Five years ago, Centre 42 presented The Vault: Desert Blooms, a lecture-performance tracing the history of queer Singapore theatre from 1985 to 1995. Written by Ng Yi-Sheng, it featured readings from excerpts of iconic queer plays and recreations of interviews with their playwrights, intermingled with Yi-Sheng’s research on the period and his personal experiences being part of the Singapore theatre scene.

This year, Desert Blooms returns as a fundraiser performance, staged as part of Centre 42’s 10th Anniversary Celebrations! Find out more about how to secure an exclusive invitation to the this fundraiser performance of Desert Blooms, and click below to find out more about the 2019 staging, and queer Singapore theatre in decades past!

THE VAULT RESIDENCYThe Vault: Desert Blooms

The Vault: Desert Blooms is a lecture-performance tracing the history of Singapore theatre from 1985 to 1995 through a queer lens. It was during this period amidst laments of Singapore’s “cultural desert” that bold queer and queer-allied voices quietly but insistently began proliferating across the local theatre scene. Starting at the time when Army Daze’s Kenny Pereira first declared he could do a fabulous impersonation of Diana Ross (and the Supremes), through to when Mergers and Accusations’s Ellen me

Start: 30 November 2019

PUBLICATIONSBlack Waters, Pink Sands

In this book, you’ll find the annotated scripts of two acclaimed lecture performances written by Ng Yi-Sheng, exploring forgotten chapters of Singapore history. Ayer Hitam: a Black History of Singapore explores the history and influence of the African diaspora in Singapore over two hundred years. It trawls the archive for stories of slavery, colonialism, jazz and nationalist struggle, reaffirming the value of black culture in our shared heritage. Collaboratively created with Sharon Frese and Irfan K

Ng Yi-Sheng

Published: 2020

FEATURESThe Desert Blooms: A List of Queer Singaporean Plays in the 1980s and 1990s

It was in April 1992, at the opening of the Singapore Press Holdings Young Playwright Series, when then-Senior Minister of Education Tay Eng Soon intoned, “Ours is still a traditional society which values what is private and personal and is not comfortable with public values and explicit discussions of sexuality and what it considers as deviant values. By all means, let our “cultural desert” bloom. But please let the blossoms be beautiful and wholesome and not be prickly pears or weeds.” The mid-80s to t

Published: November 2019

ESSAYS & WRITINGS3 Key Events in Singapore Queer History

Early queer-themed theatre works in Singapore often responded to events which directly affected the LGBTQ community. The Vault: Desert Blooms recounts several key moments in history between the years 1985 and 1995 which provided fodder and impetus for theatre-makers to create work. Here are three important events in Singapore queer history that influenced the work made in the local theatre scene during the period:

Daniel Teo

Published: 1 November 2019

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