KEYNOTE
Kuo Pao Kun as Critical Thinker: “Theatre” as a Sustainable Intellectual/Cultural Movement in Singapore
by Prof Chen Kuan-Hsing (Taiwan)
25 NOV, WED | 7:30 PM – 9:00 PM
⦿ Esplanade Annexe Studio
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Intercultural Theatre Institute carries on the legacy of Kuo Pao Kun as Critical Thinker. This is foundational to Intercultural Theatre practice, which extends beyond “theatre”. It is a sensibility of impacting and absorbing the critical thought in daily life. “Life is primary” as Pao Kun always insisted, or touching the earth air (接地氣) so to speak. As a critical thinker Pao Kun’s ideas are part of a public space, a “circle of thought”. This is space where intellectuals could write for newspaper supplements or magazines to address urgent local or international socio-politico-cultural issues. What matters for theatre, or any form of “art”, is that it carries critical thought grounded in daily life, and is part of that “modern tradition” of encounters and engagements with ordinary, everyday life. Pao Kun attempted to articulate the future in terms of "Open Culture", suggesting the “Third World” born out of the 1955 Bandung Conference may still be an important source of thought for connecting with "new other cultures"; "traditional" forms of cultural practices are central elements of modernity; "spirituality", "emotions", "body", "mind", "energy", "identity", "subjectivity", and "community" need to be re-thought collectively in the digital era.
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