Paul Rae:
writings on theatre and performance.

You can find a list of more recent publications on my National University of Singapore Web page by clicking here.

Some of these articles can be downloaded here. Other links will take you directly to their online presence elsewhere on the web. A few are only available in print.

My thanks to Lucy Davis and Rachel Farnay Jacques for permission to reprint articles from focas and The Arts Magazine, respectively.


Short Pieces

The first three articles all appeared in the now-defunct Arts Magazine, whose original purpose was to build an audience for the Esplanade arts centre, but which folded as soon the as work featured turned from content into competition.

Manifesto Number 1.
Published in the final issue of the Arts Magazine, a series of statements on the place of art in the Singapore context.

go view PDF [87 KB]


Richard Foreman Interview.
Previewing the Ontological Hysterical Theatre's Maria del Bosco.

go view PDF [89 KB]


The Third Link?
A snapshot of the Kuala Lumpur theatre scene, and some reflections on the relationship between theatre in KL and Singapore.

go view PDF [96 KB]


The Further Adventures...
A follow-up to The Third Link?, presented at a panel session on Malaysian theatre at the National Institute of Education.

go view PDF [97 KB]


Academic Writing

In chronological order, starting with the most recent.

At Large in a Small Town: Theatrical and Civil Space in the Work of The Necessary Stage.
Abstract: An exploration of the concept of space in the work of Singaporean theatre company The Necessary Stage, placing it in the context of a society where space is commodified and policed to an equally high degree. The piece considers the site-specific nature of all theatrical performance - even that which takes place in a theatre - and the extent to which the spatial concerns of theatre in Singapore bring it into the ambit of "civil society" discourse.

Source/Location: Tan Chong Kee and Ng, Tisa (eds) Ask Not/ Don't Play Play [title to be confirmed]. Marshall Cavendish: Singapore, 2004, pp.118-135.


"10/12": When Singapore Became the Bali of the 21st Century?
Abstract: The coincidence of the Bali bombing and the Esplanade opening on 12th October 2002 provokes this analysis of the dynamics of paradigm-formation, which surveys the place of Bali and Singapore in the Western cultural imagination, and asks whether the latter might be to "Performance" in the 21st Century as the former was to "Theatre" in the 20th.

Source/Location: focas: Forum On Contemporary Art & Society, No. 5, 'Second Front'. Singapore: Substation, 2004, pp. 218-255.

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Re: Invention
Abstract: Drawing on the rehearsal process of Various Gangsters, and the writings of John Berger, this paper proposes the concept of "invention" as an appropriate way of figuring the intertwining dynamics of academic research and performance practice.

Source/Location: Given as a paper at the Practice as Research in Performance Conference at Bristol University, September 2003, and to be found on the PARIP website.


Nosing Around: A Singapore Scent Trail
Abstract: The reader is led on a scent trail around Singapore as a way of investigating how the performative qualities of smell serve to produce and frame meaning-making processes in the notoriously deodorized city.

Source/Location: Performance Research Vol.8, no.3, 'On Smell', pp.44-54. A limited number of soft copies are available from me on request. Write to paul@spell7.net.


Presencing.
Abstract: This article considers the implications of new media performance and discourse for more conventional aspects of the theatrical event. Taking the resilient appeal of theatrical presence as its starting point, a selection of performances and perceptions are re-addressed in light of recent theoretical provocations concerning space, virtuality and presence itself.

Source/Location: Presence - a special edition of the online journal Performance Arts International, co-edited by myself and the artist Michael Atavar.


Keeping Up Appearances.
Abstract: This paper considers the uses and abuses of theatre's ephemerality in the struggle over cultural memory. It traces a number of performances in Singapore and KL that have either been subject to involuntary erasure or disappearance, or have turned such propensities to their advantage.

Source/Location: A version of this paper was presented at the FIRT/IFTR Theatre and Cultural Memory conference in Amsterdam in July 2002.

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Rates of Exchange: The Flying Circus Project in the Context of the Knowledge Economy.
Abstract: An analysis of the dynamics of cultural exchange at work in the third Flying Circus Project, a three week intercultural performance workshop, directed by Ong Keng Sen, held in December 2000. The paper assesses the relationship between the responses and practices of the participants, and the various framing discourses within which they were operating.

Source/Location: A version of this paper was presented at the FIRT/IFTR Transactions conference in Sydney in August 2001. A longer version appeared under the title 'Rates of Exchange: The Flying Circus Project in the Context of Globalisation', in focas: Forum on Contemporary Art & Society, No. 2, 2001, pp.193-206.

go view PDF [105 KB]