In celebration of this year’s World Theatre Day🎉, and for our very first guest feature, we’ve got a brief interview with Scratching Collective, a group of artists who’ve boldly started a new project amidst the COVID-19 pandemic for the betterment of the global Theatre industry/community🥳!
Read on to find out about how these budding artists are - in their own words - trying to “restart and reshape Theatre” and why they think more Singaporeans should support the local Theatre scene 🙌🏻.
Hi guys! Please give us a quick rundown on who you are and what you do!
Hello! We are Scratching, a collective created by emerging artists for emerging artists. Scratching actually started because of a Twitter conversation between our two artistic directors about how the pandemic is making it increasingly difficult to start out in the industry. With theatres and art venues shutting down all around the world, already established artists were finding it hard to continue their practice, let alone individuals who are just starting out. At that time, artists in the UK were being told to retrain and artists in Singapore were told they were non-essential. As young practitioners ourselves, we knew how detrimental and demoralising those narratives were to us as an industry and so we wanted to create a space where emerging artists could continue practicing their craft, share their work, and - overall - be constantly reminded of the value in the artistic work that they do. To these ends, we run a range of programmes - from ‘Scratch Nights’ to dialogue sessions to workshops - and regularly showcase works and independent businesses on our social media platforms.
We understand that Scratching is approaching its one-year anniversary - congratulations! What do you reckon are the biggest achievements you’ve had since taking on this new venture?
It’s really hard to pick our biggest achievements mostly because small things like sending an email seem like huge feats during the pandemic! One that comes to mind, though, is our first ever Scratch Night. This was done in the early stages of the pandemic (think Tiger King era) so those of us working on it were doing so in isolation. Despite this, we were able to create a little company with artists from all over the UK and Singapore. Throughout the process, we saw our participating artists bond with one another and, for that period of time, become each other's support systems. Our artists were bold with their choices and really embraced the new online format - and they definitely more than exceeded our expectations (which were actually pretty high)! Overall, the fact that we could bring a group of practitioners together and create a space where they could experiment despite all working from home was a huge achievement for us.
One of the goals of World Theatre Day is to foster appreciation for “all forms of Theatre”, so what are your thoughts on the recent rise - owing to the pandemic - of Theatre performances that are void of a physical audience?
With pre-recorded shows, there’s a lot of discussion about whether it’s actually Theatre or if it is another form like Film. Our team constantly discusses this and we won’t pretend to have an answer. What we hold on to is the idea that if we can’t put a piece on a physical stage, we sure as hell are going to do it wherever we can. Most of the scripts we work with are for stage but given the circumstance, they aren’t able to be done in a physical space just yet. So the value in online shows is a sense of continuity in practice and that theatre-making is not being put on pause/being restricted to physical places.
As a collective that is big on global connections and showcasing emerging artists’ works, what is it about propping up works even at their “scratchiest stages” that you see as adding value to the global Theatre community?
As emerging artists ourselves, we know there is immense pressure when getting your work out there and, a lot of times, many are afraid to show their works at their early stages because they deem the pieces conspicuously underdeveloped or incomplete. We want to assign value to those scratchy stages so that we can move away from the perception that ‘good’ Theatre includes only pieces that have been refined. By giving a platform to works that are at their early stages, we hope to highlight to emerging artists that their work is valuable and important to our little ecosystem. It’s also important that we showcase Scratchy work so that our artists can test their ideas and figure out how to further develop them by drawing on feedback from other people - after all, ideas will never get a chance to evolve if all that we do with them is keep them in our heads and continuously self-censor.
One of the aims of Word Theatre Day is to “[act] as a wake-up-call for governments, politicians and institutions which have not yet recognised [Theatre’s] value to the people and to the individual and have not yet realised its potential for economic growth.” So turning to the big question, why should Singaporeans support the local Theatre scene?
That’s truly something we could go on and on about. After all, debates on the value of Theatre - and the arts in general - have been going on for centuries. But we’ll try to keep it brief. Jill Dolan, in her book “On Utopia in Performance”, says “[Audiences] can imagine, together, the affective potential of a future in which this rich feeling of warmth, even of love, could be experienced regularly and effectively outside the theatre”. There are a few things about this quote that really stand out. First, there’s the element of imagination of a utopic future, a better future. This is especially important in Singapore where sometimes it feels like things are set in stone or are incapable of being changed. Theatre shows us the possibilities of change and can inspire us to take action to achieve this future. Then there is the element of togetherness. When we are watching Theatre, we are in a room with people from all sorts of livelihoods and we are watching characters with backgrounds we might never have encountered. This exposure is incredibly important in shaping our understanding of the wider world around us.
Beyond having aesthetic, entertainment or even votive purposes, the arts have also often been a way for artists and audiences to reflect on and discuss pressing social issues. For the case of Singapore, just looking at the past couple of years, there have already been quite a few Theatre productions exploring difficult questions concerning mental health, social disparities, contentious or dark episodes in the nation’s history (think WWII and the racial riots), etc. And while reading the newspaper or looking up the archives would help to keep you informed, Theatre really puts faces, narrative nuances and emotions to the words and numbers. And that’s what makes it effective in eliciting visceral responses and encouraging deeper reflection.
Each year on World Theatre Day, “an outstanding figure in theatre or a person outstanding in heart and spirit from another field is invited to share his or her reflections on theatre and international harmony” - this is known as their international message. So to end off this article, as pretty outstanding figures in Theatre yourselves - given the effort you’ve been putting into keeping the theatre-making spirit alive - what are your own thoughts on Theatre and international harmony?
Psh haha thanks! Well, the past year has made it explicitly clear that we live in a flawed society, and the Theatre industry does fall into this. We cannot deny that the industry around the world remains complicit in many issues - let’s not get into the specifics of that here, though! And as much of a bummer as the pandemic has been, it has also given us an opportunity (and the impetus) to restart and reshape Theatre. Furthermore, as much as we want to go back to pre-covid Theatre, we do need to acknowledge that there were deep rooted issues within it. So instead of dwelling on everything that’s going wrong, let’s merge what was good from the past and all that we’ve learnt in the past year. Emerging artists have a HUGE role in this so, if you are one, take action - reflect on your practice and make appropriate changes, be active in the rebuilding of our industry!
👉Don't forget to follow Scratching Collective on their socials (@scratching on Facebook; @scratching_ on Twitter and Instagram) so you don't miss any updates on their exciting programmes and showcases!