By Corrie Tan (1,540 words, eight-minute read) Halfway through The Finger Players’ trippy, darkly comic Citizen Dog, I pause to consider the philosopher Zhuangzi’s anecdote on how we construct our realities: Once upon a time, I, Zhuangzi, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was […]
A surreal “Citizen Dog” sinks its teeth into your soul Read More »
Kungfu Bonda by Purple Aura Productions 16 June 2018 Kungfu Bonda is Baggy’s new stand-up solo show. After his questionable success in his 20s, when Baggy approached 30, he hopes to be a comic where he lives his life one strip at a time and shares the cartoon of his existence with everyone. After his
Weekly picks: Singapore (11 – 17 June 2018) Read More »
By Eugene Koh (1200 words, 8 minute read) The Second Breakfast Company restaging Goh Poh Seng’s The Moon is Less Bright is akin to grabbing this behemoth of a national literary relic by its horns and tackling it. The play’s historical weight is considerable, its setting has become distant and its language almost absurdly lyrical.
The Second Breakfast Company’s “The Moon is Less Bright”: A New Phase Read More »
By Ke Weiliang (2,470 words, 10-minute read) In March 2017, Gaurav Kripalani was officially unveiled as the Festival Director for Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA) 2018 – 2020. I was over the moon, but only because a rare opportunity to stop indiscriminately splurging my money on arts events seemed to have finally presented itself.
Was a Skeptic, Still a Skeptic: A Festival-Goer’s Impressions of SIFA 2018 Read More »
Duration: 21 minutes Latest in our Fresh Blood series, the spotlight is on Split Theatre, a feisty young outfit that is staging their third production “Fourteen” on 8 June at Centre 42 Black Box. We chat with director Darryl Lim, actor Elizabeth Samosir and production manager Chia Xin Ying about how they met, what “Fourteen”
Podcast 41: Split Theatre’s “Fourteen” Read More »
The exhibition Amek Gambar: Peranakans and Photography at Singapore’s Peranakan Museum (from May 5 to Feb 3 2019) is a rare glimpse into the very first and early days of the history of photography in Singapore through the lens of the peranakans — an ethnic group of mixed race Malay–Chinese with a richly distinctive culture, e.g. costumes (usually involving kebayas and
The History of Photography in Singapore Through Peranakan Eyes (via Invisible Flaneuse) Read More »
This article is republished from the Singapore International Film Festival editorial. It is part of New Waves 2018, an annual series of screenings and dialogues with regional filmmakers. For this third edition of the New Waves series, SGIFF invites participants the festival’s Youth Jury and Critics’ programme to offer an introductory analysis on the four
Sentiments of Space: Reading Between the Frames of Don Aravind Read More »
25th Singapore International Piano Festival by Singapore Symphony Orchestra, 7-13 June 2018 This year’s celebration brings in six phenomenal virtuoso pianists from across Asia, Europe and the Americas. All six pianists will present varied, colourful programmes in The Singapore International Piano Festival for their 25th anniversary with a variety of works from Mozart, Beethoven,
Weekly Picks: Singapore (4 – 10 June 2018) Read More »
By Chloe Chotrani (990 words, 4-minute read) Garden Uprooted is a performance work drawing from nature as the source, a collaboration with The Philharmonic Orchestra Singapore and The Arts Fission Company. Subtle tonalities slowly seep into the theatre, and contradicting erratic yet fluid movements in space and time. Throughout Garden Uprooted is nature-inspired music by
“Garden Uprooted”: Fluctuations of Silence Read More »
Lim Chin Huat shares about his journey of learning one artistic discipline after another, his approach to creating work, his struggle with calling himself an artist, and how his current project In Her Hands traces its origins back to more than ten years ago. He currently teaches movement full-time at the Intercultural Theatre Institute. CH: I was a science
Lim Chin Huat and Negotiating Positionalities across Time (via Talking Circles) Read More »
StoryFest: International Storytelling Festival Singapore, The Arts House, 1-3 June 2018 Come and listen to tales both old and new from Singapore and around the world at StoryFest 2018. StoryFest is back for their second edition this year with the theme Be Legendary. The festival that is happening from 1-3 June at the Arts House features a
Weekly Picks: Singapore (28 May – 3 June 2018) Read More »
By Daniel Teo (1340 words, six-minute read) In Pissed Julie, the magic number is three. The play begins with a row of three chairs, dwarfed by a succession of three enormous three-sided wooden frames. The actors emerge from the darkness and dance to a waltz in triple metre. And, in this bold adaptation of August
Nine Years Theatre’s “Pissed Julie 茱莉小解”: Third Wheelings Read More »
Visual Amek Gambar (Taking Pictures) – Peranakans and Photography by Peranakan Museum 5 May – Sun 3 Feb 2019 This exhibition displays the lives of Peranakans across Southeast Asia through a large collection of photographs. The role of photography was evident as Peranakans took advantage of this visual art form over the last 160 years. From
Weekly Picks: Singapore (21 – 27 May 2018) Read More »
Seelan Palay, a local artist, has been charged by the Attorney-General’s Chambers for participating in a public procession from Hong Lim Park to the National Gallery, and to the Parliament House on 1 October 2017. It is written in the charge sheet that the public procession is to publicise the cause of “the illegal detention
Spoiler Alert: If you’re planning to watch Underclass, please note that this review discusses certain plot points. By Corrie Tan (2,200 words, 11-minute read) You know that auntie. You’ve waved her off at the hawker centre, or maybe you’ve apologised, under your breath, because “I already have tissue”. You’ve plotted paths of avoidance around her
“Underclass” twists the knife in your middle-class guilt Read More »
