JOINT ARTISTIC DIRECTORS
Bhumi Collective is led by our founders and Joint Artistic Directors, Mohamad Shaifulbahri (Shai) and Soultari Amin Farid.
Childhood friends, both of them embarked on their respective performing arts careers at about the same time when they were teenagers in Singapore and converged again in London where they were both pursuing their respective postgraduate studies. This led to the formation of Bhumi Collective, with the premiering of bhumi at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2016.
Shaifulbahri is lead producer on all of Bhumi Collective's projects and looks into the management of the company while curating and programming all of the company's theatre, spoken word, performance art and other forms arm. He also looks into the education arm of the company.
Soultari curates and programmes the company's dance, physical theatre and traditional arts arm while managing our practice-led research arm.
Mohamad Shaifulbahri (Shai)
Joint Artistic Director
Soultari Amin Farid
Joint Artistic Director
Shai is a creative producer and arts educator from Singapore. He is Joint Artistic Director of Bhumi Collective and Organising Member of Producers SG. He holds an MA in Creative Producing from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and a recipient of the Goh Chok Tong Youth Promise Award (Distinction).
Shai is also a TEDx Speaker having spoken at TEDxRoyalCentralSchool on the topic, "Diversifying, Diversity, Tomorrow's Theatre Today" in 2017.
He was the Artistic Director of Yellow Chair Productions (YCP), a community theatre group based in Singapore, which he founded in 2005. With YCP he has initiated The Open House Series programme, a partnership with the National Library Board to provide young theatre-makers with a platform to develop and devise new ideas. Through the group’s Main Season programme, his producing and/or directing credits include: Our Time: A Musical Revue, The Last Five Years, Fat Pig, Off Centre, Those Who Can’t,Teach and The Tempest: Storm in a Teacup. He was also the Producer of The Carpentry, a process-driven young adults theatre programme, launched in January 2016.
On the community arts front, he has been the Chairperson of the Tampines Central Community Arts and Culture Committee (CACC) with whom he has worked on various PAssion Arts events both estate and town-wide. He is also the Festival Producer of the Void Deck Festival, a community-based arts festival revolving around the transformation of void deck spaces at the foot of government-housing apartments into a temporary space for the arts.
As an arts educator, Shaifulbahri has taught English and Literature at Junyuan Secondary School with whom he has also been a freelance drama instructor. He has also been an Arts & Drama Consultant and Student Development Officer at Ngee Ann Polytechnic. He has been invited by the National Arts Council (NAC) to speak at Call Me Crazy as part of their Matchbox series of talks for youths interested in the arts and present a paper entitled “Encouraging Creativity Through Performance Building” at the Teachers’ Symposium of the Singapore Arts Festival 2012. He currently teaches part-time on the BA in Arts Management programme at LASALLE College of the Arts. He has also guest lectured at Singapore Management University and London Studio Centre.
For Bhumi Collective, his credits include: Charlie, Every Brilliant Thing, dead was the body till i taught it how to move, Mak-Mak Menari (m1 Singapore Fringe 2020), yesterday it rained salt (m1 Singapore Fringe 2019), Sau(dara) (Centre 42: The Vault), Twine (National Arts Council Arts in Your Neighbourhood), Ikan Girl (Singapore International Festival of Music 2016), Last of Their Generation, bhumi (Edinburgh Fringe), Bunker Without Borders (The Bunker Theatre)
His other producing/directing credits in Singapore include: Ethni-City III: Kali Yuga (SAtheCollective) Lord of the Flies, Everything but the Brain, Edges the Musical (Sight Lines Productions)
His other producing/assistant producing credits in the UK include: everything that rises must dance (Resolution 2016 for Sasha Milavic Davies and Lucy Railton), PIAF (Bridewell Theatre & Charing Cross Theatre for Gillian Tan & Blackwinged Creatives), BEAM 2016 (Mercury Musicals & Musical Theatre Network, London), In Celebration of Mo (Wandsworth Fringe, London)
Soultari Amin Farid is a choreographer, arts educator and researcher from Singapore. He is currently based in London where he is a PhD candidate in Theatre, Drama and Dance studies at the prestigious Royal Holloway, University of London, UK. Most recently, he was awarded the Singapore Youth Award (SYA) in 2017.
His recent choreographic credits in UK & Europe include:
bhumi(Edinburgh Fringe Festival, UK); (Mis)fits (Footprints Festival, UK); Maa, What If… : The Mother in Tagore’s Poems (Commissioned by Mora Ferenc Muzeum, Hungary) and Unity in Diversity (University of Szeged, Hungary).
Some of his notable works as Artistic Director in Singapore include: Mak-Mak Menari (m1 Singapore Fringe 2020), yesterday it rained salt (m1 Singapore Fringe 2019), Sau(dara) (The Vault, Centre 42), Touch: Identite (Collaboration with Sonic Artist, James Lye, and Hip Hop Artist, Fasihah); Mother Earth: Diminishing (Commissioned by Temasek Arts Centre, Temasek Polytechnic); GAIA: Pudar (Supported by Malay Heritage Foundation & the Malay Heritage Centre); and Padi Kuning [Yellow Paddy] (Supported by National Arts Council Polytechnic Initiative).
Amin’s academic investigations into postcolonial theory andanthropology provides the impetus for him to produce artistic works which constantly questions and challenge the normative notions of class, ethnicity, identity and gender.
Amin believes that young arts practitioners must take ownership of their cultural traditions but must also become leaders in creating artistic works that are innovative and relevant to an evolving landscape.