Saudah, 66, retired 4 years ago after a fulfilling and meaningful teaching career for 38 years. Though she loved teaching, she had very little time for herself then. With much research and planning, she is determined to have an enjoyable and enriching retirement focusing on herself and the community around her.
Currently, Saudah's priority is keeping herself physically and mentally healthy. She believes with good health she can better enjoy her retirement journey. Gardening works wonders for her as it gives her a connection to nature besides allowing her to transform spaces, waste material and many other things to good use.
Shirley Low
Collaborator, Not Grey: Intimacy, Ageing & Being
Shirley worked in financial services in regional and global roles, but is rediscovering a life without deadlines. She is pursuing her interests in art, dance, music and wine and has also returned to writing and editing, having started her career in business journalism. She is a Board Director with the Singapore National Paralympic Council as well as Honorary Treasurer with Animal Concerns Research and Education Society Singapore (ACRES).
Shirley has particular interest in diversity in the workplace and gender equality, and was a mentor in the Financial Women’s Association.
Yvonne Teo
Collaborator, Not Grey: Intimacy, Ageing & Being
Yvonne was a pre-school educator during her children's growing up years. She decided on a mid-life career switch to pursue her passion for food and went back to school at Sunrice Global Chef Academy to get her Diploma in Bakery and Pastry Arts. After interning at TWG Tea production kitchen, she worked in F&B in Singapore and later as a pastry chef in Bangkok.
Now retired, Yvonne enjoys hiking, which she picked up in July 2018. She's completely hooked onto the sport having completed unprecedented hikes of 30-50km. Hiking calms her mind and body while privileging her to the sights and sounds of nature. She has learnt to navigate muddy, slippery dirt, hidden obstacles and wild animals crossing her path. Yvonne hopes to continue this form of exercise as long as she can.
Zubee Ali
Collaborator, Not Grey: Intimacy, Ageing & Being
Zubee is a consultant in the NGO sector specialising in social issues faced by women and older persons who have been marginalised through economic or social barriers. As a learning and development professional, she has worked with the leading women’s organisations for the past ten years on community building programmes.
Zubee earned her Master’s degree in Arts and Cultural Management in 2017, and would like to bring the community together more through socially engaged art. Her biggest pride and joy to date is being grandmother to a precocious two year old girl.
Vithya Subramaniam
Creator, Thamizhachi: A Digital Museum &
Writer-Performer, Rasanai: Invitation to Appreciate
Vithya is presently, like a good Indian kid, trying to be a ‘doctor’—she’s a DPhil Anthropology student at the University of Oxford. She is expanding her interests in memory and materialities in her doctoral project on the work of objects in the experience and expression of 'Indian-ness' in Singapore. Vithya thinks of the ethnological method and her artistic practice as much the same: both “make the strange familiar and the familiar strange” (Horace Miner, 1956). She is co-facilitator of the Migrant Workers Community Museum (2020); the playwright behind “Sikhs of Serangoon” (2016) and “Coffee Maker” (2019); co-founder of Sikh Heritage Trail; founding member of Brown Voices; and occasional essayist.
Across her work, Vithya seeks to think with the more-than-human, the hidden/silenced archives, and the knowledges our bodies carry.
Grace Kalaiselvi
Director and Writer, Rasanai: Invitation to Appreciate
Grace, an Intercultural Theatre Institute graduate, is a freelance theatre practitioner and educator. Her works include “Amma’s Sarees” for The Esplanade’s PLAYtime, “Angry Indian Woman-The Trial” (Singapore Writer’s Festival), “Angry Indian Women” (Textures) & “Touch Me Not”, part of Goddesses of Words series with The Arts House, “Crocodiles in Kurtas and The Old Fogies” for The Esplanade’s OctoBurst and her own “Mother I” series. Acting works include “a line could be crossed…” & “Precise Purpose of Being Broken” (M1 Singapore Fringe Festival), “Four Horse Road” (The Theatre Practice), “Ms British” (Esplanade’s Studio Series), and “0600” (SIFA). She has also directed “Three Fat Virgins Unassembled” (T:>Works, N.O.W. 2021) & “The Good Farmer” for T:>Works.
