Negotiation and Adaptation: Singapore Theater as Civil Society

Abstract

The relationship between the arts sector and the Singaporean government can best be characterized as an uneasy one. For a newly independent nation, the promotion of arts was seen as a luxury; issues such as sustained economic growth and social stability were deemed more important. It was only in 1990, more than two decades after independence, that the Singapore government published its first recognizable official cultural policy document. This is not to say that there were little or no arts events happening in Singapore before the 1990s. Rather, the arts sector flourished from the 1980s up to the early 1990s because the ‘pragmatic, philistine modernity promoted by the government’ was indifferent to arts, as the arts sector then ‘was not considered important enough to warrant attention’ (Wee 2003, p. 86). This resulted in an arts sector that operated under relatively few restrictions. During this time, arts production in Singapore, particularly in theatre, offered a space to address issues that were ‘in distinction from established ways of thinking and operating in Singapore’ (Krishnan 1997, p. 17).