heritage festivals

The not-so-recent redevelopment of Clarke Quay flushed out dealers of memorabilia who have sinced moved to the 2nd storey of China Square.  Browsing through the boxes of postcards, report books and other such homely items last  weekend brought back memories of the first Singapore Heritage Week that we organised in 1986.  

I was then working in a newly- founded MCD with policy “oversight” of the National Library and three heritage departments – National Museum, National Archives and Oral History Department.  

The idea for Singapore Heritage Week was hatched quite accidentally at one of our monthly meetings where we freely exchanged views on the plans and challenges of the departments.    The acquisition budget for the heritage departments was very limited, much much smaller than it is today.  At one meeting, when we were commiserating over the budgetary constraints to enriching our exhibitions, someone – I think it was either Lim Guan Hock (National Archives) or Tan Beng Luan (Oral History Department) – pointed out with urgency that families relocating from kampongs and shophouses to high-rise flats were nonchalantly and rapidly discarding their antiques and memoribilia.   

Brainstorming how we could ”intercept” such “discards” for the benefit of our national heritage collection, we stumbled upon the idea of a high-profile heritage event to alert these families to the historical significance of their personal items and that the heritage departments would like to have them if they no longer wanted them. 

SHW86 Bookmark

After a few months of preparation,  the 1st Singapore Heritage Week was held from 4 – 11 Oct 1986.   It was launched by Political Secretary /MCD Zulklifi Mohammed as  he ceremoniously released colourful balloons into the ceiling of the National Museum rotunda with a swift sweep of his antique kris.  All week long, the Museum grounds were dotted by 1950-style itinerant hawkers’ pushcarts selling the foods (eg dragon candy), games (gasing, rice dough puppets) of yesteryears.  In the museum, we staged an exhibition of everyday objects, our way of reminding viewers that they were important purveyors of our social history. 

The Week’s slogan which I must take responsibility and, credit for, was “Your Junk could be our National Treasure.  Thank you for sharing it with us.”  Nearly  everyone – our sponsor, American Express Foundation, our advertising agency and many of my committee members,  felt it was too insulting an

Slogan for SHW 1986

d would not be well-received by the general public.  Barry Arnold who then headed the AMEX team stuck his neck out and agreed that we could take a chance with it. 

We were more than amply rewarded when on our “Walk-In Donation Day” that Sunday, a never-ending queue of ordinary folks streamed into the Rotunda to offer us  their “junk”.  I remember uncles and aunties asking shyly if this or that “would do”  or “was acceptable”.   Beng Luan, Guan Hock, Susie Koay and their colleagues had a field day as they sifted happily through the many objects that fell into our laps.  By the end of Heritage Week, the public had donated over 900 items including complete sets of Chinese classics, porcelain steamboat, World War Two ration cards and many other interesting personal items.

The following week, a member of the public sent a letter to Minister Wong Kan Seng complaining that we had undermined the standard of public hygene by bringing back squalid old carts.  Slightly amused and happy to receive this back-handed compliment, we explained that we had  deliberately stained the newly-constructed carts,  to make them look old and authentic.

I organised two other Singapore Heritage Weeks subsequently and since then, it has morphed into a Heritage Weekend, Heritage Day and now, a fortnight-long Heritage Fest organised by my friend Jeremiah Choy and his company OrangeDot.

visual arts in the esplanade

On 16 November 2008, I organised a tour of the artworks in the stations of our Northeast Line.  It is so wonderful how art has been integrated into the walls and floors of the stations and I so admire LTA Project Architect Andrew Mead for his great success in this endeavour. Unfortunately, we could not do for the Esplanade what he did for the NEL stations.

Art-in-Transit Tour by Andrew Mead

Brother Joseph McNally, supported by a band of architects, lobbied for a modern art gallery in The Esplanade.  They felt that visual artists had been short-changed as St Joseph’s Institution was not suitable for a modern art gallery partly because its ceilings were too low.  I had secured SJI and the Catholic High School buildings for the museum in the late-80s, arguing that SJI itself  was six times larger than the 800 sqm National Museum Arts Gallery in the old National Museum which was due for renovation.  

