SeptFest 2021: Alternative Voice(s)

The Substation celebrates its 31st anniversary with SeptFest 2021.

Under the theme Alternative Voice(s), SeptFest 2021 features a combination of live dialogues with artists from Asia including Singapore, India and Malaysia, and the restaging of previous live performances as video documentation.

A fully digital programme, Alternative Voice(s) comprises two components – screening of four works that were presented previously at 45 Armenian Street; and Sunday Morning Conversations, a series of Facebook Live conversations with artists who give voice to alternative communities in their work and practice.

The festival is curated by The Substation Artistic Director, Raka Maitra.

Programmes

September — Documentation Videos

This series of selected full-length documentation videos from SeptFest 2020 is curated by The Substation Artistic Director, Raka Maitra. The videos will be available for viewing on The Substation’s Facebook and Instagram pages. Videos by: Aaron Andrew Ang

17 September, Friday: Tea Leaves Glowing In The Wind by Tang Da Wu and Zai Tang
18 September, Saturday: Waltz of the Flower by Caroline Chin and Marvin Acero Ablao
24 September, Friday: NADA and ScRach Marcs
25 September, Saturday: Men with Pens by Subhas Nair and Yanni Chia

October — Sunday Morning Conversations

Sunday Morning Conversations is a series of Facebook Live conversations with artists who give voice to alternative communities in their work and practice. Each conversation invites a special guest to speak alongside an Associate Artist of The Substation’s incubation programme, the Associate Artist Programme (AAP). They will talk and share about their challenges and accomplishments while supporting alternative voices in the community.

3 October, Sunday,10:30am – 11:30am: Conversation with Sankar Venkateswaran (India) and Grace Kalaiselvi (The Substation Associate Artist 2021-22)
10 October, Sunday,10:30am – 11:30am: Conversation with Aida Redza (Penang) and Wendy Toh (The Substation Associate Artist 2021-22)
24 October, Sunday,10:30am – 11:30am: Conversation with Raka Maitra (Singapore) and Fazley Elahi Rubel (Bangladesh)
31 October, Sunday,10:30am – 11:30am: Conversation with Anomaa Rajakaruna (Sri Lanka) and Wendy Toh (The Substation Associate Artist 2021-22)

The Substation Associate Artists (2021-22)

Wendy Toh

Wendy Toh is a Singaporean artist with a passion for telling stories through different forms and mediums. She has a wide portfolio that ranges from the performance arts to filmmaking. As an actor and performer, she has multiple credits across theatre, film and TV. Her recent works include Spaced-Out (clown performance, Esplanade), 依依 (short film, Locarno Int’l Film Festival), The Last Chapter (theatre, The Substation), and Fantasia (music/theatre, Nanying Reimagined). As an artist and filmmaker, Wendy’s installation work E:den 依：窩, was showcased in The Substation Gallery in 2021. She made her film directorial debut with Vios (short docu, Singapore Chinese Film Festival 2019). Her follow-up was the experimental short film In Between (Isolation Series, The Substation) and in 2021, she extended her filmography to include Heart Shape莲蓉包 (short film, Viddsee).

Wendy is a member of Jinen Butoh School under Atsushi Takenouchi. A proud graduate of Singapore’s Intercultural Theatre Institute, Wendy hopes to deepen her craft and continue her journey as a multi-disciplinary artist.

Grace Kalaiselvi

Grace Kalaiselvi, an Intercultural Theatre Institute graduate, is a freelance theatre practitioner and educator. Her recent works include Can’t Afford to be Sick for SITFE’s SOLO, Paper Paravai for The Esplanade’s Red Dot August, Rasanai for T:>works N.O.W festival, Amma’s Sarees for The Esplanade’s PLAYtime, the Goddesses of Words series - Angry Indian Woman – The Trial (Singapore Writer’s Festival), Angry Indian Women (Textures) and Touch Me NOT. Recent acting works include a line could be crossed…for M1SFF and The Silence of a falling Tree for SIFAv2.020. She initiated and is a member of Brown Voices, a playwriting collective. Grace hopes to create more works representing the suppressed and minorities. 

Subhas Nair

Subhas Nair is a rap/hip-hop artist from Singapore who seeks to share perspectives of the world around him and engage with people from different walks of life through his music and lyricism. After releasing his debut album Not A Public Assembly in May 2018, he brought his work to multiple venues including panelling at the Singapore Writers' Festival, speaking at TEDx PnG, and performing at Other Tongues–a minority voices festival. Subhas believes active allyship is crucial in dismantling systems of oppression on all fronts and uses his writing as a tool to provoke dialogue and social change. He also wrote K. Muthusamy.

Speakers

Aida Redza

Aida Redza is an artist who takes on the role of the penjaga (guardian), with a mission to initiate creative projects that nurture, heal and transform, by bringing her works closer to people to highlight the stories and concerns about the everyday. She is engaged in human rights, environmental issues, and the safety and wellness of the community, especially those who are vulnerable, for example, youth, the underprivileged or the marginalized; women, mothers and their children, as well as the LGBT+ community. For the past decade, Aida has been engaging with communities through various creative performances, workshops and flashmob activities in collaboration with WABA (World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action), WCC (Women's Center for Change), OWEL (Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Lives), Creativity at Heart, BOLD Association for Children with Special Needs, Penang Down Syndrome Association, KANITA (Center for Research of Women and Gender) and PWDC (Penang Women Development Center), SUARAM, ALIRAN and Freedom Film Festival, using dance as a universal language and catalyst to mobilise action and raise awareness on social concerns.

Sankar Venkateswaran

Sankar Venkateswaran, born in 1979, is a theatre director from India. He lives and works from Sahyande Theatre, a theatre-dwelling he built in the mountain valley of Attappadi, Kerala. His works include Criminal Tribes Act, Ibsen’s When We Dead Awaken, Shogo Ohta’s Water Station, and INDIKA for Munich Volkstheater. He served as the artistic director for the International Theatre Festival of Kerala in 2016 and 2017. He is a recipient of Ibsen Scholarship 2013, Norway.

Fazley Elahi Rubel

Fazley Elahi Rubel, known to his friends as Rubel, was born in Noakhali, Bangladesh. He works in a construction company in Singapore as a supervisor. He came to Singapore in 2009 at a young age to work, hoping for a better future for his family back in his country. He writes against racism, and religious fundamentalism through social media.

He is also an aspiring social activist, who is passionate about social justice, human rights, and women’s rights issues. He started the Migrant Cultural Show Singapore to create awareness about the cultures of the migrant community, aiming to promote a diverse and inclusive society in Singapore.

He also initiated Migrant Library Singapore to enable migrant workers to access books of their own language and stay connected to their language.

Anomaa Rajakaruna

Anomaa Rajakaruna has travelled extensively in Sri Lanka documenting the lives of community groups, particularly the lives of women and children in these communities and has addressed issues such as women in armed conflict, displacement, sexual harassment and violence against women. She has won several awards for her work both nationally and internationally.

Rajakaruna is the Festival Director of Jaffna International Cinema Festival (since 2015), and Founder of Agenda 14 Short Film Festival (2011) in Colombo.  She has curated the Monthly Film Forum at Goethe-Institut Colombo since 2013. Rajakaruna curated 11 editions of the European Film Festival in Sri Lanka since 2007 and has served as a juror at over 20 national and international film festivals.