They want the German capital to be home to a cross-cultural experiment that turns performers into artistic directors, giving them a genuine say in what they do and who they perform with. It's a revolutionary approach - and who better to manage this foray into the unknown than Singapore's Ong Keng Sen, an artistic adventurer who has made his name by splicing together disparate cultures, languages and art forms?

It's quite a compliment from the German city once known as a world center of the arts. But for Ong, 37, the challenge is a natural progression. In the past decade, the artistic director of TheatreWorks, Singapore's first professional stage company, has moved from soft-focus looks at the Lion City to multimedia, multicultural presentations around the world. Today, Ong is probably the most influential avant-garde force in Southeast Asian theater, recognized for his willingness to risk rejection, whether by putting on long-forgotten plays or abstract new productions. "Ong has no equal in terms of his adventurousness," says C.J.W.-L. Wee, an art commentator in Singapore.

But the Lion City isn't exactly known for its adventurous spirit, and critics and the public there have snubbed Ong. Some observers say he has become so engrossed with experimentation that for all the cultural richness of the parts, his works merely add up to empty spectacles. For instance, a single production may feature actors from six countries, speaking in as many languages and performing in as many styles, from modern punk to Thai dance and Japanese Noh. Ong dismisses his critics. "There is a tall-poppy syndrome here," he says. "It's okay when you are operating within the box. But if you are too tall, you get chopped down to size." Singapore's arts scene is lightening up, as the government abandons some of its arbitrary restrictions in a bid to turn the city into an Asian cultural hub. But the way Ong sees it, Singapore's relentless search for excellence still leaves little room for failure or self-expression. "I often think I'm castrated," he says. "I feel that I have to justify my work [in terms of social purpose], rather than simply saying it's my right to do what I want to do."

If Singapore is trying to jump-start creativity, Berlin is trying to regain its pre-war eminence as an arts capital. To achieve that, officials are prepared to do the unexpected. The result: two German arts bodies, the House of World Cultures and the Festspiele Berlin, have given Ong more than $1 million and carte blanche authorization to create his own intercultural experiment on a world scale. "They had to justify why they chose someone from Singapore, which is often seen as not artistic," he says. But there's a sense in Berlin that the city "needs to be global."

The festival name, "In Transit," is a metaphor. Ong says it points to how participants will be asked to leave behind their cultural references and create something new. A guiding philosophy, he adds, will be to stay clear of the "global marketplace" approach embraced by most festivals: He won't simply book popular shows by well-known companies. Instead, Ong plans to first invite arts groups from around the world to join him in Berlin next May for three weeks of workshops on how they can collaborate. The fruits of the sessions will form the basis of year two of the festival. Inter-cultural works, he argues, could just as well be in a local context as a global one. One possible project: a collaboration between a Jewish woman director from South Africa and an activist detained during the apartheid years.

Facing criticism at home, Ong has turned to more international projects. Apart from his Berlin venture, he directed a production that traces the terror of the Khmer Rouge years in Cambodia. Continuum: Beyond the Killing Fields, the story in song, dance and puppetry, of how three classical dancers and a puppeteer survived the genocide, has discomfited audiences by its public exorcism of past horrors. The key figure in the tale is Em Theay, 69, a dancer who is helping to rebuild her country's cultural heritage. In crafting the show, she and Ong visited the concentration camp where she had been held. That was "really powerful," he says. Continuum, which was rehearsed at the temples of Angkor, has been staged at Yale University in the U.S. A modified version is planned for Singapore next month. Ong says he applied a light touch to the production, but his trademark splicing of cultures is evident in its video sequences and electronic soundtrack. The burghers of Berlin have a surprise coming.

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