Between Localization and Globalization of the Performing Arts in Asia

Charles has more than 30 years of experience in cultural policies, public service broadcasting and international cooperation. He is currently Specialist, Program Optimization at Telefilm Canada. Since 2015, he has been a member of the Expert Facility of the 2005 UNESCO Convention, providing capacity-building assistance on the governance of cultural policy and on media diversity to developing countries. He is the publisher of a weekly press review "Cultures in the Digital Era" covering emerging issues and best practices in arts and culture. As a consultant, he recently authored UNESCO's policy toolkit Culture in Crisis: Practical guide for a resilient creative sector and the City of Montreal's 2017-2022 Cultural Development Policy. Previously, Charles was General Secretary of the International Federation of Coalitions for Cultural Diversity. He has worked successively for the Department of Canadian Heritage, the Canadian Embassy in Paris, TV5 Quebec Canada, CBC/Radio-Canada and Rights & Democracy.

Best Known as director of the George Town Festival, Joe Sidek has established himself as one of Malaysia’s strong advocates for the arts. Before taking up the position of festival director, Joe Sidek played major roles in various forms of art expression – from event management, art curator-ship, restaurant ownership and even costume design. A lesser known fact about Joe is that he still runs his family–owned textile chemical factory, Chemdyes Sdn Bhd.
With his industrialist background, entrepreneurial nature and his visionary passion for the arts, it is no surprise that 8 years after his appointment as festival director of GTF in 2010, the festival has grown incrementally ever since. Alongside GTF in 2018, Joe also directed the 3-year-old Rainforest Fringe Festival in Kuching, having founded the festival in 2017. He also helmed the Butterworth Fringe Festival for 3 years (2015–2017) and earlier in 2014, he brought Tropfest, the world’s largest short film festival to Southeast Asia and showcased the inaugural Tropfest South East Asia in Penang. He has been invited to speak regionally and internationally in cities like Brisbane, Taipei, New York, Salzburg, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Chiang Mai, Seoul, Gwangju, Shanghai, Adelaide, Yokohama and Malta among others about his role in placemaking, advocacy of the arts and about Penang.
He is 2020-2022 chairman of Federation of Asian Cultural Promotion, an industry expert on the industry panel of Malaysian federal agency for the arts and culture, Cultural Economy Development Agency (CENDANA), and chairman of Penang Arts Council.

Sasapin Siriwanij is a core member of B-Floor Theatre, an independent theater artist and a producer. She has worked for many international collaborative projects for B-Floor Theater, For What Theatre, as well as independently with international collaborators. Sasapin has initiated a number of discussion platforms and workshops that aim to nurture the ecosystem of the local performing arts scene. She has taken the role of Artistic Director of Bangkok International Performing Arts Meeting (BIPAM) since 2018, and co-founded Producers of Thai Performing Arts Network (POTPAN).

Born in 1976 in Fukuoka, Japan. He began theatre activities in 1997 while studying at Kyoto University. After establishing the Hashimoto Performing Arts Production Office in 2003, he has been active as a producer of contemporary theatre and dance performances. After founding Kyoto Experiment, Kyoto’s first international performing arts festival, in 2010, he was the program director of the festival till 2019. He was one of the founders and the director of the Open Network for Performing Arts Management (ON-PAM) from 2013 till 2019. Since January 2014, he has been the program director of ROHM Theatre Kyoto.