Photo Copyright 2011 Timothy Nga

Yesterday, I wrapped my final project for the year, a short film with NYU Tisch Asia students called Broken Maiden. It stars Lim Kay Tong and myself as father and son in a story that explores gambling addiction and paternal relationships in the setting of a small key-shoe business. It was an unlikely pairing at first glance, but one that has surprised me in so many ways, like most family dynamics. The film is directed by Maxim Dashkin and was produced and crewed by a motley cohort of NYU Tisch Asia students including Anna von Dziembowska (producer), Lorenzo Hassan, Anuj Gulati (DOP), Jason Chew (focus-puller), Philip deRise (AD/sound), Shane Logue (AD/sound), Ayesha A Ninan (AD), Reiana Essex-Simmons (sound/grip), Angelo Perrino (grip/dolly), Stephen Small (grip/dolly), Qing Chen (grip/set), Elaine Decor (guest wardrobe/set designer) and Alex Oleynikov (guest everything). A very good bunch indeed.

I have one more day of filming for the year with Eaglevision’s Wednesday night Suria drama Embun di Tenga Hari which is apparently getting very good ratings and then I’m completely done for the year!

Something broke yesterday in the atmosphere and I feel like a lifetime has been lifted off my shoulders. Not that many things have physically changed. I guess I’ve reached a place, like Job, where I’ve come through a season. I’m a different person from the beginning of the year and more importantly, I’m on my way to becoming the best version of me that I can be. “Because when we love, we always strive to become better than we are.” – Santiago The Alchemist

Here’s a Facebook photo album that I put up today. It pretty much sums up my entire year in one morning. Enjoy dear friend!

Photo copyright 2011 Timothy Nga

A friend was relating a recent afternoon experience in Beijing at the anniversary of the May 2008 Sichuan earthquake. The entire city (and I understand, across the country) observed a 3-minute silence in honor of the 70,000 dead and almost 20,000 missing.

For 3 minutes, Chinese nationals stood stock-still in offices, on roadsides and pavements, outside shop-fronts. A sea of cars stopped in the middle of their journey and drivers leaned on their horns. In the first minute, the sheer magnitude of this ritual excited him. Beijing is a massive city in terms of architecture and population and to think that the same thing was happening all across China, was awe-inspiring. Then, beyond the 1-minute mark, which is when most silent rituals end, something else began to happen. As the awe began to wear off he found his focus narrowing, till he could almost see images of the earthquake and it’s devastating effects. He began to feel the deep pain of a 1-billion population nation in collective mourning. Tears fell. My friend recounting the story is Australian, yet the pain he shared with these people defied national lines. It was human. Heartfelt. Unfathomable.

Dear reader. I have to be honest. I can’t wait for 2011 to end. It’s been a great year work-wise and one of my busiest and most fulfilling, what with the 2 theatre awards, my role in the National Day Parade show, making headway into learning-facilitation and conference speaker-coaching and all that lovely travel. I feel like I’m being redefined. The personal front has been no less fulfilling and unsettling and extremely painful. I feel like I’m crossing a desert that in its’ vast emptiness has slowly stripped away my sense of normality. An oasis is finally in sight. I strain to keep going but the caravan leader says, “no, we go tomorrow.” I ask why and he replies, “because now, it’s time to sleep.” But I want a proper respite. The caravan leader, whom I’ve sworn absolute obedience to says we wait. Frustration. And fear.

This week, a week after my father’s one-year death anniversary, I got news of 3 different people who have passed on. At least one took his own life. I don’t know the circumstances of the other 2, but I can suppose that we all take our own life in some way. At what speed do we accomplish our task? Memento mori.

I’ve been trying to meditate. Just 10 minutes. An eternity of nothingness. Everything about me screams “keep moving!” and I know why. I don’t at this point want to be alone with my thoughts. Fears which bear my name. What if this is it? What if I reach the oasis and it holds no water? Beyond that symbolic 1-minute mark is where everything else fades into the background and me and my fears have to sit together in silence. What am I running from? What am I afraid of finding or not finding when I finally arrive?

Please excuse me, I have an appointment to keep with myself.

Photo copyright 2011 Timothy Nga

Big kid looked like he was in charge. Stand. Pace. Stand on the corner. Lean. Shift. Lean. Mobile phone pressed lightly against his left ear. Hand making slow gestures in the open-palmed shape of the Buddha. Arm close to body. Only his forearm moved, like the bound conductor of an unseen orchestra. Silent, but for the sound of the street.

He faced me, with his back, then his side. Step. Step. Step towards the edge of the pavement. Turn. Dance. Mask cycling through a series of grimaces. Emphatic pleading.

Me. Voyeur. Straining to listen. No. Not really. Just wondering. Who are you talking to?

Illustration by Pierre Bonnard

This love letter, folded in two, is looking for a flowery address.

- Nature Stories by Jules Renard

Please allow me to introduce myself

Back in November 2010, when I received an SMS asking if I wanted to be involved in the National Day Parade, I thought I was going to be one of many performers in a mass display. A random thought flashed… “have I reached that stage in my career when I’m being asked to do NDP?”

