Wow, the months are whizzing pass us and it's April... the first quarter of 2012, DONE!
It doesn't seem too long ago that we had our
5th Edition of April Showers, and amazingly, rather unconsciously too, we have managed to coincide the return of spoken word artist Deborah Emmanuel in our 17th Edition, a year after her debut! So come, and be treated to an evening of narration drawn from real-life experiences - we wonder ! Also, we're excited to hear the wild, fictitious stories of Ansel Ashby, and welcoming solo musicians Ian Fuller and Don Shiau who will be presenting original music live, for the very first time! To finish it all off with a cherry on top... we have familiar face Lea McGowan, who will be hosting the 17th Edition, and putting a good performance-esque spin on things!
See you then!
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FEATURED MODEL
ROY TAN
http://www.youtube.com/user/groyn88001
Tan is a healthcare professional passionately interested in documenting local LGBT history. Tan started all the Singapore LGBT-related articles in Wikipedia in 2005 and ported every article removed by deletionists to SgWik. He has also recorded and amassed the most comprehensive collection of local LGBT videos on YouTube. Tan intended to organise Singapore's first gay pride parade at Hong Lim Park in 2008 after the government legalised protests there. This later morphed into Pink Dot SG, an event which supported the "freedom of LGBT people to love" and which later spread worldwide. Together with fellow citizen Tien Kim Chuan, Tan marched in Singapore's first and only gay Chingay contingent when the public were allowed to form their own marching group in 2010.
FEATURED PERFORMING ARTISTS
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| Lea McGowan |
LEA MCGOWAN (host)
A performing artist since childhood, Lea McGowan enjoys experimenting with different mediums, going from ballet and dance to stand up comedy, singing parodies and playing the ukulele. You might recognize her from Season 5 America's Got Talent, when she performed ballet and acrobatics with her then partner, Rudi Macaggi. Originally from Austin, Texas, Lea traveled around the United States: living near Philadelphia, studying Psychology and Dance Theater at University of Tampa, Florida, training with LINES Ballet in San Francisco, California, Houston Ballet in Texas, The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in New York City. In her work Lea draws from a wide range of influences including pop and world cultures. She worked as a freelance dancer/acrobat, model and performing artist based in New York, New York for three years before coming to Singapore a year ago. Lea is an enthusiastic supporter of the Singapore arts community.
"Live Love Laugh"
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| Don Shiau |
DON SHIAU (musician)
Don’s been writing songs off and on for over a decade, but few have seen the light of day. It’s a familiar story: life got in the way of art. First, there was the grand teenage rock dream; followed by tentative and hopeful solo performances in university; then some difficult and abortive band projects; and finally the steamrolling of creativity in the corporate world.
But it’s not over, thanks to that quirky phenomenon known as one’s 30s: that sweet spot between naïveté and maturity; freedom and responsibility; poverty and abundance. Now firmly in that zone, Don’s decided to dust off some of his old tunes and start playing them to unsuspecting audiences. Maybe, just maybe, proper recording sessions await.
What kind of music does he actually write, though? His cryptic answer: “I’d be a hipster. If only I was skinny enough”.
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| Ian Fuller |
IAN FULLER (musician)
http://soundcloud.com/ian-fuller-4skn
"Music has been a major part of my life since I can remember. I started making electronic music only recently after time with an original blues band and a lot of lo-fi acoustic bedroom production.
I'm experimenting with live vocal loops and am excited to play my first electronic live set."
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| Ansel Ashby |
ANSEL ASHBY (storyteller)
http://aawandering.blogspot.com
Ansel Ashby is an aspiring author and recent graduate. He moved out to Singapore six months ago to teach. Reading old fairy tales began his interest in “story telling”. These tales were originally passed on by word of mouth, father to son, mother to daughter. It was only much later that they were ever written down. It’s becoming a lost art.
Fascinated with the written word in general, Ansel has written 1 (very bad) novel, several (decent) fairy tales, many short stories, 1 screen play, and lots of poetry all unpublished. In addition, he truly enjoys food and wine, well booze in general. While he hasn’t been writing much fiction lately, he contributes regularly to TheLocalNose, a Singaporean Wine Blog. Some day he hopes to own a little winery of his own where he can play in the dirt, and, of course, write.
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| Deborah Emmanuel |
DEBORAH EMMANUEL (spoken word artist)
Deborah Emmanuel has been telling stories since she could talk. Her first story was that there was a microscopic pterodactyl living inside her ear, which when she was reading would not allow her to hear the dinner bell. Since then, she has used drama and creative writing to tell other stories which have reached out to many people.
Her first time on stage was at age 4 in the kindergarten circus musical, in which she desperately wanted to be a ballerina, but was made to wear a hairy bear suit instead. Since then she has played several human acting roles, and appeared as an educational speaker and performance poet on many occasions. At the SPORE Art Salon Deborah will use Spoken Word to share narratives from her life and experiences. She hopes that her true words will sound in your soul, and that maybe you take a little bit of her alive with you.
