Dr. Kat Agres is Assistant Professor at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music at the National University of Singapore (NUS), and Director of the Centre for Music and Health. She received her PhD in Psychology and Cognitive Science from Cornell University, and has a degree in Cognitive Psychology and Cello Performance from Carnegie Mellon University. Her research investigates music cognition, the impacts of music on health and well-being, music MedTech, and computational creativity.

Event(s):

• Panel: Music, Health and Well-being
• Roundtable Discussion: Intersection of Performance and Health

Chen Yingxuan is a Singapore artist, described as one of the most exciting directors of her generation (The Business Times, 2016).

Her directorial works include A Grand Design (Checkpoint Theatre, 2020), which she dramaturged with Huzir Sulaiman, Mergers and Accusations (Esplanade’s The Studios 2019), A Good Death (Esplanade’s The Studios 2018), and The Car (Esplanade’s Feed Your Imagination 2017). She has also directed works for M1 Singapore Fringe Festival (2015 and 2018), The Twenty-Something Theatre Festival (2016), Singapore Writers Festival (2015), and Lit Up Festival (2014), working with playwrights such as Joel Tan and Faith Ng.

Yingxuan is also a screenwriter whose short film, Move Out Notice (2015), was nominated for Best Script at the Singapore Short Film Awards and received recognition at the Los Angeles Asia Pacific Film Festival, Seoul International Extreme-Short Image & Film Festival, Ile Courts International Short Film Festival, San Diego Film Festival, Beeston Film Festival, and APA Film. She co-wrote Mediacorp’s telemovie, Hong Baos and Kisses (2014), directed by Wee Li Lin.

Passionate about supporting the Singapore arts scene and ecosystem, she worked at the National Arts Council for ten years on various policies, support schemes and pilot projects, and was Assistant Director (Theatre) from 2020-2023.

She is also working in the field of arts and health with institutions such as Duke-NUS Medical School, where she utilises the arts to enhance medical education and patient experience.
Find out more about her work at www.chenyingxuan.com

Event(s):

• Panel: End-of-Life Care
• Roundtable Discussion: Intersection of Performance and Health

During the previous 37 years, Frank has studied and taught the Taubman Approach to piano playing. The Taubman Approach is a systematic, comprehensive method of using the natural motions of the human body to overcome even the most difficult technical pianistic hurdles. He has been on the faculty of LASALLE’s School of Contemporary Music since 2009 and taught keyboard literature at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music for 17 years.

Event(s):

• Panel: Music, Health and Well-being

Matt Grey has been acting and teaching drama related subjects for over 25 years. He trained under exemplary teachers at Julia Gabriel’s in Singapore and qualified with a Licentiate from Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He currently manages the Diploma in Performance at LASALLE College, University of the Arts Singapore. He holds a masters degree in Arts Pedagogy and Practice and is undertaking PhD research into Voice and Speech for Performers.

Event(s):

• Panel: Performance and Neurodegenerative Diseases
• Roundtable Discussion: Intersection of Performance and Health

Jeffrey Guyton graduated from the University of Michigan in 1977, studied ballet at the Joffrey Ballet School, and worked as the movement coach and actor at the storied Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Canada. There he received several awards including a Tyrone Guthrie grant to study stage combat in London, England. He completed work on a Master of Fine Arts degree at the University of Missouri in 1983 and established a lifelong career as an actor in the regional theater circuit in the United States and also performed in England, at the Watford Palace Theatre. He taught acting improvisation and technique at Cornell University from 2006 to 2016 while also performing plays there as a guest artist. He is a founding member of the The Cherry Arts Collective in Ithaca, NY and the president of the board of the The Gilgamesh Theatre Company in NYC. He is currently Programme Leader of the BA (Hons) Acting Programme at Lasalle College of the Arts. His mother, Joanne Guyton-Simmons was Associate Dean of Nursing at the Ohio Medical College and his wife, Jaehah is currently gracefully and successfully living with Parkinson’s Disease in Ithaca, NY and is a massage therapist. He thanks them both for supporting and educating him through his life and career in the theatre.

Event(s):

• Panel: Performance and Neurodegenerative Diseases

Vivien Koh is a sports and dance physiotherapist, with a Masters in Performing Arts Medicine from UCL, UK. She works in a private clinic where she sees many dancer clients, gives talks/workshops to dance schools/teachers, and provides backstage physio for dance/musicals. She most recently was the physiotherapist for Frozen the Musical during its tour to Singapore.

