Singapore launches digital archive of Tamil dance

Published on Authored by C to I News Desk

The Digital Archive of Tamil Dance was launched on Saturday, November 30, at the National Library Board, Singapore (NLB). 

Minister for Communications and Information S Iswaran and Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam with the heads of digital archives (from left) Subramaniam Nadaison; Sushma Somasekharan; Chitra Sankaran; Tan Huism, Director, National Library Singapore; Ganesh Subramania; Arun Mahizhnan; Lavanya Balachandran and Sharmini Chellapandi. Photo courtesy: Iswaran FB
Minister for Communications and Information S Iswaran and Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam with the heads of digital archives (from left) Subramaniam Nadaison; Sushma Somasekharan; Chitra Sankaran; Tan Huism, Director, National Library Singapore; Ganesh Subramania; Arun Mahizhnan; Lavanya Balachandran and Sharmini Chellapandi. Photo courtesy: Mr S Iswaran FB page

Attended by Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam and Minister for Communications and Information S Iswaran, the launch was organised by NLB and Centre for Singapore Tamil Culture.

The event marks the completion of Tamil Digital Heritage Project – community-driven project aimed at creating a digital collection of Singapore’s Tamil culture, in particular music, drama, literature and dance. 

At the launch event, Rani Singam, jazz singer, and Andrew Lim, jazz guitarist, performed a beautiful rendition of the Thamizh Thaai invocation – a song that denotes the deified personification of the Tamil language as a mother. Photo courtesy: Iswaran FB
At the launch event, Rani Singam, jazz singer, and Andrew Lim, jazz guitarist, performed a beautiful rendition of the Thamizh Thaai invocation – a song that denotes the deified personification of the Tamil language as a mother. Photo courtesy: Mr S Iswaran FB page

The collection was presented as the Indian community’s gift to the nation on Singapore’s 50th anniversary in 2015. Volunteers, who were largely teachers, helped proofread and annotate the texts, while NLB helped to digitise them. 

The digital archive is now hosted by NLB and displayed in NLB’s digital print portal, BookSG. More than 350 Tamil books had been scanned and undergone optical character recognition.

Minister Iswaran speaking at the launch Digital Archive of Tamil Dance. Photo courtesy: Iswaran FB
Minister Iswaran speaking at the launch Digital Archive of Tamil Dance. Photo courtesy: Mr S Iswaran FB page

"This project is an effort to use technology to make Tamil arts heritage more accessible to Singaporeans, and to enrich our cultural diversity and understanding, for all generations," Minister Iswaran wrote in a Facebook post.

"This is another way to deepen mutual understanding and strengthen social bonds in multicultural Singapore," he added.