Co-presented by ArtsEquator and Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay, the ArtsEquator-Esplanade Offstage Fellowship 2026 commissions the development and publication of four opinion pieces that are topical, of the moment and reflect critically on contemporary performing arts in Singapore and Southeast Asia. Selected by both arts organisations, the four fellows are mid-career or emerging Singapore cultural practitioners and writers.

In this essay, writer Fezhah Maznan reflects on care-based, alternative approaches to performance-making in Southeast Asia as strategies for survival amid ongoing crises.

One morning in October 2025, I woke up and could not get up. I stayed in bed for more than a month, just unable to move in any direction. It all finally caught up in my body. The world by then was already too much for me. The Gaza genocide was two years long by then, with no end in sight. Each day brought new atrocities, children maimed and killed, more word salads from political office holders dodging international law's clear demands against the Zionists. In Singapore, Mothership's Gaza-related Instagram posts became my grim temperature check on decades of racial and religious harmony efforts. The comment sections were a cesspool. Meanwhile, in the kopitiams (coffeeshops), citizen reports surfaced of elderly people picking at leftovers because they couldn't afford a proper meal anymore. In Los Angeles, where I split my life, it had been four months since Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) stormed the city, kidnapping anyone who looked, sounded, or seemed like an "illegal immigrant." Papers didn't matter. Kidnap first, ask later. Schools lost their sanctuary status as agents showed up. Mixed-status families locked themselves indoors, trading jobs and groceries for safety.

People kept saying countries were "turning right"—more conservative, anti-immigration, peddling koyok (lies) about the (white) nation under threat, rolling back women's and minorities' rights. But I felt the world had turned upside down and inside out. I no longer recognised it. Sure, at surface level it is business as usual, but it isn’t. Our values have shifted. And one thought pierced through: with everything different now, why were we still making and producing performances like nothing had changed? Why cling to rushed timelines and the same old power dynamics?

By then, I had been questioning why presentational opportunities were limited to a few, with the representation of the whole performing arts scene at the behest of the leading cultural institutions, and why opportunities hinged on who "believes" in you. The context in which we now work, therefore, seemed at odds with remaining blindly attached to these institution-based, product-oriented mechanisms for supporting artistic work and artists. My breakdown pushed me to look for answers—or some inspiration, at least. I started seeking artists and producers in Southeast Asia (SEA) who were doing things differently, reimagining how to live and work in the arts when survival itself felt precarious.

A new CurrentSEA for artmaking

I launched CurrentSEA with that hope. This decade-long project builds directories of contemporary performing arts workers, organisations, activities, and opportunities across SEA. Its central aim is fostering camaraderie, exchanges, and artist-led collaborations over institution-led ones. CurrentSEA was a way for me to reset the balance by amplifying what is happening with and for the Southeast Asian performing arts scene. It was my way of promoting collaborations between designers, directors, technicians, and performers from all forms by putting the light on who's doing what, where. It's also my elevator pitch when someone in the US or Europe asks, "Southeast Asia? Where's that? Who's there? What performances get made?" 

I found hope not by desperately trying to make my vision of the world fit with what the existing institutions aspire to do, but by looking to my peers, to the producers in Southeast Asia who explore and enact powerful methodologies for community and artistic resilience. We are immersed in an ongoing series of catastrophes unfolding simultaneously at different scales. Growing xenophobia, changing political scenarios, economic instability, funding schemes disappearing, post-climate change realities—these are all global and immediate at the same time, and it feels as if we are left to watch the world burn from the first row without having any capacity to do something to change the course. What I found in conversations with artists, dramaturgs and producers from Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines wasn't despair.

Care as production infrastructure

The Covid-19 pandemic revealed the absence of care infrastructures for arts workers. Across the region, the suspension of live performance left the vast majority of artists and art workers suddenly without the income needed to cover basic living and health expenses. Many left the profession to apply their transferable skills in other industries and roles. But some persisted. Here are two groups who are modeling new ways of working to sustain their communities.

Kolektif Katalis calls Yogyakarta, Indonesia home. They offer a compelling counter-narrative to the endemic precarity within the arts sector, particularly in Southeast Asia. Founded by Sekar Handayani and later joined by Willis and Agnesia Linda Mayasari, these (as they proudly claimed) middle-aged women with extensive experience in the performing arts landscape, formally established the producer-dramaturg collective in 2019. Their approach radically departs from the conventional, high-pressure, project-driven model that often dictates artistic production.