Event(s):

• Panel: Health and Movement

Adib Kosnan has been creating works in the Singapore theatre scene as an actor, playwright and director since his first production in 2003. He is also an educator and a regular facilitator for interactive and forum theatre productions.

He has worked with TheatreWorks, Checkpoint Theatre, The Necessary Stage, Drama Box, Teater Ekamatra and Teater Kami among others. He was also named Best Supporting Actor in the Life Theatre Awards in 2020 for his role in Angkat After being nominated for best script in 2018 (28.8 by Teater Kami) and for best supporting actor in 2019 (0600 by Ground-Z0).

Adib enjoys the collaborative nature of theatre and is especially interested in improvisation and forum theatre. He is currently Associate Artist at Checkpoint Theatre.

Event(s):

• Panel: End-of-Life Care

Kavitha Krishnan’s impressive career encompasses both her accomplishments as a dancer and her impactful contributions to the arts community, especially in the context of social causes and diversity. Kavitha co-founded Maya Dance Theatre (MDT), a non-profit arts company, dedicated to utilizing the arts as a powerful tool for social change and promoting positive impact. MDT received SEED Grant from National Arts Council (2015-2018).

In 2018 under Kavitha’s leadership, and leveraging her background as an occupational therapist, she created a space–Diverse Abilities Dance Collective (DADC)–where dancers with diverse abilities collaborate with professional dancers. DADC’s purpose is to celebrate differences, promote inclusion, and showcase the potential of artistic expression to bridge gaps and promote understanding among people of all abilities. Kavitha’s artistic journey exemplifies the incredible potential of the arts, its transformative power in addressing societal challenges, serving as a medium to build connections, conveying messages and uplifting individuals and communities.

Event(s):

• Movement Workshop
• Panel: Health and Movement

Emeritus Professor, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, and Emeritus Consultant Psychiatrist, National University Hospital.
Private practice at Mind Care Clinic, Farrer Park Medical Centre.

Early education at High School, Batu Pahat and Muar. Graduated as a doctor from University Malaya in 1973. Postgraduate training in Psychiatry at Oxford University and Geriatric Psychiatry at Harvard University.

A member of the WHO Dementia Research Team; former Head, Dept of Psychological Medicine, NUS, and CEO/Medical Director, Institute of Mental Health.

Professor Kua has won several international research prizes and published 370 research papers and 30 books on ageing, dementia, depression and alcoholism.

His first novel, Listening to Letter from America, has been used at Harvard University in a course on anthropology. It was adapted into a musical by Musical Theatre Ltd on 28 July–5 August 2023.

Event(s):

• Panel: Asian Performance, Shakespeare and Mental Health

Professor KWOK Kian-Woon (PhD University of California at Berkeley) is Vice-Chancellor, University of the Arts Singapore (UAS). He is Emeritus Professor at Nanyang Technological University, where he had served as Professor of Sociology, a founding member of the former School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Head of Sociology, Senate Chair, Associate Provost of Student Life, and Associate Vice President (Wellbeing). His research areas include social memory, mental health, the Chinese overseas, and Asian modernity.

Event(s):

• Panel: Asian Performance, Shakespeare and Mental Health

Lee Geok Ling is Associate Professor and Head with the Department of Social Work, National University of Singapore. She is also a registered social worker with the Singapore Association of Social Workers (SASW), a Fellow in Thanatology (FT) with the Association of Death Education and Counseling (ADEC) based in United States, and an invited member of the International Work Group on Death, Dying and Bereavement (IWG). Currently, she is appointed by the Singapore Hospice Council as a workgroup member to develop national guidelines for psychosocial and spiritual care service delivery. She was also an appointed member of the National Strategy for Palliative Care Review Workgroup, MOH. Her research areas include death, dying and bereavement; loss and grief; caregiving; quality of life; palliative care and end-of-life care.

