We pick seven performances and workshops you should catch or join
What happens when you gather a team made up of only women to put together a creative public project? Would it be very different from any other project that involves men? These are the questions that prompted Noorlinah Mohamed to design N.O.W., a three-year season presented by TheatreWorks that shines a spotlight on women creators and change-makers, and the work they do.
"I wanted to experiment with the idea of how it would be like to play with women, entirely women," Noorlinah, who helms the project as the Artistic Director, shares. "What would change in terms of the set-up of the work, is there a different working style or voice? It's an experiment to raise questions for ourselves as women, whether there are more things we can talk about besides motherhood, for example."
It is the first female-centric project by TheatreWorks, a long-running Singapore performing arts company. Women are leading not only the team of collaborators and key presenters, but also the production and administrative crew. Furthermore, Noorlinah tells us that N.O.W. is also the first all-women project in the nation, for an entirely Singapore-run and operated project. It should not have had to take this long, but we're glad it's happening now (pun intended). N.O.W. celebrates the Not Ordinary Work that women and the women-aligned in Singapore are creating. The three-year season launches this July 2019, for three weeks from 10 to 28 July.
We are particularly excited about the diversity of the project's team and content. The collaborators and crew come from varying ethnic and creative backgrounds, lending their voices to an interdisciplinary programme. There's stand-up comedian Sharul Channa leading a comedy writing workshop, a series of film screenings, a staged reading of Akshita Nanda's novel, panel discussions, and more. All events are held at TheatreWorks (72-13 Mohamed Sultan Road). If you're as excited as us to support this vital project, the following are some of the highlights in the programme to look forward to. Check out the full programme and register for events at the official N.O.W. website.
2. Nimita’s Place: Staged Reading
Step into the world of Akshita Nanda’s debut novel Nimita’s Place in this immersive staged reading directed by Edith Podesta. A finalist for the 2017 Epigram Books Fiction Prize, the novel centres on two women of two different generations and time periods, both named Nimita. Nimita Khosla’s fight to decide her own future in 1944 seems to repeat itself 70 years later, when her granddaughter Nimita Sachdev in 2014 runs away from India to flee an arranged marriage. Transporting readers across time, place and cultures, Nimita’s Place lends itself well to live performance. The staged reading is participative, integrating voices of the readers as another character to deepen their connection to the worlds that Nanda has created.
Catch the performance at these times:
25 to 27 July, 7:30pm
27 July, 3pm
Get your tickets ($18) here.
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