Mr. Ong Keng Sen is one of the most prolific theatre directors in the world. His productions are shaped by modern sensibility which brings together Asian and European performance traditions in striking way. He has won international acclaim as a director. He has been a pioneer at the international frontier of theatrical art: his plays do not disregard tradition, but still place a premium on physicality, and remain true to the spirit of pop art.

Mr. Ong was born in Singapore in 1963 He graduated from the Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore, in 1989. In 1988, while still at university, he joined ‘TheatreWorks’ as an artistic direcor, and that was the beginning of his career as an artistic director. From 1993 to 1994, he studied at Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, and obtained an M.A. in Performance Studies. Around this time, his productions were staged in the US, Europe and Japan, and his name became well known to the world. Since then he has been offered commissions by major theatres and arts festivals in Asia and Europe, and has directed a great variety of plays. In 2003, he received the Singapore Cultural Medallion Award (Theatre).

In all his activities, Mr. Ong is always asking himself the fundamental question, 'What does it mean, today, to live as an artist?' As a theatre director, he has fixed his gaze at the geographically vast expanse of Asia and the Western world, and also across a long stretch of historical memory. The Flying Circus Project, which has been in continuous development since 1996, has provided a landmark opportunity for performers from diverse backgrounds, both Asian and Western artists of classical and contemporary performing art as well as those from non-theatrical backgrounds, to work together. This gave birth to innovative stage adaptations of Shakespearean plays such as Lear (1997-99) and Desdemona (2000-01), which was performed at the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum. In Sandakan Threnody (2004) andThe Continuum: Beyond the Killing Fields (2001-10), which are classified in a new genre called 'docu-performances', he traced the records of warfare in modern Asia and presented these on stage. Then the stage became a thrilling space where the audience, too, could inspect Asian history through a sharply critical lens.

Mr. Ong Keng Sen is one of the leaders of the international performing world, whose work has successfully broken down the simplistic dualism which traditionally separate the classical from the contemporary arts, and the East from the West. By thus transcending barriers between genres and nations, he has contributed greatly to a revaluation of the fundamental and universal power of art through his sharp awareness of contemporary issues. For this contribution, he is truly worthy of the Arts and Culture Prize of the Fukuoka Prize.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: http://www.asianmonth.com/prize/english/21/index.html 

• 13:30 – 15:30, Sat., September 18
• IMS Hall(with a seating capacity of 400)