Event(s):

• Panel: End-of-Life Care
• Roundtable Discussion: Intersection of Performance and Health

Liang Peilin is Associate Professor of theatre and performance studies. She studies storytelling through shapeshifting, objects, and the dynamics of cross-cultural exchange in relation to the performing body. Her most recent research focuses on the intersection of health, performance, and community. She is the author of Bodies and Transformance in Taiwanese Contemporary Theater (2020), which examines the creative process of performance making as a form of identity reparation and reinvention in a (post)colonial and multicultural context. She has also published on performer training, theatre for older adults, intergenerational engagement through the arts, theatre for young audiences, and puppetry.

Event(s):

• Panel: Health and Movement
• Roundtable Discussion: Intersection of Performance and Health

Alvin Eng Hui Lim is a performance, religion and theatre researcher. He is Assistant Professor in the Department of English, Linguistics, and Theatre Studies at the National University of Singapore. He holds a PhD in Theatre Studies jointly awarded by the National University of Singapore and King’s College London. He is also Deputy Director and Technology and Online Editor (Mandarin) of the Asian Shakespeare Intercultural Archive (A|S|I|A). Lim’s first monograph, titled Digital Spirits in Religion and Media: Possession and Performance (2018), studies how lived religious practices in contemporary Singapore perform in combination with digital technology. He has also published on theatre, translation, digital archiving, and religious performance in Singapore.

Event(s):

• Panel: End-of-Life Care
• Roundtable Discussion: Intersection of Performance and Health

Angela’s dance work is influenced by her interest in architecture, urbanscape, and the changing modern living that affects the environment and humanities. Her creation goes beyond the familiar realm of dance and includes richly human community projects like intergenerational theatre productions that bring wellness and poetics to everyday people. Commissioned by AIC since 2014, she has devised the creative intervention programme Everyday Waltzes for Active Ageing. The ongoing programme incorporates training modules to enable care staff to facilitate creative intervention at senior facilities.

Event(s):

• Panel: Healthy Ageing

Missy Maramara is Assistant Professor in the Department of Fine Arts and English of the Ateneo de Manila University (AdMU) where she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theater Arts, a Master of Arts in English Literature and Cultural Studies, and a Doctor of Philosophy in English Language and Literature. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in Drama (Performance) from the University of Arkansas (Fayetteville) through the International Fulbright Scholarship Program. Her training includes Intimacy Work from Intimacy Directors and Coordinators (Levels 1-3) and Theatrical Intimacy Coordination (TIE) in New York City, Moment Work from Tectonic Theater Project also from New York City, as well as mask work and silent play from the L’École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris. She has taught acting and drama to theater students from the middle years to the university level since 2002. Missy is an actress, director, and intimacy coordinator. While she is a Manila-based actor, director, and intimacy coordinator, Missy has performed in New York, Paris, Prague, Berlin, Genova, Sienna, and Liverpool. She is a proud member of SPIT Manila, Southeast Asia’s premier Improvisational theater company, and a teacher in Third World Improv. She is currently the president of the Philippine Theater Actors Guild (TAG Ph) and the Artistic Director of Dulaang Sibol. Her website can be viewed at www.missymaramara.com

Event(s):

• Panel: Asian Performance, Shakespeare and Mental Health

Dr Johan Suen is Lecturer at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology where he teaches courses on ageing, health, and the life course. His research interests include productive ageing, social determinants of health, health inequalities, and the life trajectories of vulnerable older adults in Singapore. He has published articles on social support and quality of life, cognitive impairment, and care services for frail older adults and their caregivers.

Event(s):

• Panel: Healthy Ageing
• Roundtable Discussion: Intersection of Performance and Health

Darren Moore is an internationally recognised musician and Senior Lecturer at LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore. His research interests centre on interdisciplinary work and collaborative improvisation. In 2013 he completed a Doctorate in Musical Arts in performance at Griffith University, Australia, which explored adapting Carnatic Indian rhythms to the drum set. His output is forward-looking and aims to align teaching, professional practice, and research interests.

Event(s):

• Panel: Music, Health and Well-being
• Roundtable Discussion: Intersection of Performance and Health

Emily Ong is a consumer and patient advocate, trainer, speaker, facilitator, and program content developer in dementia-related topics based on lived experience, academic reading, and grassroot involvement.

