Roundtable dialogue: Body Language

Centre 42 is a non-profit arts organisation with IPC status committed to the creation, documentation and promotion of text-based works for the Singapore stage.

As a theatre development space and intermediary, they incubate original writings for the stage, support the development of artists and new works, and develop and maintain a functional archive documenting the histories and processes of Singapore theatre. Visit www.centre42.sg for more info about their programmes and digital archive.

Corrie Tan often works as a researcher, facilitator, dramaturg and critic, and is currently exploring the intersection of care ethics, collaborative performance practices, and new articulations of performance criticism in Singapore and Southeast Asia. She is usually invited into projects where she can be a critical companion, resource sharer and co-thinker—and can offer up rich textual accompaniment to an artistic process or product. She has worked with artists and platforms such as Southernmost (2018), Tactility Studies (2019-present), and P7:1SMA (2020-present), and has written regularly about performance for The Straits Times, The Guardian and Exeunt Magazine. Corrie is completing her Ph.D. in Theatre and Performance Studies on the joint doctoral programme between King’s College London and the National University of Singapore. She is also contributing editor with the Southeast Asian arts media platform ArtsEquator and assistant editor with the independent academic collective AcademiaSG.

Edith Podesta is a theatremaker, actor, and choreographer. She studied Acting and Movement Studies at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) and holds a Master of Arts Fine Arts from LASALLE College of the Arts. Edith is currently Associate Artistic Director of young & WILD, a division of WILD RICE.

Her diverse artistic background includes co-founding A Group Of People, whose production of A Cage Goes In Search Of A Bird won Production of the Year at the Straits Times Life! Theatre Awards in 2010. In 2017, she was awarded Best Original Script and Production of the Year for Bitch: The Origin Of The Female Species, and in 2019, her production of Leda And The Rage, received the Production of the Year Award.

Her previous choreographic work in Singapore includes; The Immortal Sole commissioned by the M1 Singapore Fringe Festival, Indices Of Vanishment for RAW Moves; and Acting Mad directed by Haresh Sharma.

Canadian theatre artist Jonathon Young is playwright-in-residence at Kidd Pivot and a core artist of Electric Company Theatre, where he has created and performed in over 20 original productions: Tear the Curtain! (Arts Club Theatre, Canadian Stage), No Exit (American Conservatory Theatre), Betroffenheit (international tour). He has worked as an actor on stages across Canada: Knives in Hens (Coalmine Theatre), The Full Light of Day (Electric Company/ Luminato Festival), All But Gone (Necessary Angel, Toronto), The Great Gatsby (Theatre Calgary), Hamlet (Bard on the Beach, Vancouver). In addition to Betroffenheit and Revisor, Young collaborated with Crystal Pite on two productions for Nederlands Dans Theater (Parade and The Statement). Young is the recipient of an Olivier Award and the UK National Dance Award.

Pawit is a member of the Executive Committees of International Association of Theatre Critics (IATC) and International Association of Theatre Leaders (IATL)—the first Southeast Asian for both—as well as vice president of Contemporary Arts and Culture Industry Promotion Trade Association Thailand (CAPT). He currently teaches in Chulalongkorn University’s graduate programmes in cultural management and transdisciplinary approaches in performing arts.

Formerly, he was the director of Bangkok Art and Culture Centre (BACC), CEO of art4d magazine and artistic director of Sodsai Pantoomkomol Centre for Dramatic Arts.

A performing arts critic at The Nation newspaper since 2001, he was a critic-in-residence at the Festival/Tokyo 2011, Asia Pacific Dance Festival 2015 (Honolulu) and City Contemporary Dance Festival 2017 (Hong Kong). He was awarded the insignia of chevalier de l’ordre des arts et des lettres by France’s Ministry of Culture and Communication.

Renée was born in Saskatchewan and moved to Vancouver in 2008. Since graduating from Modus Operandi contemporary dance program in 2012, she has performed in several works with Out Innerspace Dance Theatre, Joshua Beamish/MOVETHECOMPANY, Company 605, Wen Wei Dance, Mascall Dance, Kinesis Somatheatro & EDAM. She joined Kidd Pivot in 2018.