"Bright red blood which covers the towns and plains of  Kampuchea, our motherland, sublime blood of workers and peasants,  sublime blood of revolutionary men and women fighters!"         
      - National anthem during Khmer Rouge bloodbath.

Based on Pol Pot's massacre of the royal court dancers of  Cambodia, this documentary performance has played in USA, Berlin,  Rotterdam, Vienna, Singapore, Phnom Penh, London, Stockholm, Oslo,  Goteborg, Rome, Lyon, and Istanbul. The real life story of seventy-five  year old Em Theay, master dancer of royal classical dance in Cambodia.  This is a unique form of dance which has women cross-dressing in male  roles. Em Theay has survived the scourge of the Khmer Rouge to live on,  teaching her skills to the national troupe after the trauma. This story  of dance passed through generations of mothers and daughters becomes all  the more horrific when one learns that nine out of ten royal dancers,  musicians, actors, playwrights, poets, artists were killed by Pol Pot in  his fanatical attempt to set his country back to year zero. 

Pol Pot's vision was to realise a peasant nation of  self-reliant agricultural work brigades modelled on Mao's China.  Reminiscent of Nazi Germany's genocide of Jews; technicians, teachers,  monks or doctors were executed. Those who spoke French, English or who  had studied abroad, were likewise liquidated. Simply having fair skin or  wearing glasses was cause of execution.

Em Theay, often known as the tenth dancer - the one who  survived, tells her story. Persecuted for being an artist, she never  falters, a conscience, a memory of the gash which tore Cambodia apart  after 25 years while Cambodia still waits for its war crimes trials to  come to fruition. 

Source: TheatreWorks

More information: www.theatreworks.org.sg

Ong  Keng Sen, is a Singaporean theatre director who is known around the  world for his innovative approach to performance and theatre making.  Often utilising his unique approach of combining both Eastern and  Western performance traditions, he creates theatre that is truly  multi-cultural, crossing boundaries and borders to reach the essence of  what performance means today.

Ong's  approach focuses on embracing differences whether that be artforms,  people, nationalities or cultures, and he remains fascinated by how  theatre-making can be combined with film, music, dance and visual arts  to “combust together” and create a live work of art.

Ong's  believes the true skills of a theatre director are not only to be a  problem solver but also an expert in human communications, and he uses  these skills to enable artists of different nationalities create new  perspectives and experiences.

One  example of this is his long-running Flying Circus Project, which brings  together established artists from around the world for a residency  programme to collaborate with the emerging, local artists in countries  such as Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam. The project offers an opportunity  for artists to think, exchange and challenge ideas, creating a unique  and powerful environment for learning.

This  expansive and welcoming approach, guided by the principles of human  rights and justice, has placed him as one of the leading voices in the  Singaporean art world. As the Artistic Director of TheatreWorks, Keng  Sen was charged with developing Singaporean writing and theatre, and he  guided the artists he was working with to confront the injustices of the  past to create a new and independent vision of their own cultural  identity and representation.

He  then furthered this agenda by becoming the first artist to direct the  Singapore International Festival of Arts, increasing audience numbers  and participation in the festival, as well as raising awareness of  Singaporean art through international partnerships.

Ong  believes his greatest work is when a production goes beyond simply good  theatre but also has a cultural, social or political impact. He says,  “Of course the imperative if you are a theatre director or a fashion  designer or a scientist, (is to) make good work…but to do something more  than that is a great privilege and an opportunity.”

Source: University of the Arts - London

Author, filmmaker and video artist Charles Picq (1952-2012) entered working life in the 70s through theatre and photography. A- fter resuming his studies (Maîtrise de Linguistique - Lyon ii, Maîtrise des sciences et Techniques de la Communication - grenoble iii), he then focused on video, first in the field of fine arts at the espace Lyonnais d'art Contemporain (ELAC) and with the group « Frigo », and then in dance.
   On creation of the Maison de la Danse in Lyon in 1980, he was asked to undertake a video documentation project that he has continued ever since. During the ‘80s, a decade marked in France by the explosion of contemporary dance and the development of video, he met numerous artists such as andy Degroat, Dominique Bagouet, Carolyn Carlson, régine Chopinot, susanne Linke, Joëlle Bouvier and regis Obadia, Michel Kelemenis. He worked in the creative field with installations and on-stage video, as well as in television with recorded shows, entertainment and documentaries.

His work with Dominique Bagouet (80-90) was a unique encounter. He documents his creativity, assisting with Le Crawl de Lucien and co-directing with his films Tant Mieux, Tant Mieux and 10 anges. in the 90s he became director of video development for the Maison de la Danse and worked, with the support of guy Darmet and his team, in the growing space of theatre video through several initiatives:
       - He founded a video library of dance films with free public access. This was a first for France. Continuing the video documentation of theatre performances, he organised their management and storage.
       - He promoted the creation of a video-bar and projection room, both dedicated to welcoming school pupils.
       - He started «présentations de saisons» in pictures.
       - He oversaw the DVD publication of Le tour du monde en 80 danses, a pocket video library produced by the Maison de la Danse for the educational sector.

       - He launched the series “scènes d'écran” for television and online. He undertook the video library's digital conversion and created Numeridanse.

His main documentaries are: enchaînement, Planète Bagouet, Montpellier le saut de l'ange, Carolyn Carlson, a woman of many faces, grand ecart, Mama africa, C'est pas facile, Lyon, le pas de deux d'une ville, Le Défilé, Un rêve de cirque.