She has been a co-facilitator of Dementia Singapore Voices for Hope program since 2019. Emily is the current Board Member of the Alzheimer’s Disease International (ADI). She is a member of Dementia Alliance International (DAI) and co-founder and project lead of the DAI Environmental Design Special Interest Group (EDSiG). In addition to these roles, she also serves in the Global Review Panel of the ADI Accreditation Team, focus group member of the WHO Global Dementia Observatory Knowledge Exchange, and SingHealth Patient Advocacy Network.

Event(s):

• Panel: Performance and Neurodegenerative Diseases

Dr Ong is a specialist consultant in palliative medicine. As a clinical-educator, Dr Ong instructs on the topics of professionalism, ethics, communications, and humanities at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. He is also Director, Office of Medical Humanities, Singhealth Medicine Academic Clinical Programme.

Event(s):

• Panel: Medical Humanities

Professor Leon Rubin, PhD MA BA FRSA FRAS, Emeritus Professor University of Essex, UK is Dean of Performing Arts at LASALLE College of the Arts, University of the Arts Singapore. He is an internationally renowned theatre director and former Director of East 15 Acting School, University of Essex. He was Artistic Director of three major UK theatres: Bristol Old Vic, Watford Palace Theatre, and the Lyric Theatre Belfast. He was Associate Director at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin and began his career as Assistant Director at the Royal Shakespeare Company. He has directed and trained actors worldwide, including in UK, Scotland, Ireland, Greece, France, Chile, Japan, China, Indonesia, Holland, Russia, Thailand, Romania, Brazil, USA, Canada, and many other countries. He has directed in London’s West End and Broadway and with Stratford Festival Canada, Bungaku-za of Japan, and other important theatre companies globally. He has a long-running show, Phuket Fantasea, running in Phuket, Thailand. In 2016 he directed Handan Shakespearean Dream in London, in collaboration with the Kunju company in Nanjing and Shakespeare’s Cymbeline in Bali.

Event(s):

• Opening Remarks
• Roundtable Discussion: Intersection of Performance and Health

Dayal Gian Singh works internationally across a wide range of areas as a producer, actor, singer, writer, filmmaker, and corporate trainer.

As a performer, Dayal has performed across a range of media. He has toured with numerous plays and musicals across the globe, featuring in performances at the Royal Opera House (UK) to Marina Bay Sands (Singapore in The LKY Musical. In Perth, Australia, he is linked closely with local production house The Penguin Empire, working on numerous award-winning projects over the years. Recently he was involved in a feature film that saw him taking part in Sundance 2019.

In Singapore, Dayal has worked with a number of companies such as the Singapore Repertory Theatre, Pangdemonium, Bellepoquem, Stint On Stage, Centre Stage, I-Theatre and Mediacorp. As an educator he has delivered multiple drama programmes for schools internationally, as well as contributing and writing drama education books for course curricula.

Event(s):

• Panel: Medical Humanities

Dr Sheren graduated from Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, NUS and completed postgraduate studies in Family Medicine in 2002. She holds a Masters in Performing Arts Medicine from University College London and is a pioneer in the holistic, multi-dimensional approach to caring for performing artists. She is a family physician in private practice, serves as medical advisor to the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and runs a Musicians’ Clinic for students of Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music. In her spare time, she plays the piano and cello.

Event(s):

• Panel: Music, Health and Well-being

Tan Beng Tian has been honored with the JCCI Singapore Foundation Culture Award and the Straits Times Life! Award. As a versatile theatre practitioner involved in facilitation, performance, and direction, she is deeply passionate about ensuring accessibility in the performing arts.

Event(s):

• Panel: Healthy Ageing
• Roundtable Discussion: Intersection of Performance and Health

Dr. Tan is a board-certified music therapist with a doctorate degree from the University of Iowa (USA). She is currently the Principal Music Therapist/Music Therapy Lead and Research Lead at St. Luke’s Hospital in Singapore. For close to 30 years, Dr. Tan worked as a music therapy clinician, researcher, author, scientific journal editor, and professor in USA and Norway. An award-winning researcher, Dr. Tan’s areas of specialization are in pain management, rehabilitation, music perception, music preferences in clinical settings, cultural humility and responsiveness in clinical practice.

Event(s):

• Panel: Performance and Neurodegenerative Diseases

Miguel Escobar Varela is Associate Professor at NUS and has teaching appointments in Theatre and Performance Studies at Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and University Scholars Programme (USP). Dr Varela is a web developer and theatre researcher who has lived in Mexico, The Netherlands, Singapore and Indonesia. He is also the Academic Advisor on Digital Scholarship at the NUS Libraries and convenes the informal Digital Humanities Singapore group.

