20 November 2025 – 23 November 2025 @ Studio Theatre, NAFA Campus 3

Synopsis

Where does Chinese-language theatre go from here?

"If it dies right here and now, do we throw a party or hold a wake?"

Directed by Liu Xiaoyi and co-created with the inaugural graduates of NAFA’s BA (Hons) in Contemporary Chinese Theatres, Temporary Chinese Theatres brings together six emerging artists standing at the threshold between student and practitioner.

As audiences dwindle, new work becomes rare, and linguistic borders blur, has Chinese-language theatre slipped into a small circle sustained mostly by love? Where, then, do "contemporary Chinese theatres" go next? Perhaps the contemporary is, ultimately, only temporary—a provisional site that appears and dissolves: brief, fluid, evanescent. The very structures and currents once hailed as “contemporary” may soon stand as fleeting ruins of the passing present.

Meanwhile, how do these six graduates look back on their years of study, and how do they imagine their futures as artists? Temporary Chinese Theatres is neither a paper nor a manifesto. It is a love letter written in the moment, a not-quite-finished obituary, and a live experiment by a new generation about presence, thresholds, and disorder.

A joint production by Emergency Stairs and the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA),University of the Arts Singapore (UAS). The BACCT—Asia’s first three-year undergraduate programme conducted primarily in Chinese. This production continues Emergency Stairs’ vision of arts education as a laboratory for experimentation and innovation, and as a living space for cultural research and renewal.

Curator/Director: Liu Xiaoyi
Producer/Visual Arts Advisor: Huang Suhuai
Production Manager: Celestine Wong
Stage Managers: Voon Yueqi

Spatial Designer: Liu Xiaoyi
Sound Design Mentor: Dayn Ng Chee Yao
Sound Designers: Wong Cheow Cai & Seem Jia Ang
Lighting Coordinator: Emanorwatty Saleh
Project Coordinators: Chen Jing & Lin Jing

Creators/Performers:
Chen Yitong
Liao Yanni
Luo Hanwen
Meng Jiaoyang
Tay Qing Xin
Zhuang Chuhang

(Source: Emergency Stairs Peatix)


credits

Liu Xiaoyi
Director, Curator
Huang Suhuai
Producer, Visual Arts Coordinator
Celestine Wong
Production Manager
Voon Yueqi
Stage Manager
Liu Xiaoyi
Spatial Designer
Dayn Ng
Sound Design Mentor
Wong Cheow Cai
Sound Designer
Seem Jia Ang
Sound Designer