Xin Wei THOW

Contribution to Is There Such a Thing as Singaporean Performance, edited by Sarah Weiss

Articles in the book address and and deconstruct the question of whether there is such a thing as Singaporean performance from multiple perspectives.

“A Space to Be” is an edited transcript of a conversation between myself and three other musicians:

…revolving around our experiences learning and performing music in Singapore, and abroad. It began when Sarah asked me to write about my experiences learning  and playing Javanese Gamelan in Singapore, something I had been doing since  joining the Singa Nglaras Gamelan Ensemble in 2007, while an undergraduate at the National University of Singapore. As the writing went on, I realised that my  experiences here had been greatly shaped by notions and expectations of race in  Singapore, which had a bearing on how my participation and performance in a  Javanese music ensemble – as an ethnic Chinese Singaporean – were understood  by audiences, how I was received by arts managers, and how I was presented by the (very) occasional journalist. On the other hand, I also realised that since I am less active in the larger Singapore musical scene, my experiences were necessarily limited, and perhaps too personal to suggest any broader trends. 

As such, I hoped that by having a conversation with Govin, a Chinese player of  the (Indian) tabla, Faizal, a Malay player of the (Chinese) Guzheng, and Almira,  an ethnomusicology graduate and music educator, I would add additional  perspectives on performing traditional instruments in ways that cross  Singaporean expectations of race and culture. I felt that we all, in our various ways, used music not just to express ourselves, but to explore our identity, our  relation to established traditions, and our place in Singapore society.