Grace initiated and is a member of Brown Voices, a playwriting collective. Grace hopes to create more works representing the suppressed and minorities.
Rajkumar Thiagaras
Translator, Thamizhachi: A Digital Museum &
Writer, Rasanai: Invitation to Appreciate
Rajkumar is a bilingual actor and playwright and has trained extensively under mentors such as Elavazhagan Murugan (Calvet, Avant Theatre), Edith Podesta (Young & Wild, Wild Rice), Goh Boon Teck (Wright Stuff, Toy Factory Productions) and Haresh Sharma (Playwrights’ Cove, The Necessary Stage) . Raj has written and performed autobiographical monologues such as “Aishwarya” (Kris P Production) and “The Patient” (Avant Theatre). His short play “Onthakan – The Blue Hour” won the 3rd prize in the 24-Hour Playwriting Competition in 2020 (T:>Works).
Raj is currently a member of Brown Voices, Singapore’s first Indian playwriting collective founded by Grace Kalaiselvi.
Mumtaz Maricar
Performer, Rasanai: Invitation to Appreciate
Mumtaz is a Theatre Practitioner, Visual Artist and Art Director interested in creating and partaking in works about the body as a site of transgression, negotiation, rebellion and potential revelation. A performer who wears many hats, she has 36 years of experience in various fields such as acting, singing, dancing and management. As a member of the writing collective Brown Voices, Mumtaz wants to bring ethnocentric themes that are potentially unknown outside of the various Indian communities, to all theatre audiences.
As an actor, Mumtaz worked in plays such as “Goddesses of Words - Touch me Not” (2019) & “Angry Indian Women” (2020), “Vel! Vel!” (2021) for The Arts House; “Well of Silence” (2019) for T:>works and “Shakunthala” (2020) & “Amma’ s Sarees” (2021) for Esplanade’s Raga and PLAYtime respectively. She especially enjoys working in productions that involve lots of collaboration, workshopping and pushing emotional and physical boundaries. Mumtaz loves being on stage and every production is another chance to be grateful for her to be part of this beautiful artform!
Rebekah Sangeetha Dorai
Performer, Rasanai: Invitation to Appreciate
Sangeetha is an actor, singer and voiceover artist. Addressing race, sexuality and identity, her show “Building A Character” premiered at the Singapore Theatre Festival in 2018. A commission by Wild Rice for the 6th Singapore Theatre Festival, it was the first time that an actor of Indian descent had helmed a monologue in the Festival’s history; the sold-out show was also featured as The Business Time’s Top 3 theatre picks of the Year. She also scored a Best Supporting Actress nomination at the Life! Theatre Awards Singapore for her multi-character turn in “Three Fat Virgins Unassembled” (T:>Works, N.O.W. 2019) directed by Grace Kalai. Other selected performance credits include “Discord of Discourse” (UK), “Miss British” (Esplanade Studios), “Eloquence” (T:>Works, directed by Chilean director, Manuela Infante), “Merdeka” (Wild Rice), “Who’s There” (The Transit Ensemble), “The Coronalogues” (SRT), “Two Songs and a Story” (Checkpoint Theatre), “NDP 2020”, and “subtitled 1.0” (BTG).
As a singer, Sangeetha debuted her solo jazz concert “Sangeetha Sings Sinatra: Live at the Esplanade” in early 2019, and recently sang in “Edith Piaf - No Regrets” (Singtheatre). Her next concert, “Sangeetha and Simone”, is slated for 2022.
Vasun
Chef, Rasanai: Invitation to Appreciate
Vasun is a Masterchef Season 2 contestant who conducts Thosai Masterclasses from her home and runs the food blog, Monsoon Table, in her spare time. Her passion lies in making thosai from scratch, indianising any dish and researching the food history of dishes, especially South Indian and South East Asian ones. In her kitchen, she often whips up dishes that exemplify the intersection between food, history and culture. When not in her kitchen, she may be found buried under the hundreds of cookbooks she has amassed from her travels, photographing food, or taking long walks.