Then I found out I was going to play one of the major characters in a musical about the nation. I had my reservations. But I know NDP 2011′s Creative Director Beatrice Chia well, and apart from being a wonderful human being, her vision for the show was crystal clear. Her concept really touched a chord with me. To boot, I got a really good vibe from the committee members who were at that fateful meeting at Max Brenner.

The months that followed involved meeting Music Director Goh Kheng Long, his wife Ting Ting and miracle-making sound-tech Sean, for a singing audition, followed by workshops and rehearsals with playwright Haresh Sharma and the rest of the cast. Rolling good times.

Then GE2011 happened and in the lead up, I decided not to be yet another apathetic, critical “Singaporean in name” and throw my weight in. Facebook and Twitter were fast becoming breeding grounds for all kinds of sentiments, fact and fiction. The least I could do was sift through the sea of information and aggregate as clearly as I could so that my friends and family had easy access to enough information to make choices that they could believe in. After all, we’d all have to live with these choices for the next 5 years or more.

Fast forward 9 months and I do not regret for a moment the choice to do NDP. For many personal reasons, I felt and still do feel proud to be a Singaporean artist involved in NDP. My sister reminded me of one of the main reasons my Dad left Malaysia to come here… so that his children could have a better life. And during the presidential inspection and 21-gun salute, a favourite of my Dad when he was around, I could not hold back the rush of emotion as I was suddenly reminded, “he’s here.”

Back to the practicality of the everyday. Today, hearing news of Penny Low’s mobile phone incident during the national anthem and her PAPology (an apology and lecture combined into one) left me wondering if our dear PM Lee’s post GE, “we hear all your voices” speech is quickly being forgotten.

I have an incident of my own that happened minutes after the end of NDP. I didn’t think to write about it then, but 2 similar incidents in such a short span of time make a case for the use of the internet.

After the parade on Tuesday, I was on my way to the reception when a man dressed in white entered the lift lobby where I was waiting with a few others. He looked very familiar but I could not put a name to the face. The lift door opened, we all entered and I entered last. The other occupants lined the sides of the lift. The man in white stood in the middle, at the back. If personal space is an indicator of status, it was clear he was top of the totem. I entered the lift and stood in the only available space in front of him. When we arrived at the 3rd floor, as the people on either side shuffled out quickly, I instinctively stepped aside and reached for the button to hold the door open for whoever was left. It happened to be him. I smiled in his direction to indicate that I was holding the door open for him and this is the response I got. Nothing. He looked straight ahead and walked right past me as though I did not exist.

I found out the next day that he is one of the new MPs in my consituency.

I’ve heard the story of how the Dalai Lama in the midst of a walking interview stopped at various rooms to switch off the lights, all the while carrying on the interview. To him, it boils down to the little things… “just because switching off the light when leaving the room seems inconsequential, it does not mean that we should not do it.”

Sir, a minister you may be, but if you cannot make the effort to connect with another individual who holds the door open for you in a lift how do you expect your fellow countrymen to follow you with respect?

“Never forget that we are here to serve the voters, to serve Singaporeans and not to lord it over people,” – PM Lee Hsien Loong

3651 days from today, I hope we will be able to look back and say, that what seemed radical, emotional and frightening then, were but necessary growing pains for a country on the cusp of adulthood. 

Something has already changed in this country and it’s people. The process of change can sometimes be beautiful, or downright ugly, but then so are the teenage years of many lives.

But the journey into adulthood continues and we live together as countrymen after tomorrow no matter the result, for better or worse.

Crossroads at Chek Jawa (Image copyright Tim Nga 2011)

I wanted to thank you for your 45 years of service to this country that I call home. I know we haven’t always agreed on the way things should be done, but I can see that as humans, we can only do and see so much. Success in one area comes at the price of something else and I understand that you’ve had to make some difficult decisions to progress the nation in a way you saw fit. No one can take that success away from you. There will be varying degrees of agreement on the price paid to achieve success and whether it fell too dearly on some of our people and values, but at the end of the day, all that is in the past.

So here we are. The events of the past weeks have been overwhelming to say the least. Being a vocal supporter of change, I wanted to write candidly to say, that despite my noisiness, I haven’t forgotten all that you’ve accomplished. I’m not pro or anti any political party. I am pro-progressive government. In my view, the landscape of our nation and the way it’s people exist has changed dramatically. Combine this with globalisation and the advent of an uncontrollable information and interaction source in the internet, and it is my view that the methods that worked in the past cannot work for our future.

The people of Singapore have demanded a greater level of transparency for a long time. We do that for a reason. It matters to us. Enough of us have reached a level of maturity and responsibility that we want to know and take responsibility for what we hear, whether we like it or not. We don’t believe anymore that the whole burden should rest on your shoulders. In fact, it cannot. Information flows do not allow the ostrich with it’s head in the sand to exist.

Unfortunately, seeing some of the incumbent members of parliament struggle with don’t ask tactics to control the flow of information in the face of questionable decision making has left a bad taste. This prolonged lack of accountability has resulted in 2 types of citizen. The angry and the apathetic. “Pain is your friend. It lets you know that you’re alive”. When pain gives way to numbness, that’s when you should really be worried, because it means nerve endings are dying. And there is no resurrection.

