Tisch School of the Arts Asia

When Tisch School of the Arts Asia opened, so did a new series of traditions. Each February, first year graduate film students in Singapore and New York meet online for the first time to celebrate 20 of the best short silent (MOS) films made during the fall term. The Second Annual MOS Celebration, held 14 February 2009, is designed to foster collaboration between the artists on both campuses.

Top 20
Earlier in the year, students and faculty voted for the 10 best films from each campus to be screened during the celebration.

Gabrielle Demeestere (New York) The Last Cigarette
Nathanael Carton (Singapore) A Married Woman
James Edward Franco (New York) The Feast of Stephen
Kyle Haskett (Singapore) Dark Country
Ken Ing Kirsten Tan (New York) Cold Noodles
Jordan Schiele (Singapore) Prank
Brantley Jones (New York) Errands
Kenny Gee (Singapore) Meat at Block 320
Nikita Liamzine (New York) Product
Mary Beth Dickerson (Singapore) Embers
Shiva Bajpai (New York) The Singhs
Chun-Yi Hsieh (Singapore) Toy Man
Margaret Shin (New York) People Watching
Anya Hoerlein (Singapore) Anil Goes to Work
Michael Wood (New York) Around the Block
Shi Jie Tan (Singapore) A Bright Bright Afternoon
Hye Mee Na (New York) The Bag
Emmanuel Osei-kuffor (Singapore) When Doors Open
Jose Angel Avila del Pino (New York) Boy Meets Girl
Christopher Broe (Singapore) The Rescuer Hero

What is MOS?
MOS, a common phrase among filmmakers, means without synchronous sound. The MOS shorts are a test of the filmmaker’s ability to tell a story without the use of dialogue.

How Did They Do That?
The 13-hour time difference between Singapore and New York means that most often when one class is working, the other class is sleeping. In this case, exceptions were made. The screening in New York started at 9 p.m., Friday, February 13, and in Singapore, it was already 10 a.m., Saturday morning.

What Did They Learn?
The students learned they have more in common than they initially thought. During the interactive video chat, laughter filled both rooms. A student studying in New York remarked that she had traveled all the way from Singapore to New York for the same education. And, both classes have a student named Ash, who was born in Bombay and raised in the United Kingdom.

A 13-hour time difference did not prevent Jim Taylor, an Academy Award winning writer and alumnus of Tisch School of the Arts, from presenting a lecture to the student body at Tisch School of the Arts Asia, on February 10.

Taylor logged on to Skype and presented the video chat to students, faculty and staff, who packed into the school’s Theatre 2.

Taylor emphasized the importance of collaboration in the writing process, and spoke of his twenty-year partnership with co-writer Alexander Payne.

Stephanie Bousley, second-year film student, especially appreciated hearing from a top-rate writer in the industry. “That’s a path I hope to take; it was great to talk with someone on the writing side of the industry,” she said.

Actors from the United Kingdom, Brazil, Singapore and Australia participated in a staged reading of The Masrayana at Tisch School of the Arts Asia, February 5-6. The Masrayana, written by Bill Kovacsik, an award winning playwright and associate professor at Tisch School of the Arts Asia, is a play about Gopal Masra, an Indian farmer whose relatives bribe local officials to have him declared dead in order to inherit his land.

Kovacsik’s inspiration came from an article in the New York Times about Lal Bishari, an Indian farmer. The Masrayana combines elements of Bishari’s story with interludes of classical Indian dance, while adding a fable-like twist and a Brechtian flair.

An array of talent comprised the eight-person cast. Andrew Lightheart, who played Vijay Gupta, dual role of narrator and barrister, noted that the play was originally written for an Indian cast, but Kovacsik’s choice of a multi-cultural cast points to the more universal themes of the play.

Jordan Mann, a first year student in the Department of Animation and Digital Arts and who is enrolled in Kovacisk’s lecture, “Storytelling for Animation,” attended the performance and raved.

“It was good to see Bill demonstrate his artistry on stage,” Mann said.

The Masrayana, winner of the Joseph Jefferson Citation Award as Best New Play in Chicago, 2005-2006, was described by the Chicago Tribune as "a deftly told story of identity theft and governmental indifference...one of the strongest productions to debut in years...a Kafka-esque tale of one man and his infuriating attempt to prove that he exists."

In New York City, we often look out of the buildings to see our neighbors in the next apartment building, but in Singapore, our nearest neighbors look quite different. Take a look:

Tisch School of the Arts Asia chosen to host local educators in Art and Music as part of the 2009 Art & Music Conference organized by Singapore’s Ministry of Education.

Forty art and music educators from various schools in Singapore were on campus 3-4 Feb 2009. The Ministry of Education chose NYU Tisch School of the Arts Asia as one of the schools to host a panel of Singaporean educators in Art and Music. The conference was organized to inspire and enthuse educators on the values of Arts and Music, create awareness of current trends and innovative practices in the Art and Music scene and to provide avenues for networking and exchange of ideas.

Pari Sara Shirazi, president of Tisch School of the Arts Asia, said “It is important for Tisch School of the Arts Asia to be active citizens in the local arts scene and to be a part of its greater environment. It is even more important that we connect with our other colleagues in the education industry to exchange and inspire one another.”

Visitors got a better understanding of the school’s Master of Fine Arts programs through presentations from each department. Student work was screened, including, Hotballs, a short film by Eric Elofson, a second year film student; a presentation of readings by the students from the Dramatic Writing department; and animation and digital arts projects were screened.

The educators also visited the motion capture studio, the Black Box theatre, the dirty lab, the production centre and the sound stages.

Staff and students at Tisch School of the Arts Asia gathered outside sound stages on 29 Jan 2009 to celebrate Chinese New Year over “lo-hei” and traditional Chinese goodies. For most of the faculty members and students at Tisch School of the Arts Asia, it was their first time celebrating Chinese New Year.

Chinese New Year is an important festival for the Chinese. Following the Chinese lunar calendar, the new year is celebrated over the last day of the previous year and first two days of the next year. The “lo-hei” is also popularly known as “yusheng” taken traditionally on the seventh day of Chinese New Year. The yusheng is a teochew (a Chinese dialect group) style raw fish salad created in Singapore by a Chinese chef. It usually consists of strips of raw fish (most commonly salmon) mixed with shredded vegetables and a variety of sauces and condiments, among other ingredients.
Yusheng literally means "raw fish" but has a similar sound to another word which means an increase in abundance. Therefore, yusheng is considered a symbol of abundance, prosperity and vigor. A string of auspicious phrases is often recited when preparing and tossing the salad as high as one can to symbolize good tidings and a good year ahead

At the Tisch School of the Arts Asia celebration, many were really curious how salmon will taste like with Chinese plum sauce, peanuts and preserved red ginger. Others wanted to know what each ingredient symbolized, what was being recited while tossing the salad and why one had toss the yusheng as high as one can.