A preoccupation with breaking even

PERFORMING ARTS

ONG KENG SEN

Festival director of the newly-revamped Singapore International Festival of Arts. The six-week festival will debut in August with Facing Goya, an opera by British composer Michael Nyman that will be directed by Ong himself, and close with the New York experimental theatre company The Wooster Group's version of Shakespeare's Troilus And Cressida.

"WHAT I see in the arts scene right now is that there is quite a lot of fear among companies of trying to break even. Previously, there was a fear of politics and censorship, but now the fear has turned into a fina…