ANNEX 2
Full Frontal
Directors’ Biographies
Peter Sau （苏佳亮）
Peter is an effectively bilingual performer and drama teacher who works with many established theatre companies, both abroad and overseas, in educational dramas, forum theatre and main season performances.
Peter is a pioneer graduate of the Theatre Training and Research Programme (TTRP) spearheaded by the late Kuo Pao Kun, and is trained in Asian classical performing including Beijing Opera (China), Wayang Wong (Indonesia), Noh (Japan) and Bharata Natyam (India), as well as Western contemporary theatre approaches.
In 2000, he performed Talk for The Necessary Stage at the Macau Arts Fringe Festival. His performance in Asian Boys Vol. 1 for The Necessary Stage, won Best Ensemble Acting at the inaugural Life! Theatre Awards.
In 2003, Peter performed in Drama Box’s SARS community forum play that toured local residential neighbourhoods. In 2004, Peter was dramaturg, assistant director and performer for Bedhaya Layar Cheng Ho, an Indonesian intercultural dance drama, which performed in the Indonesian Dance Festival 2004 at Jakarta and also at Mangunegaran Kraton, Surakarta.
In 2005, he performed in Impenjarament, a work that explores the state of imprisonment in Singapore for Teater Ekamatra, commissioned by the Singapore Arts Festival. He performed for The Necessary Stage in godeatgod which toured to Romania Sibiu International Theatre Festival in 2005, as well as Hong Kong City Fringe Festival and Hungary Sziget Festival in 2006.
In 2005, he also devised & performed in TKK for The ETceteras, which won Best Ensemble Acting at the 6th Life! Theatre Awards. In the same year, he also accomplished two monologues - Teochew Porridge for the Arts House and The Coffin Is Too Big For The Hole for Malaysia’s 2005 Pesta Drama Festival in Kuala Lumpur. He also represented The Necessary Stage in forum theatre play Let Me Go! which toured to New Delhi, India.
In 2006, he performed in A Language Of Their Own by Checkpoint Theatre, as well as Trash and A Stranger At Home, both by Dramabox - the latter commissioned by Singapore Arts Festival 2006. Next, he worked with Ex Theatre Asia (Taiwan) in Day I Met The Prince which performed in Taipei, as well as at the Asian Contemporary Theatre Festival in Shanghai. He then appeared in an interactive theatre play, 7 Month Itch for The Necessary Stage, Divine Soap for Cake Theatre and Pulau for STAGES.
In 2007, he was part of Mobile by The Necessary Stage which performed at Setagaya Public Theatre in Tokyo and he also acted in Nothing by Cake Theatrical Productions, as part of Esplanade Theatre Studio Season.
Besides performing for the public, Peter is also an experienced drama teacher and director for secondary schools, junior colleges and tertiary institutions.
Li Xie （李邪）
Currently a freelance theatre practitioner and mask maker, Li Xie performs, writes, directs and has taught acting and movement in both local arts institutes - LASALLE-SIA College of the Arts and Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. She is also the associate artist of local Chinese theatre company, Drama Box, as well as an active member of a local multi disciplinary arts group, Collective Mayhem.
She has undergone training from Odin Teatret, Biomechanics by Bodganov Gennadi (Russia), Alexander Technique by Niamh Dowling (UK), Commedia Dell'arte by Antonio Fava (Italy) and Theatre of the Oppressed workshops by Headlines Theatre (Canada), and has learnt mask making from Donato Sartori (Italy).
Formerly Associate Artistic Director of Drama Box (Singapore) for community theatre, Li Xie has directed and facilitated forum theatre pieces, working with youth and prisoners from Singapore Selarang Drug Rehabilitation Centre. She has also directed, written and facilitated forum pieces dealing with issues of SARS, AIDS, domestic violence and problem gambling. In 2002, she was invited to work with Headlines Theatre in Vancouver, Canada, in a series of forum theatre workshops with youth.
Her most recent works include ShitHole (written and directed), an anti-war solo performance, Heaven, in conjunction with the International Lysistrata Project, TRASH (written and directed) a production inspired by Meyerhold’s biomechanics and the re-staging of the critically acclaimed one-woman performance The vaginaLOGUE, which was voted the best play of the year (2000).
In 2003, Li Xie was invited to the Hong Kong International Sars Festival to perform an original solo mask work, Hell, which was also included as a guest performance by the International Magdalene Project 2003 (Singapore).
In 2004, she created the first mockumentary news theatre Newsbusters!!! in Singapore; it has toured in many communities in Singapore since then. It has also been invited as one of the opening performances at the new Drama Centre Black Box in November 2005.
In 2005, she received the NAC’s Young Artist Award. In 2006, she won best supporting actress in Straits Times Life! Theatre award. In the same year, she was also nominated “Great Women of Our Times” in the November issue of a local magazine The Women’s Weekly.