THE LITTLE ARTS ACADEMY
managed by The Old Parliament House Limited
Launched in November 2008, The Little Arts Academy grew out of a need to provide more systematic arts training and a dedicated creative learning space for The Business Times Budding Artists Fund (BT BAF) beneficiaries. With its varied facilities that include a dance studio, practice rooms, a recording studio as well as a kitchen for culinary classes, The Little Arts Academy, which is an initiative of and managed by The Old Parliament House Limited, offers a broad-based curriculum that aims to give children a holistic education which has its foundation in the arts.
Offering professional training in dance, drama, new media, visual arts, music and singing, The Little Arts Academy provides opportunities for all children who have strong interest and artistic potential to receive interdisciplinary training in the arts.
From performances to parent-child workshops and meet-the-artist sessions, The Little Arts Academy’s Open House will give parents and children a taste of programmes to come to The Little Arts Academy. Let your children realise their full potential in the arts, and unlock their imagination and creativity through our interdisciplinary workshops in theatre, music, visual arts and dance.
Visit us at PoMo, #05-01/02, call 6513 3013 or email enquirieslaa@toph.com.sg for more information on our programmes.
OUR PEOPLE
Adelina Ong
Centre Director
Adelina Ong has been active in theatre scene since she was in her teens. Since her beginnings as a founding member of SRT’s Young Company in 1997 and as company manager from 1998 – 2001, Adelina has acted widely on stage and television and was nominated for Best Newcomer at the Life! Theatre Awards for her role in Postcards from Persephone (2000) which she also co-produced. Adelina also co-organised interdisciplinary festival such as the digital film project Digital Compassion 02 (2002) and Pulp (2003) which focused on creating respect for street arts. In 2004, she was honoured to be one of fifty international female theatre practitioners selected to participate in TRANSIT IV: Roots – an international theatre festival in Holstebro, Denmark.
Working closely with non-profit organisations through the National Volunteer & Philanthropy Centre from 2005 – 2007, she has learnt much from the social sector and hopes to combine this knowledge with her experience in theatre to benefit the children of The Little Arts Academy and help them achieve their dreams.
Wong Yunjie
Manager (Curriculum Development)
Wong Yunjie (Jacky) graduated from the National University of Singapore (NUS) in 2007 majoring in Political Science. He discovered his strong passion for art and pedagogy, and his belief in their potential for empowering and enhancing lives, as a student whose life-condition was transformed with the help of great teachers at the University Scholars Programme, NUS. After graduation, his passion and conviction were conveyed and further nurtured as a teacher in Catholic Junior College, Raffles Institution and Singapore Piaget Academy, Medan, Indonesia. Jacky identifies profoundly with the mission of the Little Arts Academy (LAA), and is proud and grateful for the opportunity to express himself as a creator of pedagogically innovative programmes that could enrich, and perhaps potentially transform, the life-condition of disadvantaged children.
Beyond his immediate job, Jacky maintains varying degrees of practical interest in poetry, cinema, theatre and Southeast Asian cultural studies. In 2003 he served as an intern at Theatreworks, Singapore, and as front-of-house for the Singapore Repertory Theatre. Jacky collaborated to make two short videos – most notably a graduation video commissioned by the University Scholars Programme, NUS, in 2007 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAKkH7KvHMU). He has cultivated a deep interest in Thai politics, culture and cinema, and presented his honours research thesis on Thai cultural politics in the 1970s at the Annual Southeast Asian Cinemas Conference 2007, held in Jakarta. Since 2007, Jacky has also been nurturing his artistic voice through poetry, one of which, titled Morning Skype, was published by the Quarterly Literary Review of Singapore (http://www.qlrs.com/poem.asp?id=591).
Aravind Vasu
Head, The Business Times Budding Artists Fund
Aravind is an entrepreneurial business development professional with over 30 years experience and an extensive business network covering South East Asia, South Asia, UAE, UK and West Africa. He was Business Development Consultant and Corporate Director for a Malaysian Conglomerate where he was involved in projects encompassing Joint Ventures, Mergers and Acquisitions and Privatisation of Government Assets in the financial services, Logistics & Warehousing, and Tourism sectors.
He has extensive experience the use of new methodologies and technologies for Education and was a senior manager at Horizon Education & Technologies, which listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange in February 2000. Aravind’s interest are in education and social equality. He spent his early professional life working on social housing issues in the UK. More recently he has been involved the use of art and visual tools in cultivating imagination and creativity in children.
