Theatre director Goh Boon Teck and Nam Hwa Opera win S’pore Chinese Cultural Contribution Award

SINGAPORE - Teochew opera ensemble Nam Hwa Opera and Mr Goh Boon Teck, chief artistic director of bilingual theatre company Toy Factory Productions, received the Singapore Chinese Cultural Contribution Award (SCCCA) on Friday.

They were presented with the award by Ms Low Yen Ling, Minister of State for Culture, Community and Youth and Trade and Industry at the opening ceremony of the Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre (SCCC)’s annual festival, Cultural Extravaganza.

This is the sixth edition of the SCCCA since it was launched in 2017 by SCCC to recognise individuals and organisations who made extraordinary contributions to the promotion, enrichment and development of Chinese Singaporean culture.

Winners of the award receive a trophy and a $10,000 cash prize, along with additional funding for their projects. Individual winners get up to $10,000 in funding, while organisations get up to $20,000.

Mr Goh’s works carry strong Singaporean flavours. The 51-year-old has taken Singapore’s theatrical productions to Asia and beyond. Among others, Titoudao, which he wrote and directed in 1994, travelled to Cairo, Shanghai, Beijing and Hangzhou.

He is also passionate about grooming the next generation of theatre practitioners. For example, Toy Factory launched the playwright incubation programme, The Wright Stuff, in 2017 to provide one-to-one mentorship for emerging talent.

“I have always taken great pride in preserving and celebrating our Singaporean-ness. My dream is to bring our wholesome cultural image of Singapore onto the world stage,” he told The Straits Times.

He added: “I believe that every Singaporean should be proud of their roots and identity, and we don’t need to conform to anyone else’s standards. Our unique blend of cultures and traditions as Singaporeans is more than enough to be celebrated and shared with the world.”

The cash prize money will help him dig deeper into Singapore’s cultural roots, and unearth forgotten legacies that deserve to be told on stage, he said. As for the project funding, he is thinking of creating a play about Lim Chu Kang village set in the 1970s, to remind Singaporeans of a time charged with great aspirations and unending perseverance that the forefathers embodied.

Nam Hwa Opera, which was founded in 1963 by avid fans of Teochew opera, has grown into one of Singapore’s most prominent and prolific Teochew opera companies. It has performed in South Korea, Cambodia, Malaysia, Germany and Guangdong – the art form’s birthplace in China.

Nam Hwa also holds workshops and outreach performances to provide greater public access to Teochew opera at schools, community spaces, voluntary welfare organisations and other charitable institutions. In addition, it offers courses for children and adults in Teochew opera and make-up, Teochew musical instruments and conversational Teochew.

Mr Toh Lim Mok, 75, president of Nam Hwa Opera, told ST: “The award strongly motivates us to intensify our efforts in an already difficult environment to promote traditional arts among non-dialect-speaking Singaporeans, and to succeed.”

The funding will be used to create new productions relevant to current trends to attract new and younger audiences, and to “re-introduce the Teochew dialect as an engaging literature, still relevant to modern day Singapore”, he said.

SCCCA 2023 received 30 public nominations, of which 22 were individual submissions and eight were organisation submissions. There were 14 first-time submissions to the SCCCA, making up 47 per cent of the total submissions received this year.

Each round of the SCCCA begins with a nomination process about a year in advance. The judging panel is helmed by Mr Lim Jim Koon, former editor-in-chief, Chinese Newspapers Division, Singapore Press Holdings.

Nominations for the seventh SCCCA are open from Friday to Sept 30, 2023.