IN SNGAPORE, STREET PERFORMANCES BLUR THE LINE BETWEEN THEATRE AND REALITY

       Arts festivals offer more than ticketed performandces and free street shows these days-they give us new experiences in innovaive theatre. These take lace outside the arts centres and playhouses, in places we regularly frequent, like cafes, and sometimes it's the viewers who become the actors.
       I experienkced three such performances at the recent Singapore Arts Festival.
       British experimental group Rotozaza presented "Etiquette", which it categorised as an "autoteatro", indicating that the audience would be putting on the show.
       Cafe guests seated at tables for twoeach received a headset linkked to a CD player. On the tables were small blackboadrds and chalk, sheets of paper and tubes of ink.
       Everyone remained seated while playing a role, first in Henrik Ibsen's "A Doll's House" and then in Jean Luc Godard's "My Life to Live", using their props and sying lines
       In this case, though, it was a while before I could adjust my ears to unkderstand the British director and differentiate between his derection and the suggested dialogue. I also wished the script had been adjusted to the setting-a cafe in Singapore rather than in the UK-so tha I could relate what I was seeing to what I was hearing.
       Across the table, a playwright from Shanghai seemed to be having similar trounle, and we traded apologies for our limited command of English, which caused both of us to miss cues while we cncentrated more on the director's instructions than our interaction.
       This wasn't entirely what "Etiquette" creator Silvla Mercuriali expected.
       "There's somethjing very rare and special when two people find a bubble in a public space," she said in a 2007 interview with the New HYork Times. "It's like when two people hav a genuine exchange of ideas or when they're falling in love. It's that sense of event and of moment that we're trying to recreate."
       On another visit to the island-state I attended a walking audio performance called "Dream-Work"by Bodies in Flight, another British troupe. Headphones were again required, but this time no acting skills.
       About 12 of us gathered around a british man who carried portable audio equipment that fed us the prologue wirelessly.
       A woman appeared, seemingly on her way to work. Listening to her recorded inner monoloure as well as live dialogue through our head-phones,we followed her, watching her react to an MRT map and a postbox and buying a cup of coffee.
       She then stopped at a Chinese temple, where the performance eneded with our "sound engineer" joining her in a song.
       That evening I was at another MRT station for "Dream-Home" bu th eSingaporean troupe Spell 7.
       This time we followed a Malayman carying a bouquet of flowers, and then briefly met the same British woman. An Indian woman Ied us back, and the performance ended at a residential high-rise where we bid gopdbye to a Chinese man who called the place home.
       Interestingly,and intentionally or not,the four thespians represented the four major populations of Singapore-Chinese,Malay,Indian, and Caucasian.
       Deftly crearted,both "Dreams" reconffirm how life and theatre are interrelated,perhaps in the similar way as our personal and public selves.
       Since the sidewalk was the stage, we could see [assers-by react to our floating theatre,adding a further layer to the performance.
       The heat and humidit were annoying drawbacks,since we walked quite a distance, and this may be why we see fewer walking performances in this corner of the world.
       Still, with such keen atention given t every audience member's personal experience,it's a form of theatre that Thai playwrights ought to investigate.
       The writfer thanks the National Arts Council's corporate communi cations team for its assistance.

       IKEAS IN FLIGHT
       Check out these websites for more innovtion: www.Rotozaza.co.uk,www.BodiesInFlight.co.uk and www.Spell7.net.

       "Dream-Work" by the British troupe Bodies in Flight, brings improvisational theatre to the streets of Singapore.