In the near future, Vasun plans to host dining experiences at her home showcasing regional South Indian foods that are not often found here in Singapore.
Becca D’Bus
Co-creator & Performer, Cabaret Joy
Becca D’Bus is Singapore’s biggest drag queen. She is currently the producer and host of "Commotion", a smaller, socially distanced weekly drag revue at The Projector. Most of her activism is centred on themes of queer liberation, in particular, as one of the organizers reimagining of IndigNation, Singapore’s Pride Season, for the future. As an artist, she works primarily with entertainment, performance, words and garments. As an artist, she works primarily with performance, words and garments.
In non-pandemic times, she is the producer and host of her signature cult drag revue, “RIOT!”, and “The Glory Hoes present”, a queer film and afterparty series at The Projector."
Deonn Yang
Co-creator & Performer, Cabaret Joy
Deonn is a freelance theatre-maker, born and raised in Singapore. As an actor, she has been a part of Esplanade’s “PLAYtime!” (2017 and 2021), Esplanade’s “Huayi Chinese Festival of Arts” (2020), M1 Fringe Festivals (2017 and 2018) and SIFA (2015).
Deonn is a part of Playwrights Commune, where she has been working on writing her own play, and hopes to have it be produced and staged one day. She is interested in people and their stories, and always having a good laugh.
Ila
Artist, nudes.jpg
The intimate works of visual and performance artist ila (b.1985, Singapore) incorporate objects, moving images and live performance. Through weaving imagined narratives into existing realities, she seeks to create alternative nodes of experience and entry points into the peripheries of the unspoken, the tacit and the silenced. Using her body as a space of tension, negotiation and confrontation, her works generate discussion about gender, history and identity in relation to pressing contemporary issues.
ila's work has been shown at DECK (2021), National Gallery Singapore (2020), The Substation; NTU Centre for Contemporary Art; National Design Centre, (2019); Coda Culture, and ArtScience Museum.
Sonia Kwek
Artist, nudes.jpg
Sonia's practice is driven by a fascination with the body, examining the material(ity) of the body and interrogating body politics. Her work moves across disciplines and varying mediums, often through the roles of performer, creator, collaborator and/or facilitator in projects. She seeks to shape space-time for intimate encounters and visceral experiences, to open perspectives about the in-between and unspoken of. Sonia trained in acting and performance-making at the Intercultural Theatre Institute, and also holds a Bachelor of Creative Industries with Distinction from Queensland University of Technology.
Currently, Sonia is an associate artist with dance company P7:1SMA. Sonia also works regularly as a life model.
Nurulsyahirah Taha
Facilitator, Let's Talk About Circumcision
Sya is currently a PhD candidate researching obstetric violence among Malay women in Singapore. She holds an MA in Development Studies from the International Institute of Social Studies, specialising in Women, Gender and Development. She co-founded Crit Talk in 2017 to create a safe, facilitated space for Muslims to unpack taboos surrounding gender, interfaith and human rights issues.
Sya is also a freelance writer focusing on the media representation of Muslim women with intersectional identities, and a mother practising positive and gentle parenting to her two children.
Connect with her at nurulsyahirah@gmail.com
Corinne Ng
Facilitator, The ‘F’ Word
Having won numerous copywriting accolades, including awards from the New York Festivals and London Advertising Awards, Corinne was thrust into the hot seat of Editor of Cleo at 27, making her one of the youngest editors to head a top-selling women's publication at the time. She went on to pursue an illustrious career in the regional media industry, holding top positions at companies that included Editorial Director at Australian Consolidated Press (now part of SPH Holdings); Group Editor at Mediacorp; and Managing Director at Edipresse Media.
In 2020, amid the health pandemic, Corinne took the plunge and started a content strategy company called ContentMRKT, a move that she says was made with trepidation. ContentMRKT now has both global companies and SMEs in its client portfolio, and is also an associate consultant company for the Singapore Productivity Centre.