Instead of chasing restrictive, short-term project deadlines, Kolektif Katalis embeds itself deeply with artists, committing to long-term research and sustained companionship. They function as critical 'catalysts', walking alongside artists through iterative processes, helping to distill and shape frameworks that emerge directly from the artists' embodied life experiences and intellectual inquiries. As Sekar articulated during an interview I conducted with the group, "Artistic practice is intersectional, a living archive of layered lives." This philosophy positions their work beyond mere production assistance to a deep, co-creative dramaturgical facilitation that brings together life and art into the artistic work.

Their operational rhythm is a deliberate, political counterpoint to the relentless exhaustion fostered by neoliberal institutional demands. The collective prioritises well-being and bodily intelligence, as naps quite literally dictate meeting schedules. Geographically dispersed across the cities of Solo and Yogyakarta, their movements, whether through travel or Zoom, are governed by what their bodies genuinely demand, ensuring sustainability over forced compliance.

Ultimately, Kolektif Katalis redefines success. Their success is rooted in the qualitative transformation of personal, often intuitive, artistic insights into shared, replicable tools and frameworks. To achieve this, Kolektif Katalis follows a model of diversified income and deliberate independence that echoes what in other contexts—such as the pioneering generation of artists in Malaysia and Singapore—became the foundation on which a professional arts ecosystem was built. They consciously generate income from sources both within and beyond the conventional arts funding ecosystem. For example, Linda owns a laundromat while Sekar opened a small food stall in her hometown, Solo. This strategic financial resilience allows them to maintain autonomy especially when external grants or project funding fall short of covering essential developmental needs. Their financial freedom thus enables them to self-fund these phases of their projects without external pressures or demands.

Through their unique method, performance-making transcends its status as a series of isolated, transactional gigs; it evolves into a profound, ongoing, lived relationship between the collective and the artists they support. They are, in essence, practising an ethical alternative for artistic survival by working within their sustained means.

Singapore's CITRUS Practices offers a significant model for emotional and community-based survival within the arts sector, moving beyond purely economic or infrastructural support. The collective was formally founded in 2020 by Chong Gua Khee and Bernice Lee, an initiative that grew directly out of their research and commissioning project with the National Arts Council (NAC), Making Performances with Care: Approaches to Care and Intimacy in Performance-Making. This foundational project sought to investigate and articulate the need for methodologies of care within the often-stressful and precarious environment of performance creation.

The collective’s overarching goal is deeply pragmatic and systemic: to support arts workers across Singapore in building essential personal and professional capacities around care, while simultaneously strengthening the networks of mutual support necessary for a more sustainable and humane arts ecology. Their work fundamentally positions emotional and relational well-being as a necessary condition for artistic production and survival.

The collective's composition broadened with the informal-turned-formal involvement of Teo Xiao Ting, a somatic therapist. Initially, Teo provided support to stressed arts community friends through informal "tea chats therapy", recognising a deep, unaddressed need for emotional and embodied care. Her therapeutic background offered a crucial lens through which CITRUS Practices could develop its interventions, integrating somatic awareness and emotional health into its framework of arts support.

Since 2022, the collective has developed a range of infrastructures that support care-centred practices within the arts ecosystem. Through initiatives such as the Library of Care, they established an open-access pedagogical platform offering practical tools, frameworks and exercises for integrating care into collaborative and organisational processes. In 2024, CITRUS Fest extended this ethos into a physical, community-based infrastructure for peer exchange, collective learning, and mutual support through participatory gatherings and shared programming. Building on these foundations, the upcoming Huddle Puddle initiative continues their investment in structured support systems by creating facilitated platforms for arts workers to experiment with and implement new care practices through sustained collaboration and practice-based research.

Process-first ecologies: Lengthening timelines and opening up access

Across the region, several groups prioritise process over polished product, a direct rebuke to rushed timelines.

