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M1
Singapore Fringe Festival
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Government
bans choir performance at Speakers' Corner
Singapore
Democrats
26 Jan 08
The Government has pulled the plug
on performances by a group known as the Complaints Choir. The
unique performance comprises of complaints of society written
into songs.
The group was started in Finland and has
performed in several cities around the world. One suspects that
Singapore is the first place that has banned the
performance.
The police have insisted that the foreign
members of the choir are not allowed to participate in the
singing. The SDP understands that the police also warned the
organizers that they didn't want to be filmed telling foreigners
to step down from the group during the performance.
Not
wanting to split the foreigners from the locals, the organisers
decided to cancel the public performances and move them to them
indoors to The Chamber at The Arts House (old Parliament
House).
There were two performances today. There will be
two more tomorrow starting at 3 pm and 6:30 pm. To obtain tickets
please email info@singaporefringe.com
or call The Complaints Choir Hotline at 9690 7453 (see Press
Release below). Alternatively you can go to the Chamber itself
and look for the organizers who will issue the tickets.
The
organizers have asked for this private invitation message to be
passed around.
Press release: Singapore police
rejects application for complain choir to perform at Speakers'
Corner
Complaints Choir Project
26 Jan
08
http://www.timeout.com/sg/en/performance/Comedy/m1-singapore-fringe-festival-2008-complaints-choir-project
Listen
to Singaporeans weave their complaints into songs. Started by a
Finnish duo in 2005, the project has been to Helsinki, St
Petersburg, Birmingham, Jerusalem and Alaska, conducting
workshops and giving people a whole new way to complain –
in chorus. See our "Fringe
benefits"
feature.
We've just gotten news about
our license application for THE COMPLAINTS CHOIR PROJECT
(performances at various public spaces today). While we were
given a license, this is a conditional one - no foreigners (i.e.
a handful of the participants, the artists themselves and our
conductor) are allowed to perform with the Choir. This is across
the board and not only applicable for Speaker's Corner (which has
a regulation that states that non-Singaporeans aren't allowed to
perform there).
Naturally, this comes as a total shock to
us, but we have discussed this amongst ourselves, with the
artists and Choir. It is clear that we all do not want the Choir
to be split up in any way.
As such, a few decisions have
been made:
1) All public performances will be cancelled.
We will put signages at the venues to inform people of this.
2)
Instead, we will have private invite-only performances of the
full Singapore Complaints Choir on both Sat 26th Jan and Sun 27th
Jan, 3pm and 6.30pm at The Chamber at The Arts House.
3)
Please help us spread the word to your friends, families and
anyone else who is keen to watch the free performances.
4)
To obtain invites, interested audience members can email
info@singaporefringe.com
or call The Complaints Choir Hotline at 9690 7453. Alternatively,
if you turn up at the venue prior to the show, please let one of
us know (we will be at The Chamber). We will issue private-event
invitations for the special performances."
Chorus
of Complaints
Ng Yan Bo
Channel News Asia
15 Jan
08
It's no secret that Singaporeans love to complain. In
fact, reports have showed that complaining is the fifth most
cited essential trait of a typical Singaporean. And there are
countless ways to complain – some lament to friends, others
write a petition to the government, a few have even taken to the
streets with placards.
But how about a more peaceful and
therapeutic way of voicing your displeasure? This new form of
complaining is so unique that it's guaranteed to garner more
attention than yet another letter to the Forum.
Meet the
Complaints Choir Project – a Finnish organisation which
teaches people all over the world to sing about their
displeasures to fellow citizens.
Started by Finnish duo
Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen, the movement has
met resounding success in its travels to Helsinki, Birmingham,
Hamburg and St Petersburg.
No complaint is too big or too
small, and they can range from broken underpants to snoring
husbands to offices with Siberian temperatures. Members in each
choir decide on their favourite gripes that will make the lyrics,
and a local composer makes sure the song has its city's unique
sound.
Project co-founder Kalleinen said that complaining
is a universal activity, and instead of suppressing unhappy
feelings or just dutifully whining, the act of complaining should
be turned into something more rewarding – it should be sung
and shared with others.
"We find that people use a
lot of time and energy to complain so we thought it would be
great to use this kind of energy for something creative," he
said.
According to the co-founder, most complaints are
similar around the world – unfriendly people who make
others' lives miserable, bad public transport systems, too much
advertisements, bad hair days, income tax, and of course, the
universal misery: money's never enough.
However,
Kalleinen said that listening to complaints for a job is not a
pain to him and his co-founder, as they get to see each city in a
different light.
"It's very interesting for us
because whenever we visit a new city we hear a huge bunch of
unique complaints so we get a very vivid, real-life image of the
city," he said.
Unusual complaints which the duo has
heard around the world include boring dreams in Helsinki and
noisy traditional folk dancing classes in Hungarian apartments.
Of course, in Singapore for its Southeast Asia premier as
part of the Singapore M1 Fringe Festival, Kalleinen has expected
to hear some truly uniquely Singaporean complaints which most
Singaporeans, and only Singaporeans, can identify with.
According to Melissa Lim, manager of the Festival,
complaints have been streaming in from Singaporeans from as young
as 14 years old to as old as 73 years old.
Expect the
usual complaints such as the lack of time and terrible cab
drivers to distinctively Singaporean ones like the disgraceful
act of using tissue packets to reserve a seat in food centres.
With a "no singing skills required" attachment
to its cause, the Singapore version of the Complaints Choir
Project has attracted over 60 participants so far.
Workshops
for the Complaints Choir Project are already underway and will
last until 25 January. Live performances will take place on 25
and 26 January at various locations such as People's corner, the
Esplanade Waterfront, the Arts House Chamber and Vivo City.
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