Masterclass: Valid Languages for the Intersection with Jaha Koo

In this full-day masterclass, get up close and personal with theatremaker Jaha Koo in an exchange of ideas and artistic approaches. This masterclass is open to performance-makers, arts students and practitioners. To learn more about this programme, please read the artist’s message below.

Successful applicants will be contacted to purchase tickets for this masterclass.

This is a companion programme to Haribo Kimchi (1 – 3 Aug 2025) at Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay. The Studios companion programmes are an invitation to deepen engagement with the artistic works and conversations raised in the season.

A message from the artist, Jaha Koo

Over the past 30 years, theatre has struggled to remain vital in the overwhelming flood of information brought by the Digital Age. It has been striving to find its own relevant forms of artistic articulation. Born out of politics, theatre is inherently political—even as its societal influence seems to wane in our contemporary world. Yet I believe theatre is a living organism: it continuously evolves to express what I call valid languages—languages that respond to the urgencies of their time.

The artistic languages of theatre are not fixed. They are flexible, diverse, and ever-changing, shaped by the present moment and the conditions of the society from which they emerge.

Giorgio Agamben once wrote that the contemporary is this obscurity that we see; but in fact, it is a light that is moving toward us, and at the same time getting further away, and consequently can never reach us because of its high speed.

So then—how do we understand this obscurity? How do we capture this light?

I see theatre as a mirror that reflects this elusive light onto us. It testifies to obscurity and offers glimpses of clarity—moments of presence—in a single instant. Theatre creates ruptures in the homogeneity of time. It breaks continuity, but also bridges generations. It connects us across temporal and cultural borders.

In this one-day masterclass, I would like to invite you to think with me:

• What are synaesthetic voices in contemporary performance?
• What could your valid languages be, especially at the intersection of disciplines—using sound, video, drawing, text, object, or body?
• And how might your artistic urgency be articulated within those forms?

Together, we will reflect, experiment, and share. We will not seek answers, but rather begin to formulate questions that are honest to our time—and to ourselves as artists.