Para Sa Sining, based in Manila, began in 2014 as a student-led platform and has since grown into a community organisation that connects both students and independent artists. Its enduring core mission is "to build a culture of inclusion through collaborative (interdisciplinary) art", drawing inspiration from kapwa, a Filipino core value, signifying a shared existence meaning your well-being, struggles and joy are intertwined.

While the organisation previously utilised a streamlined approach culminating in a large community festival, its post-pandemic operations have shifted. The focus is now on efficiently managing available resources by organising smaller, specialised workshops and gatherings, rather than maintaining a full, structured yearly schedule.

Micah Sofia, who sees her role as taga-bantay (caretaker), guides this shift. Her priority is providing a supportive environment, a 'home', where individuals can find assistance, share their creative work, and connect with potential collaborators, moving away from an emphasis on performance metrics or fixed annual programmes. The emphasis on ‘care’ here matters because it indicates a genealogy for that term and its practices that is much more strongly rooted in local, often indigenous and feminist approaches to work, production and collaboration. For example, in Para Sa Sining, there really aren't job titles. There are however, responsibilities that need to be carried out and the volunteers take these on, keeping their involvement fluid and everchanging to the shifting needs of the organisation.

Sharmilla Ganesan’s Cipta Seni Incubator in Malaysia, co-founded with Tom Curteis from the UK, now in its second year, addresses a crucial development gap within the country's arts ecosystem. Funded by the British Council, this highly focused programme operates through five-month cycles, deliberately targeting the nurturing of underrepresented voices in the creative sector. A unique aspect of its outreach is the use of multilingual communication, specifically English, Bahasa Malaysia, Mandarin and Tamil, ensuring accessibility across Malaysia’s diverse population.

The selection process is distinct, relying on "community champions" to nominate artists, which helps bypass typical institutional biases and unearth talent that might otherwise remain unseen. Once accepted, a cohort of four artists enters an intensive period of professional development.

The incubator structure is twofold: structured workshops are designed to build skills in sustainable practices, artivism, inclusive artistic practices, and community-based practices, while one-on-one mentorship sessions are highly personalised, tailoring guidance to each artist's specific career stage and needs.

A key conceptual difference sets Cipta Seni Incubator apart: the final showcases are primarily invitations for a diverse group of supporters from arts and media and for critics, not just funders. This deliberate choice reframes the event as a space for constructive, high-quality feedback rather than a high-stakes, commercial pitching session. The programme explicitly welcomes "failure", emphasising that the purpose is to experiment, learn and grow. This echoes a belief in the necessity of a slower, more reflective process. As Sharmilla Ganesan herself noted, ‘Time to process is essential.’ This commitment to time and process is fundamentally opposed to the rapid, commercially driven approach often demanded by the market, thereby ensuring a more sustainable and profound form of artistic development.

Majelis Dramaturgi by Garasi Performance Institute in Yogyakarta, Indonesia is a group of dramaturgs that hopes to create a space to lengthen the lifespan of an idea. A concept first articulated in 2017 by Ugoran Prasad, Majelis Dramaturgi puts reparative reading at the centre of the forum. This model was designed to fundamentally shift the critical discourse from judgment to growth, built upon several core, non-negotiable principles.

The collective has developed a care-centred framework for artistic critique and dialogue that prioritises experimentation, contextual engagement and collective reflection. Through structures such as their “No Bad Ideas” policy, feedback processes are designed to protect early-stage ideas while encouraging constructive and generative forms of critique. Discussions focus on the dramaturgical, ideological and material dimensions of the work rather than the personal identity of the artist, fostering rigorous yet supportive critical exchange. Their methods are also grounded in the specific social, political and cultural contexts from which works emerge, emphasising situated interpretation over universal readings. Complementing this approach is an audience-to-audience dialogue structure in which artists remain silent after presentations, creating space for audiences to collectively interpret, discuss and reflect on the work through open peer exchange.

Majelis Dramaturgi has developed a highly adaptable and portable "software" methodology that extends far beyond traditional theatrical settings. This framework has been successfully implemented across various locations, including Yogyakarta, Bandung, Bali and Madura, proving its effectiveness in fostering constructive intellectual discourse.

