I am speechless. MDA has just banned our performance, Human Lefts, the one that I have been working on with Benny, scheduled to play this Saturday. Their reason: "Bad timing."
To get the license, they said we have to change the script entirely and not mention anything about The Death Penalty, whether it is in the Singapore context or not.
Our play is not even defamatory or inflammatory in nature. It is a comedy and very experimental: it is about a father, a son and his lover from Hong Kong who is going to die.
We still need to put up a piece because the other performances are international works and NAC will pull out funding because they do not support international performances. We do not have the money to pay pack especially when we already have brought props, costumes, spent on publicity, etc...
We refuse to self-censor, so we are putting up a completely new piece within these 3 days that we won't even have the time to rehearse. How????
I am too disappointed to fight. It is almost useless. If we do, we will jeopardise future shows and future fundings. If we don't, we have lost our freedom of expressing ourselves through art.
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 aileron23
2005-11-29 11:44
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Why not just give them a new script and just go on with the same show, but with a different name. It's not likely that these people would attend anyway. (Reply to this) (Thread) |
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aileron23
2005-11-30 06:07
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What are the consequences if you just do it anyway?
On one hand, there is some sense in this. The government gives you money to create the art they want to see.
Your parents give you money to buy the things they want you to buy.(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread) |
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warg
2005-11-29 12:49
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its a thin line between the hand that feeds and abuses. although i think the excuse "bad timing" is pretty lame, and that the only thing thats bad about timing here is them suddenly axing the show when you've been allowed to prepare thus far. i'm just putting it down to bureaucratic inefficiency because its too disturbing to think about big brother on top of an air-conditioned nation. (Reply to this) (Thread) |
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aileron23
2005-11-30 06:28
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Singapore is so strict about everything, this should not come as a surprise what.
You want to talk about the death penalty when that Nguyen boy is about to be hung on Friday? The whole of Australia is against it. Our prime minister asked 5 times to spare his life, and so did New Zealand's. Not to mention the Pope and other religious figures... and you want to get away with just mentioning it? Your work might not incite anything, but I think the mention of it is bad enough for them to think otherwise.
Anyhow, I wonder how Singapore is taking to the news of this hanging. I would imagine the majority of Singaporeans personally believe that drug traffickers should be hung. Do they think the softy Australians are far too lenient?
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(Anonymous)
2005-12-03 00:18
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You win some, you lose some, as simple as that. (Reply to this) (Thread) |
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