A car park space on the tenth floor of Orchard Central has been transformed into a 13,000 square feet creative arts space to nurture budding young artists and emerging young talents. Ms Low Yen Ling, Parliamentary Secretary for Ministry of Social and Family Development and Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth officially opened the space on 29 November at Orchard Central, Level 10.
Managed by arts and cultural organisation, The RICE Company Limited (RICE), 10 Square @ Orchard Central (10sq) features a theatre-auditorium, three music studios, visual arts studio, dance studio, an arena, seminar and conference rooms as well as a service-training café called Happy Pancakes.
Ms Lynne Kok, Centre Director of 10sq, shared:
“10sq offers both a conducive space and a holistic programme for budding artists and emerging young talents to hone their artistic skills. The space is equipped to support multidisciplinary arts initiatives and to build a community of creative young talents. At the heart of it, 10sq’s intent is simply to provide young people the opportunity and support they need to achieve their artistic potential.”
10sq is designed to accommodate and provide access to more than 500 youths keen to pursue a two-year Arts Incubation Programme. The Arts Incubation Programme is a specialised arts training curriculum that focuses on developing the youth’s arts technical skills to a level where they can choose to become arts practitioners. Besides technical skills, the youth will learn business fundamentals which includes finance, marketing and arts management. Currently, there are more than 100 youths in the pioneer batch sharing the training space with the Children Division. The second intake will begin in January 2015.