Their request came to nought as we were too pre-occupied with the needs of the perfoming arts.  Still, I aspired to integrate art into the structure of the Esplanade – its walls, waterfront floor tiles, bathroom tiles. I had seen this done in art centres in Australia where visual artists had a role in the development of a performing arts centre. I initiated a Visual Arts Advisory Panel in 1994 comprising Connie Sheares, Eng Seok Chee, Susie Koay and other curators. We spent a few afternoons talking to artists to identify suitable ones. Although the report was approved by the Steering Committee, it was not implemented after I left the Company in 1997 due to financial constraints.

Han Sai Por showing off a marquette of "Seeds"

Nonetheless, we did acquire a few pieces of performing arts-related artworks – “In Sync” by Sandy Wong and Ming Wong’s “Before the Opera”. Singapore Technology Automative (STA) offered to donate a collection of four sculptures “Seeds” by Han Sai Por to the Esplanade on the occasion of its 25th anniversary in 1996. The works were unveiled in October 1996. Han’s “Seeds” are now displayed at four corners of the Esplanade waterfront garden whereas I had envisioned them in a cluster “rolling off” the side of a grassy slope.

 

Sandy Wong-Shin's In-Sync

Late Singaporean calligrapher, Pan Shou also dedicated a classical Tang style poem to the Esplanade. On 19 May 1996, he presented the calligraphy to Minister George Yeo at an exhibition at the National Museum.  The calligraphy was to be cast in stone and placed in a public location when the centre opened.  

With family of Pan Shou at Presentation Ceremony, National Museum

The Esplanade management is supporting visual artists by staging rotational exhibitions in the Main Concourse and in the Jendela, a gallery which was carved out of part of the Concert Hall.  The suspension of three-dimensional art pieces in the series of light cones above what we nicknamed “Theatre Street” of shops, is a surprisingly nice touch.

Art suspended within light cone above "Theatre Street"

stint in people’s association

 “Queen Juliana of Holland”!  That was the nickname given to me in the People Association where I worked from 1979 to 1981.

 

PA was my fourth posting in the civil service, after stints in the ministries of Education, Communications and National Development.  I had been offered a posting to the Ministry of Finance (Revenue Division) but I derailed it as it was rumoured that the senior officers in Revenue Division did not like female officers. This, coupled with my general aversion to statistics, emboldened me to request instead, a humbler posting to the People’s Association.

 

PA was then run by Lim Chin Tiong.  I was Assistant Director (Programmes) working to Douglas Koh. The Programme Division managed four community programmes namely, the Kindergarten Section which later evolved into the Day Care Section when the community needed care services for toddlers of working couples; the Social Education Section which promoted campaigns, Continuing Education which ran an interesting gamut of classes for adults and last, and most attractive to me, the Culture Section.

 

Douglas and I were also expected to raise the standard of English among our colleagues and my first assignment was to polish up the language of the banners hanging at community centres.  Nowadays, when I read about ungrammatical signs sighted in China, it reminds me that Singapore had its share of such comical signs in the late 1970s and still does.  

Douglas and I took our jobs seriously and spent a lot of energy helping our colleagues to polish up their submissions. Not everyone welcomed the interference of these two Western-educated Chinese and we eventually earned the nicknames “German” for Douglas and “Juliana, Queen of Holland” for me.  

 

I am not sure if our efforts bore fruit especially as I chanced recently on a PAssion banner on East Coast Park that read, “Drinks are ahead of you”.  Had the drinks raced ahead of the athletes?  However, I discovered that I enjoyed copy-writing and production.  As an English literature student, we wrote large volumes, but it was a thrill to write for the masses and to watch a brochure take shape under one’s guidance.

 

After three interesting years, I “graduated” to the Ministry of Culture. 

 

chingay & green hats!

Loud wails of protest filled the corridors of People’s Association the Friday before the 1979 Chingay Parade when several thousand green sun-visors were delivered.  My horrified male colleagues insisted that they could not wear them as they were not cuckolds.   

I organized three Chingay parades during my stint in PA from 1979 to 1981.  The Chingay Parade was an integral component of the annual calendar of cultural events staged by the Culture Section, for the heartland communities.  Other events included the annual Lantern Festival and quarterly road shows in the communities including the annual Christmas Rhapsody.  We also supported the National Day Parade with dance items. Floats for Chingay and Parade were built on the grounds of PA and it was a treat to watch them take shape as the days progressed.

