Singapore-born, but now based in Glasgow, Scotland, Ramesh Meyyappan is a multi-faceted performer.

Not one to allow his hearing impairment to deter him from pushing boundaries, the last decade or more has seen him develop performances - solo and collaborative - in a range of visual and physical styles.

“Language and having to explore how people communicate has influenced me greatly, and the desire to be able to communicate in a universally accessible way has always been the challenge that keeps me going,” he says.

Ramesh, who started his arts and theatre career in Singapore, left in 2000 for England, where he obtained a First Class degree from the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts.

He discovered then, and still observes now, that regardless of the country or culture, “work by a deaf person can be pigeon-holed”; that often work by deaf artists is considered less good than that of those who can hear.

This has spurred him on, together with his desire to reach a wider audience  - and not because he has something to prove; Ramesh says his biggest challenge today is making work that can be viewed as mainstream.

That means ensuring he is able to reach and attract a wider audience while challenging those who perceive theatre created by a deaf person as less than adequate.

He goes on to say that he has been steadily pushing himself as he develops his “skill levels and builds an extensive visual vocabulary”.

I just want to create work that audiences will want to see.

SI grant

The 36-year-old received the Singapore International Foundation’s (SIF) Singapore Internationale grant in 2010.

Of this he says, “The SIF has always been very generous and supportive of my work. Without them, Snails & Ketchup and Gin & Tonic & Passing Trains would have taken longer to get started. I appreciate their faith in my work.”

Singapore Internationale is an arts and culture grant that supports the presentation of Singapore’s creative works overseas.

Of his current production Snails & Ketchup, which is inspired by Italian journalist and writer Italo Calvino’s The Baron in the Trees, and in which he plays all the characters, Ramesh says, “It’s a work in progress... It’s a simple story but I was inspired by the setting and the characters.

“As the boy in the story lives in trees, I’ve been engaged in intensive training to develop aerial skills; a great deal of the performance is above ground and on a rope!”

The first performance of the fully developed Snails & Ketchup was showcased in Paris in June 2011.

Favourite production

He is hard-pressed to pick a favourite production. “I think each solo piece I’ve created has provided a different experience for me. However, Mistero Buffo was quite significant as it was my first full-length solo performance, and my first time adapting a text to develop a purely visual narrative.”

Among the awards he picked up for his interpretation of Italian playwright and director Dario Fo’s piece was the Best Actor award at The Straits Times Life! Theatre Awards in 2003.

Mistero Buffo is memorable for him because through it, he became more aware of the difficulties communicating a full narrative in a visual way.

The process involved in bringing it together left him “with much food for thought”, making him aware that he has much more to learn and areas to develop.

Of his future plans, he says simply, “I just want to create work that audiences will want to see.”

* This article was written by Anita Yee and first published in Singapore Magazine (Apr-Jun 2011 issue).