Many of my fellow Singaporeans have left the country as a result. Uprooted and relocated to a foreign land where, although they are 2nd class citizens, they can at least carve a life for themselves where they have a say. Where they’re not forced to wear invisible diapers or invisible leashes.

On the other hand, many of us still remain. Both in spirit and in person. We want to help you do an even better job in leading this country into it’s next phase of growth. And we are going to do that by not taking for granted that things will sort themselves out. We will evaluate candidates for parliament not based on who you know, but who you are, as human beings and individuals of society. Can we connect with you? Can we be led by you? Do you light a fire in our bellies, or under our backsides? Are you willing to take up your ego when needed, and put it down in moments when it doesn’t serve your people?

It’s certainly a new way of doing things and something we haven’t been very good at before. I can tell you that it’s as scary for us to be taking responsibility for what is unknown as it is for you to be ceding control. But we are in this together. Do two walk together unless they agree to do so? Alternatively, when two partners always agree, one of them is not necessary. Here’s to many more years together.

Sincerely
Tim Nga

Image Copyright 2010 Timothy Nga

But something happened on that month-long exploration. For one, nobody judged my ignorance, including me. Something to do with being away from home and the people that think they know you best, yourself included. No safety net or invisible leashes to fall back on or be tethered by. And the exposure to the work of the SITI Company, the writing of Charles Mee, the art of Norman Rockwell and Jason Rhoades, which served as inspiration to the piece, the opportunity to commune with 3 precious Singaporeans and an equally precious Austraporean – all these helped me to gather that what I was experiencing was about what the body and heart feels, not just what the mind knows – that gaps are okay – that asking questions that don’t have immediate answers is okay – and that being in a position when you have no idea what’s going to happen next, is a great place to be. And it kick-started my love affair with the world of art, the way it fucks with our socialised mind and, in the process, unravels our twisted existence from which we weave a strangely cohesive thread.

Ever been in that place where you felt like every decision you’d made was wrong? That the resulting train-wreck staring you in the face was all your fault? Been there, done that, ran the T-shirt factory. On the flipside, there’ve been a couple of times this year when I’ve felt like every decision I’ve made in my life lined up that one particular day. This Monday was one such day. The 11th Life Theatre Awards were announced and 2 productions that I had the privilege to be a part of, A Cage Goes in Search of a Bird by A GROUP OF PEOPLE and The Art of Living in the In Between – The Performance by Cake Theatrical Productions won Production of the Year and Best Ensemble respectively.

I’m a firm believer in fate, and the power of perservering self-reflection. I figure, if fate has lined things up for me, all I have to do is make sure I don’t get in the way. A deceptively simple strategy – like Suzuki Method Slow Ten where participants “glide” across the room, turn and return to their point of origin. Easy on the outside, but lots happening on the inside to give that exterior sense of ease and intention.

Nothing’s essentially changed. But it is a milestone. Awards are nice-to-have validations – of what is already past. Like a happy photograph. Time keeps on. Some things change. Some things stay the same. I love and miss you Daddy. This one’s for you.

Watch the youtube video here. The article at Uncluttered White Spaces is here.

The gods blessed our tiny isle non-stop the entire week. Wet weather respite from the heat is good. Being holed-up, high-up (by Singapore standards) in the Wilkie area with the folks from Teatro de los Sentidos, even better.

In case you’re wondering, Teatro de los Sentidos is a Spanish theatre company whose work focuses on the poetics of the senses and the relationship between sensory language, body memory and theatre. I had the wonderfully rich opportunity to spend 7 days with a few Teatro company members from Colombia and Italy in preparation for a production here for the Singapore Arts Festival 2011.

The production, entitled Inhabitants, has been performed in various cities in Europe, and seeks to ask questions like, “what is a city made of?” and “what characterizes a city?”. Going beyond the visible, much of the work is performed in an interactive darkened state, as an investigation into the invisible fabric that the people of each city weave, using the individual threads of their lives. Each iteration is different and so are the titles. Entitled Abitare Palermo (Inhabitants of Palermo) in Palermo; in Copenhagen, it was called City Puzzle. Look out for updates on the Singapore version of Inhabitants at the Singapore Arts Festival website.

On another note, A GROUP OF PEOPLE is in rehearsals for our next production. The team of Nelson Chia, Oliver Chong (who’s helming this one), Koh Wan Ching, Edith Podesta and myself are back for more craziness, delving into research on sound and assimilation, together with sound designer Darren Ng and lighting designer Lim Woan Wen. A Note Went Off in My Head will premiere at the Esplanade Theatre Studio as part of The Studios on 31 March 2011 at 8pm and will run for 3 nights till 2 April 2011.

AGOP will also be conducting a workshop entitled Rigour and Freedom in Ensemble Creation using the Suzuki Method and Anne Bogart’s Viewpoints on 2 April at 2pm. Ticketing and booking information for the production as well as the workshop are available at The Studios website.