The Story
After more than a decade of engaging the community in exploring social issues through socially-relevant and timely works, we decided to bring our works in the community to the next level.
It has always been our dream to be able to reach out to more people with our works, and elevate its artistic and aesthetical qualities so as to better engage with the community.
GoLi – The Moving Theatre will be an iconic structure, that not only complements our work but provides us with the foundation to build our works upon.
The Beginning
In 2001, we did our first community performance Lian Can Cook at Toa Payoh housing estate. The play looks at the protagonist's relationship with her husband, son and her work place. It was a funny yet poignant take on domestic violence and oppression through the style of street theatre.
Since then, community theatre has become an important part of our programming. To date, we have produced more than 16 original productions, mostly using the form of Forum Theatre, reaching out to more than 55,000 people. We have also worked with many organisations including: Migrant Workers, Selarang Drug Rehabilitation Centre, AWARE Singapore, etc and explored many issues including AIDS, out-of-school youths, ageing, racial tension and terrorism concerns, problem gambling, etc.
In 2010, our Associate Artistic Director, Koh Hui Ling shared with her childhood friend Ting-Ting Zhang (Architect, Atelier Watt) the kind of works Drama Box does in the community. They then talked about the possibility of building a mobile structure that can travel to different parts of Singapore, transforming community spaces into vibrant places for arts and culture. Thus was "GoLi" conceived.
The Fundraising
In November 2013, we announced our plan and launched a fundraising campaign with a target to raise $400,000 for the project. By March 2014, we secured enough funds to kickstart the design and construction of the first structure, which was completed and arrived in Singapore in November 2014.
We conducted a technical trial at Toa Payoh Central to explore how GoLi would work with the space, how it would fare in our weather, and to test its technical possibilities. We also took the chance to gather thoughts and wishes for the project from the public who came by.
At the end of our donation campaign in December 2014, we raised a total of $280,044. This includes contributions from the people in the community, organisations as well as monies from MCCY's Cultural Matching Fund. To date, we have spent a total of $82,364 on the project.
Stakeholder | Funds Raised (S$) |
---|---|
Individuals | 68,929 |
Corporations and Organisations | 71,093 |
Government (MCCY's Cultural Matching Fund¹, includes approved and pending monies) |
140,022 |
Total | 280,044 |
¹ Drama Box is eligible for the Cultural Matching Fund set up by the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth (MCCY) on 1 November 2013 which provides dollar-for-dollar (1:1) matching grants for private cash donations to arts and heritage charities and Institutions of a Public Character.
Read the full progress report of GoLi – The Moving Theatre.
Moving Forward
After the technical trial at Toa Payoh Central in November 2014, we re-evaluated our short to medium term needs, and decided to design and construct just one more inflatable structure to complete this phase of the project. Thus we will have two structures instead of the initial vision to construct three or four structures. The second structure will be more than double the volume of the first with an estimated internal size of 17m x 20m x 7m (H), to accommodate a larger audience and provide possibilities for different configurations for our future programmes.