Final Year Individual Project 2018

Original works conceived and performed by ITI’s graduands.

The Final year theatremaking individual project is a critical and integral aspect of Intercultural Theatre Institute’s actor training programme. This is a project that the student begins thinking about, preparing and planning from the moment they start training at ITI. Combining the objectives of a performance with the exploratory intentions of a creative platform, FYiP is each student’s search for their own voice in performance.

Waltz of the Flower

By Caroline Chin

A tree, a woman. Nobody comes, nobody goes.

Then somebody comes, somebody goes.

Trust me, it’s exciting.

Waltz of the Flower is inspired by the Noh play The Damask Drum and Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, drawing on themes of love, torment, deception and death.

Straitjacket

By Pooja Mohanraj

Straitjacket imagines a future world ruled by techno-authoritarians where technology is used to control people’s behaviour, where surveillance can even monitor people’s thoughts and emotions.

Fireflies

By Lakshmana KP

My birth is my fatal accident.

I have always wanted to be a writer — a writer of science, like Carl Sagan.

Alas, this is the only letter I am going to write.

The value of a man reduced to his immediate identity and predetermined status, to a vote, to a number, to a thing. Never was man treated as a mind, as a glorious thing made of stardust.

This is the suicide note of an Untouchable.

Performed mainly in English with some Kannada

You Dogs 你們這些狗！

By Hau Guei Sze (a.k.a Zizi)

For such little water,

I’ve suffered too much pain.

Parched and dying and drinking and paying!

Buy water, you dogs!

為了這一點點水

我不知吃盡多少苦頭

乾透了，快死了！

買水啊，你們這些狗！

You Dogs 你們這些狗！is inspired by a character from Bertolt Brecht’s The Good Woman of Setzuan, exploring the relationship between nature and a society engulfed in materialistic greed.

角色的灵感来自布莱希特《四川好女人》的老王，与人性，表演，空间来进行探讨。

Performed in English and Mandarin

About the 2018 cohort

CAROLINE CHIN

Caroline’s journey began during her secondary school days when she took the Drama Elective Programme course. From then, Caroline was certain of her love of theatre and even took a gap year after junior college to explore theatre and dance more deeply.

During that time, she worked with Drama Box and was also part of Maya Dance Theatre’s MOVE Programme (2015), where she co-created an original work, i have nothing to do with explosions, most recently featured in the M1 Contact Contemporary Dance Festival’s Off Stage Programme (2017). She has also trained in butoh under Yoshito Ohno at the Kazuo Ohno Dance Studio in Yokohama, Japan.

Post-graduation, Caroline hopes to collaborate with those of different backgrounds and art forms to explore how differences can find harmony through art. She is also keen to further her studies and hopefully deepen her training in one or more of the traditional forms she’s been immersed in during her time at ITI.

POOJA MOHANRAJ

Hailing from Kerala, Pooja is an actor, director, translator, voice artist, and theatre educator. Her theatre journey started at age 10 as a member of the children’s theatre wing, Lokadharmi. Prior to ITI, she trained with G. Venu, David Zinder and Chandradasan, and attended workshops by Richard Schechner and Alex Pinder.

Pooja has worked with acclaimed directors such as Chandradasan, Kumara Varma and Neel Chaudhuri. Her major productions include Egle and Cleopatra (a solo play), Andorra and Balcony. She directed her first play, Sorry Dad but I Have To, for the Collegiate Theatre Festival for New German Writing by Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller in New Delhi. She has collaborated on The Bowl Project with multidisciplinary artists from Korea and The Eleven Project with French artists, and has also been a facilitator for theatre-in-education programmes for schools in India. In Singapore, she has performed in Pathey Nimidam, a Tamil theatre festival by Ravindran Drama Group. Pooja holds a Masters in Theatre Arts from the School of Drama and Fine Arts, Thrissur.

After ITI, Pooja hopes to create her own theatre projects, get involved in collaborative work, and work towards using theatre as a tool for social change through her new arts and cultural organisation, Talir.

LAKSHMANA KP

Lakshmana KP is an actor, director, writer and teacher from Karnataka, India. He graduated from Ninasam Theatre Institute in 2012 and has been travelling across India, working in various productions with different theatre groups. He has performed in Bharat Rang Mahotsav and in Mahindra Excellence Theatre Awards (META), both international theatre festivals in Delhi. He has also taught in Adima Kolarand Rangayana Shimoga and repertory theatres in Karnataka. Lakshmana has had the opportunity to work not just in professional theatre, but also exploring theatre-in-education with children and young adults.

In Singapore, he was in Chowk Productions’ The Second Sunrise (2016), Pallavi in Time (2017), from: The Platform (2017) and Pallavi with Stillness (2018) as an actor, dancer, musician and technician.

Lakshmana is also a published poet and an activist concerned about the marginalised people and cultures of Indian society.

HAU GUEI SZE (a.k.a. ZIZI)

Guei Sze (a.k.a. Zizi) from Kota Kinabalu in Sabah, Malaysia, found her passion for theatre at the very first drama lesson she received in secondary school. In 2013, Zizi trained and performed under Pitapat Theatre (Sabah). She then furthered her studies in Taiwan from 2014 to 2015 in performance and theatre.

Zizi has worked extensively with Pitapat Theatre, appearing in various productions such as The Wanted (2013), An Enemy of the People.At the Moment (2015 & 2016), Theatre in Kampung-Island Shade (2016), and Kakak (2017). An Enemy of the People.At the Moment toured to Damansara Performing Arts Centre, Kuala Lumpur (2016). Kakak was performed in Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre, Black Box KK, Sabah and later toured to Tua-Tiu-Tiann International Festival of Arts, Taipei (2017). In 2018, Zizi’s performance in Kakak won her an award for Best Actress in a Leading Role at the 15th Asli Drama Awards. In Singapore, she has performed in The Moonlit Smile at the Esplanade Moonfest (2016) and Speak Cryptic’s The Tribe as part of Club Malam at SIFA O.P.E.N 2016.

After ITI, Zizi plans to continue her practice, exploring the intricacies of voice production and character work.