Celebrate the Extraordinary: 8th ASEAN Para Games Opening & Closing Ceremonies
- Submitting institution
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Manchester Metropolitan University
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 253023
- Type
- T - Other
- DOI
-
-
- Location
- Singapore Indoor Stadium, 2 Stadium Walk, Singapore
- Brief description of type
- Curatorial Project
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month
- December
- Year
- 2015
- URL
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-
- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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B - Art & Performance
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Celebrate the Extraordinary (2015), was a practice-led investigation outlining an inclusive approach to artistic collaboration. It centred on the production of a set of performances with the same title. Commissioned by the Singapore government, this was the £4 million opening and closing ceremonies of a regional sporting event, the 8th ASEAN Para Games. CELEBRATE introduced a hybrid approach between the social and medical models of disability by introducing the curatorial framework of ‘productive antagonisms’. It applied its principles of artful juxtaposition of divergent bodies and bodies of thinking and being, and created a new model of collaboration, successfully blending function, form and message. As Communications Director and Visual Director, Tan led a team of 45. She directed primary and secondary research and produced 10 large-scale film installations and other short films, led external communications with ministers and the national and regional press, and led the editorial team for the official programme booklets. Productive antagonisms as a framework led to the setup of an Advisory Board of experts in disability, sport, arts and SEN. It also impacted the creative strategy, dramaturgy, aesthetics and workflow of the 75 creative members. It embedded disabled collaborators throughout, pairing them with non-disabled people. CELEBRATE’s outputs were accessible, celebratory and aesthetically sophisticated. It incorporated live captioning and live interpretation, a first for the Games. The arts industry and beyond are normalising conventions pioneered by this research, including incorporating sign language as performative components. Singapore Airlines, the world’s number one airline for more than 20 years, employed the deaf interpreter employed in the show. CELEBRATE made disability more visible and planted a seed to transform disability discourses in Singapore and Asia. It has widened the discourse on disability arts and collaboration in Singapore, successfully showing a creative ‘third’ way beyond ubiquitous dichotomous models of disability.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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