AIC 2026

The Asian Intercultural Conference (AIC) returns to Singapore in November 2026 – bringing together artists, academics, and cultural policy shapers around the theme Staging the Unseen: Bodies, Power, and Belonging.

Through the lens of intercultural and interdisciplinary practices, AIC investigates the performing body: shaped by multiplicity, plurality, fluid identities, and continuous negotiations across cultures, orientations, and histories.

For the first time, AIC 2026 moves into an evening format with three nights of encounters and exchanges from 25 to 27 November, culminating in a full day of events on 28 November.

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Featuring speakers and presenters:
Prof Chen Kuan-Hsing (Taiwan), Nabilah Said (Singapore), Dr Cheng Nien Yuan (Singapore), Ulrich Meyer-Horsch (Germany), Pujiyani (Indonesia), Ming Poon (Germany), P7:1SMA (Singapore)

Save the date!

25–28 Nov 2026
(Pre-Conference Workshops begin from 18 Nov)

Details on tickets, programme and schedule will be announced soon.

ABOUT AIC

AIC is a gathering for socially conscious artists, change-makers, and impact-driven creatives working in theatre committed to shaping a more inclusive, responsive arts landscape. Rooted in both theory and practice, the conference brings together diverse voices from across cultures to exchange, question, and co-create practices. AIC 2026 will mark the end of ITI25, a two-year celebration of ITI’s continuing legacy.

AIC’s programme includes curated work demonstrations. These rare opportunities offer attendees a firsthand, practical glimpse into the research and practice of invited artists, whose work is studied, embodied, and demonstrated by participating practitioners and ITI students after week-long intensive workshops. Moving beyond standard conference format of papers and panels, AIC brings practice-as-research to life, making the pedagogical process visible, dynamic, and deeply impactful.

THE THEME

The theme of AIC 2026 is centred on the performing body as both the nexus and locus of identity, training, culture, and resistance in theatre practice. Building on the 2023 theme “Preparing to Act: History and Heritage as Resource”, the 2026 edition confronts the pressing questions of plurality, representation, and embodied experience in today’s intercultural performance landscape.

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Staging the Unseen: Bodies, Power, and Belonging explores the body as a site of diversity, contestation, and storytelling — how it is shaped by history, tradition, training, gender, life experience, and other sociopolitical forces. It challenges the politics of representation, asking: Whose stories do we have the right to tell? What does it mean to perform from the margins?

Through the lens of intercultural and interdisciplinary practices, AIC investigates the “performing body” — shaped by multiplicity, plurality, fluid identities, and continuous negotiations across cultures, orientations, and histories.

CONFERENCE PROGRAMME

- KEYNOTE -

Kuo Pao Kun as Critical Thinker: “Theatre” as a Sustainable Intellectual/Cultural Movement in Singapore

Prof Chen Kuan-Hsing
(Taiwan)

- KEYNOTE -

The People Yearn for Community

Nabilah Said
(Singapore)

- SPECIAL LECTURE -

Mapping ‘Utopia’?: The Geographies of Intercultural Actor Training in Singapore

Dr Cheng Nien Yuan
(Singapore)

- WORK DEMO -

‘Me’ is the Other - Michael Chekhov Technique for Transformation

Ulrich Meyer-Horsch
(Germany)

- WORK DEMO -

On Leadership and Power: The Body as Symbolic Representation of Javanese Cultural Value

Pujiyani
(Indonesia)

- WORK DEMO -

S.H.A.D.O.W. - Sensing and Holding the Abjected, Disavowed, and Obscured Within

Ming Poon
(Germany)

- WORK DEMO -

Berahi: Holy Unions

P7:1SMA
(Singapore)

THE AIC JOURNEY

AIC 2023

Preparing to Act: History and Heritage as Resource

AIC 2017

Theatre Wars: Return of the Artist

AIC 2014

New Intercultural Theatre: Methods, Techniques and Strategies of Making Contemporary Theatre

AIC 2008

Theatre Today: Seeking New Paradigms

About ITI

Founded in 2000 by Kuo Pao Kun and T. Sasitharan, Intercultural Theatre Institute (ITI) is the world’s premier intercultural theatre conservatory, conceived as a unique, independent, and unprecedented enterprise in theatre training, social and cultural interaction, and human understanding.

Committed to nurturing diverse voices and fostering regional collaborations, the institute aims to play a vital role in shaping a vibrant arts ecosystem. Its mission is rooted in the future of arts education, and talent development, embracing the values of cultural and social diversity, and celebrating humanity and life.

ITI began as the Theatre Training & Research Programme (TTRP) and has evolved in the 25 years since. Today ITI’s Acting Programme is highly regarded in the arts community and has attracted international recognition of the highest order through its consistent quality and celebrated alumni.

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