29
Thought Piece
AWAKING TO THE DIFFERENT INTERNATIONAL AND THE DIFFERENT LOCAL By: Ong Keng Sen
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR OF THEATREWORKS AND FOUNDER OF THE INTERNATIONAL CURATORS ACADEMY IN SINGAPORE ON RETURNING FESTIVALS TO THEIR ORIGINS Since we crashed into the iceberg of the pandemic, our worlds have been incessantly talking about “the new normal.” How will this new normal affect festivals in particular? Festivals began in many parts of the world as gatherings of humans coming together to celebrate, to grieve, to discuss. In Asia where I come from, the festival is inextricably linked to rituals: human acts to express the self, the community, and our place in the larger cosmos of both the visible and the invisible. These human acts communicate in different ways but most of all, they are small actions of personal agency contributing to a desired or needed transformation in the world of the living. These rituals are often about the world of the living coming to terms with death, the death of the body, the death in nature, as well as the arrival of new life, regeneration, and sustenance. Today, our festivals are often about ticket sales, festival subscriptions, city fireworks, opening night gala events, professional management models, and the networking opportunities for stakeholders. In 2019, when I attended a gathering of aspiring festival managers and directors, I was struck that the vision of the successful festival had been reduced worldwide to a generic formula of audience numbers, event count, and box office as the main performance indicators. This permeated down to the projection of the festival through its video advertising or end report, designed to convince all eyeballs of its success. As a former founding festival director, I have also been embroiled in this game. It is a challenge to intervene and supplement with other considerations. The pandemic can be a cut that allows us to rethink, reimagine, reconnect the festival back to its ancient roots of human gathering, as well as the power of human beings and their personal agency to affirm life, transformation, and sustainability. This involves us shaking off the superficial trappings of festivals we have accumulated thus far. A useful series of questions to rethink the future internationalization (and the new localization) of a festival can be: • What does the international bring to your festival? Why is it vital for your festival? Or is it windowdressing, a status symbol? • Due to the challenge of international travel during pandemic times, you have only 1-3 opportunities for international interventions in your next festival (overall the pandemic means a much-reduced international curation for your festival). How will you prioritize the international elements necessary to your festival? Do you have a mission statement or a manifesto of values to
