As part of the Cyber-Physical Learning Alliance, I’m part of the core team at SUTD working with LASALLE, Nanyang Polytechnic, the Institute of Adult Learning and NAFA to fashion a lab for incorporating AR/VR/XR technologies in Institutes of Higher Learning in Singapore for STEAMxDesign education.

This is an ethnographic study of rehearsal processes, with the main case studies being The Necessary Stage and Drama Box 戏剧盒, two of Singapore’s most established theatre companies focusing on indigenous work. This project is wholly supported by the National Arts Council’s Research Grant. As Principal Investigator, my role includes overseeing participant observation, archival research, data analysis and seminar teaching.

In February 2021 I accepted a three-year position as a member of PSi’s Future Advisory Board (FAB), a collective of emerging performance scholars and artists from around the globe. The questions about performance studies’ future and how we can achieve its potentialities as a field in a way that is generative, inclusive, and supportive, that challenges the neoliberal fashioning of the global University of Excellence have always been close to my heart. We are currently curating a six-week Summer School program (Aug - Oct) surrounding the theme “Attentions and Attunements”, making space to consider responsibility and response-ability to global crises and disciplinary concerns. The call for participants has been extended to 12 July, apply here.

Since March 2021, I have been a Researcher at the Intercultural Theatre Institute (ITI), tasked with documenting their unique actor training pedagogy. Founded by Kuo Pao Kun and T. Sasitharan, ITI offers its student practitioners immersive training in Asian traditional theatre forms alongside contemporary techniques from around the world. It is driven by a vision of theatre-making founded on a deep and empathetic understanding of cultural diversity and difference in Singapore and beyond. Applying my training in rehearsal ethnography, I explore ITI’s fascinating process over a three-year period, observing the everyday life of its students and faculty.

In 2015, along with three of my dearest friends and colleagues, I co-founded this research group which brings together scholars from various disciplines interested in the theories, methodologies and interpretations of Southeast Asian pasts. Supported by the Sydney Southeast Asian Centre, PoP has organised conference panels, seminars, and workshops, and co-edits the historical domain of New Mandala. We now have a Facebook community of more than a thousand members.