The methodology operates through three distinct forms. Firstly, there is the incubation process dedicated to artists as part of their work-in-progress phase for work development. Then, there is the post-performance discussion, a facilitated, 30-minute discussion with the audience immediately following a performance. Finally, there is the symposium which is a facilitated 3.5 hour session held the morning after a performance. This forum is designed for audience members to collectively engage in deeper insights and encourage shared dramaturgical thinking.

In essence, Majelis Dramaturgi has achieved more than just transforming how art is discussed; it has established a self-sustaining and ethical ecosystem for artistic and intellectual survival.

Networks: From isolation to lifelines

In cities where arts infrastructure is lacking, producers have stepped in to create networks that nurture new pathways to survival. The examples that follow, however, are not attempts to fill a gap left by state and private institutions, but rather to imagine and create new modes of institution-building that are ground-up and crowdsourced.

Rebecca Kezia's engagement with the Indonesian Producers Network (IPN) represents a significant evolution in strategic support for the country's independent performance sector. IPN started in 2022 as a deliberately non-hierarchical forum, managed by four co-founders/caretakers (Amna Kusumo, Rama Thaharani, Josh Marcy and Rebecca Kezia), and focused on sharing information and opportunities. The IPN facilitates vital collaboration, enabling producers to "imagine together a new work" across cities. The network demonstrates organic growth and distributed agency, exemplified by the 2024 Indonesia Bertutur event, in which regional producers acted independently under the IPN banner. By 2026, the network—now 40 to 50 producers strong—began replacing its forum structure with a mapping exercise that prompted critical internal self-reflection: “What can this network do for itself?” This question prompted its members to take on the role of caretakers for the network itself.

Shaifulbahri Mohamad ("Shai"), a Singapore-based artistic director and creative producer, is a frequent presence at international performing arts meetings and an NAC-ISPA Fellow. However, other than his capacity to network internationally to bring visibility to Singapore at a global scale, Shai’s key focus remains on supporting up-and-coming independent artists in Singapore—an experience he also had when he founded Yellow Chair Productions in 2005. He highlights the significant difficulties Singaporean artists face in securing international touring opportunities. Shai notes that the necessary groundwork—scoping, dialogue, and networking—is often invisible, delicate and involves extensive, difficult conversations that rarely succeed.

This challenge is compounded by the perception that Singaporean work has a "culture-agnostic" polish, which can make it feel placeless, especially amid increasing regional competition.

Currently, Shai is part of the independent Singapore Spotlight team, dedicated to showcasing Singapore's vibrant, alternative side to the world. Domestically, he facilitates interactions between the local arts community and international visitors through both formal and informal avenues. Formal efforts include public seminars on topics such as the US market, while informal efforts involve private meetups, introducing visiting producers (e.g., German dance producers) to Singaporean artists. However, these sessions are limited in frequency and size due to resource constraints.

Despite these challenges and resource limitations, like the ladies from Kolektif Katalis, Shai funds his international trips through his earnings from his various other jobs. Despite funding challenges, he remains strongly committed to gradually building a robust network of friends and contacts to support Singapore's independent artists.

As the world crashes, we nap first

The initiatives, groups and individuals listed here are also remarkable because, in creating and evolving their own infrastructures to produce with and care for one another, they demonstrate that refusing to participate in the same modes of artistic production that help maintain the world’s current status quo is always an option. The scale of action may differ, the distribution networks may be smaller, the time to produce may be longer, but if the world is burning, perhaps different, smaller and slower-performing arts can open the possibility of a collective future. The examples listed here are prescient to that end.

Amidst an unrelenting barrage of ecological collapse, economic precarity, and systemic political failures, a quiet but potent movement is emerging among practitioners across Southeast Asia. This movement is characterised by the adoption of radical survival models, which repurpose daily actions into acts of deliberate, political and spiritual regeneration. These are not lazy attitudes but intimate, embodied strategies for gestating work that becomes necessary for enduring and overcoming systemic exhaustion. For these individuals, basic necessities are re-contextualised as tools for resistance. This includes using slowness as a method to confront the unrelenting demands of a system that no longer serves today’s arts workers.

If you are part of the contemporary performing arts scene in Southeast Asia, do consider listing yourself on CurrentSEA. Be part of the movement to connect Southeast Asia!

The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely that of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views, position and policies of The Esplanade Co Ltd and ArtsEquator.