The Flowering

 A music technologist once said to me, “Chris, I just realised that pay for new, full-time doctors working in hospitals; they are paid about $70 an hour. As such, I realised that we are overpaying our drama teachers.” That was in 2008.

During my Humanities class at the Theatre Training & Research Programme, our director- T. Sasitharan quoted this story to us, “Someone once said, if we drown a hundred leading scientists from around the world, societies will feel acutely the great lost. But if we drown a hundred artists, societies will not feel it.”

What is the life of an artist?

Do we not hurt when you sink a knife into us? And do we not have tears when we lose someone dear?

When I was in Kyoto training in Noh theatre, I encountered this Caucasian business man at a hotel lobby while waiting to access the hotel’s internet. In our conversation, he asked me what I did. I said I was a theatre practitioner. He seemed a little surprised, and asked how it has been so far. I said, “Well, life as an artist doesn’t make a lot of money, but it doesn’t allow you to starve too.”

To which he replied, “It would be wrong for artists to make a lot of money, doing what they do.”

Are we as artists doomed to an eternity of poverty because of our calling?

We know well enough that we do not measure our success according to the measure of how big a house we live in, or how expensive a car we drive, or what brands of clothing we wear.

As one Russian prima ballerina said, “I worked with some of the finest set designers, top costume designers, leading choreographers, and danced with the best dancers in the world, what a rich life!”

We know that. But yet, I have difficulty reconciling what one of my puppeteer and actor friend said; that many of us in the puppetry theatre company do not dare to dream of getting married, having children, or even having a life-long companion for the rest of their days; because of the dedication they have poured into their craft.

The endless hours on ends perfecting the one craft of performance, and to not see how a way to make a living, respectable to the normal man on the streets.

Or to know of my brilliant, talented, and award winning, dancer-choreographer friends not knowing how they would spend the rest of their lives, having lost the entire wing of their dancers due to insufficient funding.

Who ranks how much pay an artist should get? Or which arts company gets how much funding? How does one measure such illusive things?

Three out of four visual arts scholarship recipients from a certain year left the visual arts industry shortly after graduating from their Masters programme.

If I were to know that my children are to suffer for my choice of career, then I set aside my calling in the theatre for their future.

However, a puppeteer/actress friend told me that she would not do the same as me. Instead she would teach her children how to live in those conditions.

Another actress friend said, “Life is beautiful in the little things. If we cannot have a buffet spread for every meal, then I will pack little sandwiches for my family and bring them to the sea for a little picnic. That is beautiful too. We should not wait for life to hand out a living to us. It is we- the living people who makes that difference in life.”

Aye, it is true. Artists are people first and foremost. And through the art we know as film, television or theatre; we make that difference come alive, where people come to witness and be empowered with the strength of love, faith and hope, to go on living.

In these times of dire economy crisis, we are even more important; of farmers celebrating a harvest, of lovers coming together or parting, of Hamlets and Ophelias, the reality we recreate in theatre is indeed the now.

It is a signal not to give up; not as long as there is still a breath left in our body.

Life is a race, so run the good race, fight the good fight; and do not forget to keep close to your love ones for support!