Working closely with Kuo Jian Hong, Artistic Director of The Theatre Practice (Practice), the Associate Artists Programme is a key aspect of Practice’s lineage in mentoring key contributors to the growth of Singapore’s arts scene. With Practice, Associate Artists have to identify and create a customised learning journey, allowing them to emerge as well-rounded artists. Aspects of development may include individual artistic growth, producing capabilities, and pedagogical advice. They are also encouraged to propose and promote artistic programming that are in line with Practice’s artistic vision.
Associate Artists must display a keen interest in creation, curiosity in inter-disciplinary experimentation, and rigour in honing one’s practice. More importantly, in possessing a collaborative and generous spirit, Associate Artists demonstrate a commitment to Practice’s values and mission.
Practice Associate Artists (2021):
Ang Xiao Ting
Ang Xiao Ting is a performance-maker, performer and dramaturg based in Singapore. She considers herself an ‘enabler of crazy ideas’ and is always on the lookout to create avenues for a shared human experience, regardless of whatever form that may take.
As a multi-hyphenated practitioner, Ang engages in a variety of contexts. She is the co-founder of performance collective: Chop Chilli Chop, programmer for Practice Tuckshop and Associate Artists of The Theatre Practice. In terms of her performance practice, Ang’s solo work Blank Run toured to the Shanghai ACT Festival, World Stage Design Taipei and was featured in the M1 Chinese Theatre Festival, along with the support of AWARE Singapore and the Sexual Assault Care Centre (SACC).
Some of her performing credits in recent years include: Liao Zhai Rocks! (Shanghai International Musical Festival 2019), The Wee Question Mark series (The Theatre Practice, 2015, 2017, 2019), Four Horse Road (The Theatre Practice, 2018), PIP’s Playbox Storytelling (Esplanade Presents, 2018, 2019), and The Lieder Festival (Sing Song Club, 2016).
Her directing credits include: Songs of Tau (PROJECT Utopia, 2019), Round Round Buns (Chop Chilli Chop, 2018, 2019) and #FoodPorn (Chop Chilli Chop, 2016). She was also one of the co-dramaturgs in I came at last to the seas, an Esplanade commission for Huayi Chinese Festival of Arts 2018.
As the programmer for Practice Tuckshop, Ang is also engaged in a series of projects related to community engagement. One such project is: Recess Time – a communal lunch series advocating creative approaches to utilising rescued produce.
Ang graduated from Lancaster Institute of Contemporary Arts (LICA), Lancaster University, UK, where she received the LICA prize for Outstanding Achievement in Theatre. She was also a recipient of the Singapore National Arts Council Undergraduate Scholarship (2012 – 2015).
Isabella Chiam
Isabella Chiam is an actor, puppeteer & theatre practitioner based in London & Singapore.
Trained at RADA, Isabella’s theatre credits include Four Horse Road 2020 (The Theatre Practice), Fantastic Mr Fox (SRT), Snow Queen (Polka Theatre), The Commuters (The Knotted Project) & Merchant of Venice (SRT) . She has performed internationally, having collaborated in cross-cultural productions in Japan, Hong Kong, Greece, Taiwan, London & Singapore. She was twice-nominated and won for “Best Ensemble” at the Life! Theatre Awards and is a National Arts Council (SG) Arts &Heritage Scholar.
Isabella also has a deep interest in movement, collaborative theatre-making & actor training. She is an adjunct lecturer at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Art, and is invested in cultivating wiser, kinder generations of theatre-makers and actors in Singapore. Isabella is also an Associate Artists with The Theatre Practice.
FERRY
FERRY is an installation artist, musician, producer, and collaborator. Since leaving the corporate world of graphic and web design 3 years ago to actively pursue her craft full-time, Ferry spends her time developing her own solo works (aside from composing and playing in four bands), crafting her brand, aesthetic and skills as an artist.
Her work ranges from collaborative performances with various musicians to large-scale installations and devised works. Focusing on developing good ideas and stories regardless of the form, this creative producer hopes to develop and grow her vision to showcase sound in a whole new light as well as devise pieces to challenge and change perspectives surrounding social issues. As a teaching artist, she firmly believes in passing on knowledge, engaging the community and sharing ideas.
Thriving on collaboration as a vital process, she sees her “finished” works as a work-in-progress, opening it up to other artists who can share, use or develop upon the initial idea. This allows every work to evolve by involving other artists and disciplines, providing more opportunities for exploration and growth.
Her latest work, Sky Kave – a multi-sensory, music and visual art installation – merges physics and art to create a cross-disciplinary work based on cymatics. Sky Kave consists of a huge suspended projection screen and a “Kave” floor – specially crafted chairs equipped with 4 Channels of tactile sound transducers – that enables the transmission of sound frequencies into physical vibrations. The separated channels allow different parts of the body to be targeted with different ranges of frequencies.
Through Sky Kave, it created an opportunity for an amazing photographer who happens to be deaf to collaborate with a music producer. The resulting disable-led work put forth an amazing and personal perspective from the eyes of Issy.
Sky Kave seeks to create awareness between and within the deaf and hearing centric community, bringing forth different perspectives, and the sharing of new experiences. Developed around research and interviews conducted with various members of the deaf and hearing-centric community, Sky Kave isn’t so much about hearing sound and music, rather, by adding touch and sight to the experience, one can discover and experience new ways of enjoying it.
Ferry believes that art is most powerful when it is used as an educative tool and to create opportunities for others. To look beyond the forms and mediums so as to encourage curiosity, experimentation, failure and embracing the unknown.
Her personal ethos is “whatever best serves the idea”.
Ng Mun Poh
Mun Poh is a theatre practitioner, performer and educator. She has been in many productions such as Four Horse Road, Immortalx, The wee Question Mark series: The wee Question Mark and the Adventurer, The wee Question Mark and the Nameless, The wee Question Mark and the Mountain Movers, Day I Met the Prince, Artist Farm, and Legends of the Southern Arch among others. She trained with The Theatre Practice’s Actor’s Lab from 2014-2016. Her performance credits with Lab include The Nude, Upstream and Uproot. As strong advocate for children’s drama education, Mun Poh performed and taught in many primary and secondary schools in Singapore. Be it rehearsing, performing and teaching, she continues to explore her relationship with self and others through her work.