 

 

 

My first Chingay in 1979, the Lunar Year of the Ram, was especially meaningful because my daughter Liana was born in April later that year. She is an Aries born in the Year of the Ram making her a double ewe. The modus operands for the parade had been refined to a T and ran like clockwork under stage manager par excellent Lim Ah Yook. My contribution that year was to add a note on the origins of Chingay in the event programme, drawing information from the late Dr Lee Siow Mong’s book ”The Cycle of Chinese Festivities”.

 

My first Chingay in 1979 that proved instructive on Chinese traditions and, green hats.  A team of concerned colleagues worked overtime that weekend to redeem the green visors by dotting them with red but the only persons who wore the visors that Sunday were womenfolk, non-Chinese males and a few brave Chinese male colleagues with clear consciences.  

This incident taught me an invaluable lesson. That traditions or superstitions cannot be shaken off in a modern society or organization. In my later jobs, I also learnt that companies can try to modernize, but it is difficult to stop age old practices like offerings during the Hungry Ghosts festival especially in industries with high-risk jobs eg security officers or construction workers. 

 I recently produced the 2009 Chingay float for the Tote Board family. The assignment was a happy throwback to my Chingay days in the People’s Association. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wonderland of Dreams - Tote Board Chingay 2009 Float

people’s association cultural troupe – professional or not??

It was not uncommon in the early 1980s, for performing artists to decry the lack of Government support for the arts and hence, the absence of “professional” art companies.  These were the days before the flourishing of art companies like TheatreWorks and the Singapore Dance Theatre

At the time, in fact, two public service organizations were already operating  professional art companies, with artists who were salaried to practice and perform their arts on a full-time  basis.  Radio & Television Singapore had a radio orchestra while PA operated a Cultural Troupe. This was in addition to the Singapore Symphony Orchestra which was established in 1978.

 

Started in the 1960s, nearly two decades before I joined, the PA Cultural Troupe had been established in a newly-independent nation, to entertain the masses, perform at National Day Parades and at the Istana during state visits by overseas dignitaries.

 

The Troupe comprised eight companies – Bagpipers, Modern Dance Company (choreographed by Seow Yoke Beng, Christina Tan and Emily Hogan); Chinese Drama Company, Malay and Indian Dance troupes, Military Band conducted by Lim Tiap Seng and the Chinese Orchestra conducted by Lim Tiap Guan who was later succeeded by Ku Lap Man. The PA Chinese Orchestra was second only to Hong Kong’s Chinese Orchestra and has since evolved into the highly-acclaimed Singapore Chinese Orchestra.  In 1980, Douglas initiated a Children’s Choir under conductor Monica Toh.

 

 

Christmas Rhapsody leaflet

Christmas Rhapsody Calendar

The Troupe was fully engaged around the year, performing quarterly road shows on fields in the HDB estates including the annual Christmas Rhapsody.  To celebrate the 25^th anniversary of PA, the Troupe mounted a dance-drama “Temasek in Dance” on the history of Singapore.

Temasek in Dance Programme

 

The PA Culture Section also spearheaded the mid-autumn Lantern Competition.  Hundreds of beautiful and well-crafted lanterns of surprising designs and materials hung on the PA field ready to be judged. Judges included the late Chinese ink artist Huang Pao Fang and art expressionist Jaffar Latiff who favoured the more innovative designs. Some entrants injected multicultural influences in their lanterns while other entrants used mechanical parts, pointing the way to a more tech-savvy society. 

 PA gave me my first taste of arts management.  As Assistant Director (Programmes), I had the chance to dabble in stage management, choreography, stage design, costume design and other aspects of stage production. I may not have made good creative decisions but the job forced me into a leadership position on artistic matters. It was also my first encounter with theatre director Roger Jenkins whom helped the dancers express themselves more dramatically in “Temasek in Dance”. He was then teaching at the United World College and proved to be an inspiring and effective teacher, despite the language and cultural barrier.  I also met Goh Soo Khim, Ruby Chuah and Sylvia McCully at a discussion I chaired on matters relating to dance. Soo Khim told me recently that she remembers that session well as it was the first time she met me.

  

I wonder if artists had disregarded PACT as a professional art company because it was engaged in “community arts” rather than the “high arts”.  However, it is all the same to me as I wander more and more, out of the world of “arts for arts’ sake” back into the sphere of “arts for humanity”.   

 

 

Temasek in Dance