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 programmes give children a taste of the arts, inspire them to realise their full potential in the arts, and unlock their imagination and creativity!

The Five Strategic Thrusts of The Little Arts Academy

1. LAA Initiatives

• Offering a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary arts curriculum that covers music, dance, theatre, multimedia, culinary arts and visual arts, the LAA Initiatives create exciting new learning opportunities with a high level of experiential interdisciplinary learning.
• The initiatives include
• The Play Experiment: a half-hour session of creative play that combines students from different classes and compels sharing between the different art genres.
• Active Learning in the Arts (ALA)programme: a 4-day workshop, which encourages reflection and active learning through the learning of a variety of art genres in intellectually stimulating environments.
• Learning Journeys in the Arts: where students are brought on a sculpture walk with a twist, or a visit to The Arts House, Sculpture Square and/or MICA ARTrium and taught to interpret artworks made by great artists and later, create similar artworks themselves. This programme can also be paired with a performing arts component.

2. LAA Youths

• LAA Youths develop and train youths aged between 13 and 19 towards specific talent development programmes in the chosen discipline.

3. LAA Talents

• Where outstanding young talents are nurtured under StellarStar for well-established performance opportunities in local and international platforms such as ChildAid.

4. LAA Productions

• Customised to the needs of individual schools, LAA Productions gives every school the ability to train and showcase the talents of its students in a variety of art genres that will culminate in fully staged and costumed original production.

5. LAA Exchange

• This programme focuses on conceptualising and creating customised art and culture exchange programmes with international partner schools so that children have the opportunity to develop an international outlook and connect with different people in diverse cultures, thereby broadening their social horizons and learning experiences.

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. 

Alexis Puah
Manager, Finance & Admin

Prior to joining The Little Arts Academy, Alexis was an auditor in one of the well-established international firms for five years before she decided to leave for a more fun-filled and exciting position.  Alexis takes care of the finance and admin matters for the school and she is glad that she is part of the LAA team. Don’t be afraid to talk to her just because she looks unfriendly; it’s just that she doesn’t smile often.

Sulaiman Bin Ramat
Facility Manager

Sulaiman is said to be a pioneer on many fronts. He has been working at The Old Parliament House Ltd since its inception in 2002 when the company was merely a little office space in Park Mall. He then progressed on to be Sound Technician at The Arts House since it opened in March 2004, and finally moved on to be the Facility Manager of The Little Arts Academy since it opened in November 2008.

Sulaiman may look brawny and fierce, but he’s a softie at heart. Ever obliging and always wearing a friendly smile, he would be the person to go to when we need help to move big, heavy objects or get any repair work done at LAA.

Janice Zhang
Executive, Communications and Partnerships

Janice’s first contact with the fine arts started when she got into her school’s Art Elective Programme (AEP), a four-year programme of exploratory art-making which eventually stirs up a life-time interest in the arts. Prior to joining the Little Arts Academy, Janice was teaching Geography and Visual Arts at a secondary school. She is now involved in communicating to audiences like you through various forms of media.

Ko Ya Huay
Assistant Administrator

Ya Huay is the warm and friendly lady who sits at the front counter of The Little Arts Academy attending to your enquiries about our programmes and venue hires. What is this course all about? When is the date of that workshop? Ya Huay is the person to go to.
Before joining the family of The Little Arts Academy, Ya Huay had been working as a nurse at Tan Tock Seng Hospital and Thomson Medical Centre.

She enjoys baking and photography, which she indulges in during her free time. She also  has a deep interest in the Japanese culture and its language.