Even before the pandemic, the Singaporean arts group Emergency Stairs and its Artistic Director, Liu Xiaoyi, have been an active practitioner of international collaboration and cultural exchange. In 2019 alone, for example, they visited 11 cities including Ho Chi Minh City, Yokohama, Bangkok, Phnom Penh, Kuala Lumpur, Yogyakarta, HongKong, Shanghai, Bali, Kotlik and Jakarta, embarking on a series of creative, research and exchange trips. However, … Continue reading Emergency Stairs Explores International Exchange in Post-Pandemic Times

Does artificial intelligence dream of meta-jokes? In his No More Theatre series, Emergency Stairs Artistic Director Liu Xiaoyi takes a deep dive into the infinite realm of possibilities for theatre, breaking convention and seeking new frameworks and means of presenting theatre and the arts. Most significantly, with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, Xiaoyi’s research has taken him down a tech-heavy route, as he wonders … Continue reading Review: Writing with AI (Chinese showcase) by Emergency Stairs

Liu Xiaoyi has continually been dabbling in experimental theatre, and in his latest venture, the Artistic Director of Emergency Stairs continues his exploration of new theatre forms through the “No More Theatre” series. Premiering online this February, his new experiment, Writing with AI, examines how humans co-write theatrical scripts with artificial intelligence and conduct comparative studies on the scripts written by humans and AI. During … Continue reading Preview: Writing with AI by Emergency Stairs

Emergency Stairs has always dabbled in experimental fare, and while mostly quiet during 2021, are coming roaring into 2022 with a brand new exploration of performance and theatre, with The Spirits Play Online. The story begins in 2020, when Japanese Noh artist Kanji Shimizu visited Singapore, while in transit. Meeting up with Emergency Stairs Artistic Director Liu Xiaoyi, and ssing just hand gestures and a translation app, … Continue reading Preview: The Spirits Play Online by Emergency Stairs