He has also produced theatre films: Song, Vu d'ici (Carolyn Carlson), Tant Mieux, Tant Mieux, 10 anges, Necesito and So schnell, (Dominique Bagouet), Im bade wannen, Flut and Wandelung (Susanne Linke), Le Cabaret Latin (Karine Saporta), La danse du temps (Régine Chopinot), Nuit Blanche (Abou Lagraa), Le Témoin (Claude Brumachon), Corps est graphique (Käfig), Seule et WMD (Françoise et Dominique Dupuy), La Veillée des abysses (James Thiérrée), Agwa (Mourad Merzouki), Fuenteovejuna (Antonio Gades), Blue Lady revistied (Carolyn Carlson).

Source: Maison de la Danse de Lyon

Established  in 1985 by Lim Siauw Chong, Lim Kay Tong, and Justin  Hill, TheatreWorks  (Singapore) is an independent and international  performance company based in  Singapore. It is an Institute of Public  Character. It is currently led by  Artistic Director, Ong Keng Sen.

TheatreWorks is an independent, non-profit Singaporean theatre  company that develops and nurtures professional arts skills. It supports  Singapore artists, and articulates the Singapore arts through its  various productions and developmental programmes.  It promotes and  produces Singapore writing, interdisciplinary performances,  collaborations with international artists.  It also provides residencies  for visual artists, documentary filmmakers or creatives working in  contemporary visual culture and new media.  The company recognises its  responsibility in encouraging awareness of human and social issues, and  is dedicated to sharing the transcendant potential of art with arts  lovers and the Singapore community.

Since its establishment, TheatreWorks has staged  over 200  productions and 2,500 performances in Singapore and overseas, and has   reached an audienceship of over a million. TheatreWorks’ home is 72-13, a   heritage building that was once a rice warehouse on Mohamed Sultan  Road and  next to the Singapore River.
 

TheatreWorks/72-13 is dedicated to the  development of contemporary arts  in Singapore and to the evolution of an Asian  identity and aesthetics  of the 21st Century through a culture of differences.  It asks, what is  Asian in this age of globalisation, internationalisation,  modernisation  and urbanisation? Its works exist on the tension between  modernisation  and tradition; local and global. Representing the continuum  between  tradition and contemporary, the works are unafraid to be exotic and yet   conceptual. TheatreWorks’ projects present the hybrid identity of the   contemporary Asian and embrace the multiple realities.
 

TheatreWorks is a multi-faceted arts company but  always working  intensively across languages, art forms, disciplines and   socio-political borders. Rather than residing stably in the staid  singularity  of one Art or one Culture, TheatreWorks believes in the  idea of leaving one’s  own position, one’s locality, and locating  oneself in the unknown – to co-work  and co-create in a third space.  This vision has made Theatreworks distinct and  sets it apart from other  performance companies in Singapore.
 

TheatreWorks has two main red lines in its work:  the first is the  creation and presentation of inter-disciplinary and  intercultural  productions/programmes that brings together artists from across   disciplines and cultures and from both the traditional and contemporary  worlds.  The second being Docu-Performances which are performances  created from  historical instances and phenomenon, archival materials,  real-life experiences  and living persons.
 

TheatreWorks thrives on developing processes,  creative partnerships and  artistic risk-taking. One of these processes that has  gained  international influence is the Flying Circus Project (FCP) first   conceived by Ong Keng Sen in 1996. The FCP is a long-term programme  exploring  creative expression in Asia. Its focal points are individual  creative action, encountering  difference and strategies of art  practice, emphasizing the tenacity of local  sites – with their artists,  activists and public intellectuals. The FCP is  curated around the  central notion of “world creating”, how do we form new  micro-worlds,  which are responsible, articulated and ethically engaged? The 8th   Edition of the FCP was in Dec 2012/Jan 2013 and was sited in Myanmar and   Singapore.
 

TheatreWorks is committed to developing and  nurturing professional arts  skills by providing residencies to mid-career  artists as well as  Research and Development programmes to a variety of artists,  creatives  and cultural workers using 72-13 as an incubator and laboratory. In   addition, TheatreWorks also encourages new writing through The Writer’s   Laboratory (established in 1990) which organizes the annual and popular  24-Hour  Playwriting Competition since 1998. TheatreWorks is distinctly  the only  performing arts company in Singapore involve in capacity  building in Asia as  well as steadfastly building a dialogue and bridge  in Asia and Asia’s interface  with the rest of the world.
 

Since 1999, TheatreWorks hosts and manages the  Arts Network Asia (ANA).  ANA has been a unique networking and grant-giving body  for intra-Asia  collaborations in multiple disciplines, encouraging mobility  within  Asia as well as developing managerial skills in Asia. It pays attention   to the diverse perspectives of a global Asian urban metropolis and the  multiple  contexts of everyday life in Asia.
 

With The Continuum Asia Project and Mobilising  Arts Communities,  TheatreWorks capacity-build in Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia  respectively.  The CAP helps to preserve the rich cultural heritage of Asia by   reviving dying traditional art forms. TheatreWorks is assisting the  Royal  Ballet Theatre at Luang Prabang to revive the Laotian Ramayana.  The MAC, on the  other hand, serves to link artists and local  communities through capacity  building and harnessing skills of  participating artists in Vietnam and  Cambodia.

Source: TheatreWorks

More information: www.theatreworks.org.sg