Event(s):

• Panel: Medical Humanities

Lionel Wee is Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the National University of Singapore, and Provost’s Chair Professor in the Department of English, Linguistics and Theatre Studies. He works on language policy, new varieties of English and general issues in pragmatics and sociolinguistics. His latest book, with Nora Samosir, is Hallyu: The Korean Wave and the Sociolinguistics of Soft Power (Routledge, forthcoming).

Event(s):

• Opening Remarks
• Roundtable Discussion: Intersection of Performance and Health

Graham Wolfe is Associate Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies at the National University of Singapore. He is currently the Head of the Department of English, Linguistics and Theatre Studies. His monograph, Theatre-Fiction in Britain from Henry James to Doris Lessing, appeared in 2020, and his edited collection, The Routledge Companion to Theatre-Fiction, will be published in November 2023. His articles on theatre, literature, and popular culture can be found in journals including Modern Drama, Mosaic, Adaptation and Performance Research.

Event(s):

• Panel: Medical Humanities

Dr Wong Su Sun holds a Bachelor Degree in Music; Master in Music; and Doctorate of Musical Arts Degree in Voice from the University of Texas at Austin, USA. She was the winner of the Soprano Prize at the International Donizetti Opera Competition in Italy (1998); Meritorious Award of COMPASS (2013); Singapore University and Social Science Merit Teaching Award (2018) and Honorable Mention for the university’s Excellent Teaching Award (2020). She is a part-time lecturer at LASALLE College of the Arts’ degree and diploma programmes as well as United World College of South East Asia.

Event(s):

• Panel: Performance and Neurodegenerative Diseases

Dr Wu’s research focuses on gerontechnology and intergenerational programmes to promote healthy ageing. She has published widely on high-impact international refereed SCI journals and book chapters. Dr Wu has won over 10 research grants. Currently, she works on Precision Care Pathway through frailty and cognitive assessment and Community Dance Program for older adults. Her research expertise in the field of ageing has been recognised with international awards: Interstellar Initiative for Healthy Longevity, by New York Academy of Sciences and Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development in 2020, Asian University Alliance Scholars in 2020, and Emerging Nurse Researcher/Scholar Award by Sigma Theta Tau International in 2022.

Event(s):

• Panel: Health and Movement
• Roundtable Discussion: Intersection of Performance and Health

Roweena Yip is a Lecturer at the undergraduate honours college of the National University of Singapore (NUS). She completed her doctorate in Theatre Studies at NUS; a monograph based on her doctoral dissertation is forthcoming. Her research interests lie at the intersection between gender studies and intercultural performances of Shakespeare in Asia. Her work has been published in The Routledge Companion to Theatre-Fiction, Asian Theatre Journal and RiDE: Research in Drama Education (co-written with Yong Li Lan).

Event(s):

• Panel: Asian Performance, Shakespeare and Mental Health

Yong Li Lan teaches in Theatre Studies at the National University of Singapore. Her research focusses on Shakespeare and intercultural performativity in theatre, cinema and digital archiving, which has been published in international journals and book collections. Her recent essays have appeared in The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Performance, The Arden Research Handbook to Shakespeare and Adaptation and RiDE: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance. Yong co-edited Shakespeare in Asia: Contemporary Performance (CUP) with Dennis Kennedy. In 2021, she chaired the first online World Shakespeare Congress, held from Singapore. She has led the Asian Shakespeare Intercultural Archive (A|S|I|A) as director since it began in 2008, in close collaboration with a multinational, multilingual team located in Asia, the UK and the US. A|S|I|A is accessible through a parallel-language interface in English, Chinese, Japanese and Korean, and currently contains 62 East / Southeast Asian Shakespeare productions in 17 languages.

Event(s):

• Panel: Asian Performance, Shakespeare and Mental Health

Dr Jamie Zhou is a palliative care physician working at the National Cancer Centre Singapore. She is an educator at the Lien Centre for Palliative Care, Duke-NUS School of Medicine, and has a special interest in communication skills training and medical humanities.

Event(s):

• Panel: End-of-Life Care