Nabilah Syed Sultan
Facilitator, Let's Talk About Circumcision
Nabilah works closely with students to create the maps that point them towards their goals. She enables students to navigate the foreign terrain of developing in soft-skills and self. With the ability to carry out important but difficult conversations our youth have in today’s society, she traces the necessary routes for students, accompanying them with the right curriculum to fulfil their aspirations. She also facilitates difficult conversations in her work with Crit Talk by creating and holding space for alternative views in the Muslim community.
In her free time Nabilah is a multi-disciplinary artist and aspires to be an art therapist one day.
Janice Lee
Facilitator, The 'F' Word
Janice’s mission is to help people #makelovetoyourself first before together let's #makelovegreatagain – 'know your body, own your pleasure'. As a firm believer of self-love and self-care, she sets out to promote sexual wellness as part of one’s total wellbeing. Professionally, she specialises in business development consultancy for sex-positive companies in the SexTech/FemTech space with a focus on SE Asian markets. She is also a sexual wellness advocate through her alter ego ‘Janicitaying’ whereby she creates a safe space for people to ask questions and open up healthy and authentic dialogues around Sex & Sexuality in Asia.
Connect with her on
IG : @janicitaying
FB : https://m.facebook.com/janicitaying/
Dr. Geraldine Tan
Guest, The 'F' Word
Geraldine Tan, founder of The Therapy Room, is a Registered Psychologist (SPS/SRP) and is also a Registered Clinical Supervisor (SPS). She has a Doctorate of Clinical Psychology (California) and has more than two decades of experience working with individuals with a multitude of psychological problems. She has been running sessions for special needs children since 2014. In 2016 to 2019, she was commissioned by a treatment home for teens and a gazetted protected home that housed children who have been abused, to run Camp Global®, a camp that she developed using multi-sensorial activities.
On top of her clinical practice, Geraldine conducts outreach workshops and talks for numerous organisations. She is sought after by and is featured widely in the local media to educate the public about the different disorders, earning her the title of “The People’s Psychologist”. She has an ongoing weekly radio and FaceBook live streaming session with a local national radio station.
Dr. Martha Tara Lee
Guest, The 'F' Word
A born and bred Singaporean Chinese, Dr. Martha Tara Lee is Relationship Counselor and Clinical Sexologist of Eros Coaching. She has a doctorate in human sexuality, masters in counselling and two other degrees. In practice for 12 years, Dr. Lee is also the appointed Resident Sexologist for sexual wellness boutique PinkLifestyle.com and Clinical Sexologist of Singapore Cancer Society. She was recognised as one of ‘Top 50 Inspiring Women under 40’ by Her World in July 2010, and one of ‘Top 100 Inspiring Women’ by CozyCot in March 2011. She is the author of 4 books.
Dr. Jessherin Sidhu
Guest, The 'F' Word
Affectionately known to her patients as Dr Jess, Dr Jessherin Sidhu adopts a holistic approach to patient care at her clinic, Insync Medical. She is a firm believer that relationships, sexuality and sexual behaviour are factors that have a significant impact on overall health. With her sex-positive and health-focused approach, Dr Jess encourages safe and open discussions of sexual health issues that extend beyond just treating diseases. She actively incorporates the positive aspects of sexuality into her practice, such as education of self-exploration and masturbation, respect for one’s gender and sexual preference, and abolishing the shame surrounding menstruation, sex and sexuality to help decrease the stigma associated with sexual health.
Dr Jess loves incorporating the latest and novel treatment options and technology to help her patients restore, maintain or improve optimal sexual health.
She is also a mother of two who divides her time between her kids, her husband, her clinic and outreach work.
With support from
Presented by
T:>Works Team
Artistic Director: Ong Keng Sen
Executive Director: Traslin Ong
Administration: Ong Soo Mei
Communications & Engagement: Chong Si-Min
Interns: Chimene Khoo, Danielle Koh,
Gaiatri Sasithara, Irish Alcantara,
Jeffrey Kang, Sai Lalitha Aiyer &
Toh Cheng Yee
Tel: 6737 7213
Email: connect.tworks@gmail.com