STATE OF THE ARTS (Nov 28 to Dec 4) A casual but somewhat heated Q&A with potential “Arts NMP” candidates — actress Janice Koh, photographer Dominic Khoo and designer Casey Chen — was held at TheatreWorks 72-13 last Saturday, with Chen eventually deciding to “drop out” of the race (and Khoo pursuing it independently). Teasers galore were also released for next year’s Singapore Arts Festival and Singapore Writers Festival, with among others, a stage adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, a re-visitation of Ong Keng Sen’s Lear, and authors Germaine Greer and Garth Nix announced. Elsewhere, organisers of Short + Sweet Singapore 2011 also announced its cancellation, artist Zaki Razak transformed his wedding into an exhibition-cum-performance, and Contact 2011 ended on a high note with a super performance by T.H.E. Dance Company. (And since, I’m posting this belatedly, there was also the tragic news of the untimely death of Filipino-Australian actor/singer RJ Rosales, a familiar face in the local theatre scene.)