“These are not the places we discussed, nor I wanted to go,” Singaporean photographer Billy Mork exclaimed in exasperation to his Bhutanese guide. Mork had just flown via the Royal Bhutan airline and landed at the taciturn kingdom’s Paro Airport. The guide picked him up and amiably brought him to take in some of the town’s famed tourist sites. Upon
By Nabilah Said (2,220 words, 11-minute read) Had Malaysian artist-poet Latiff Mohidin been French, he might perhaps strongly identify with the idea of the flâneur. Coined by French poet Charles Baudelaire, the French word for someone who strolls in the city found cachet as a description of the artist-poet who drew inspiration from the city
Making Our Own Centres (Of) Ourselves: Latiff Mohidin’s “Pago Pago (1960-1969)” Read More »
6am is a pretty unremarkable time. It’s the time Singaporean students are woken up by alarm clocks or family members, blearily rubbing the sleep from their eyes to prepare for another school day. It’s the time people start making breakfast or getting ready for work. It’s that quiet, dim hour before the sun rises over
Voices on Death Row: GroundZ-0’s “0600” at SIFA 2018 Read More »
Pissed Julie by Nine Years Theatre, KC Arts Centre – Home of SRT, 17 – 20 May Nine Years Theatre’s rendition of August Strindberg’s Mies Julie brings the 19th century European tale head to head with the concerns of 21st century post-colonial Asian cities. This production is born from a collaboration between the Singaporean theatre
Weekly Picks: Singapore (14 – 20 May 2018) Read More »
The Singapore Repertory Theatre (SRT) Shakespeare In The Park returns to Fort Canning Green, after a year’s hiatus, with Julius Caesar—a play that has recently seen a resurgence in performance, perhaps because of its poignant resonances with the current political zeitgeist. Sprawled out upon the cascading slope of the Green, audiences bear witness to power
Shakespeare In The Park’s “Julius Caesar”: I Am She Read More »
The artistic intention to merge histories and futures is almost always poised as a double-edged sword. One mounts the impossible task of adhering to an imaginary time that is not re-presentable; the other conjures the multitude of never-ending possibilities that are only constrained by the material world. The perfect marriage lies in how the creators
“Anticipation of One”: Futuristic Rituals of Sight and Sound Read More »
By Jocelyn Chng (813 words, 5-minute read) A Festival Commission for the Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA) 2018, Toy Factory’s A Dream Under the Southern Bough – The Beginning is, as the title suggests, the first part of a continuing work. The second and third parts of the complete trilogy are planned for subsequent
“A Dream Under the Southern Bough – The Beginning”: Kun Opera for the Millennial Stage Read More »
By Chan Sze-Wei (849 words, 5 minute read) L-E-V Dance company’s OCD Love is tightly choreographed and intense in its physicality, as might be expected from a choreographer issuing from years dancing, choreographing and directing for the iconic Batsheva Company whose Gaga style of dancing and theatrical physicality has become iconic of Israeli contemporary dance.
“OCD Love” by L-E-V Dance Company: Mental Illness Plus Dance Equals Ballet and Horror Read More »
Visual Arts Angkor: Exploring Cambodia’s Sacred City by Asian Civilization Museum (ACM), 8 April – 22 July 2018 The ancient civilisation of Angkor left an artistic legacy that lives on most spectacularly in its architecture and sculpture. A UNESCO World Heritage site, the archaeological complexes are today acknowledged as great masterpieces. But until the late
Weekly Picks: Singapore (7 – 13 May 2018) Read More »
By Dan Koh (1,715 words, 15-minute read) At this year’s Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA), the two films from Southeast Asia are documentaries, or hybrid-documentaries—just like last year’s three, curiously. Despite the glaring gaps that remain in the funding, distribution, marketing, and audience reception of our internationally overlooked non-fiction, plus their increased local censorship
Mayfly Docus: “Die Tomorrow” and “14 Apples” at SIFA’s “Singular Screens” Read More »
By Akanksha Raja & Corrie Tan (2,300 words, 12-minute read) Corrie Tan: When Edith Podesta first told us during our Studios podcast interview that Leda and the Rage would feature the life and paintings of Artemisia Gentileschi, I felt a jolt of excitement – I’d seen her work at an exhibition at the National Gallery
The Glorious Anger of “Leda and the Rage” Read More »
The woman in the cheongsam and upswept hairdo walks into the audience’s line of sight from behind a pillar, carrying a tiffin carrier. She poses, every gesture and expression countenanced to project drama and artifice, and many of her poses are notably contorted, emphasising an arched foot, her thrust out hip. The man enters, dressed in
Shakespeare in the Park – Julius Caesar, by Singapore Repertory Theatre, Fort Canning Park, 2 – 27 May Opening this Thursday is the return of SRT’s Shakespeare in the Park with Julius Caesar. Shakespeare’s histories from over five centuries ago have never been more relevant. This renowned classic is turned contemporary in the light of
Weekly Picks: Singapore (30 April – 6 May 2018) Read More »
An enchanting French evening of aerial circus performed to live music. …Sodade… is a nostalgic ode to life, a fable of love and loss in the air as told by two musicians playing and singing on a unique circus structure of huge twin wheels, each over two metres in width, between which a 21-metre long
…Sodade… at SIFA 2018 Read More »
By Akanksha Raja (950 words, five minute read) Even before watching Michelle Tan’s monologue, I am trying to say something true, the title struck me: the sentence-case format portends a quiet sense of conversational intimacy, compared to the conventional, title-case naming of theatre productions. The proclamation folds the struggle of confession with emotional vulnerability while
“I am trying to say something true”: A Distant Intimacy Read More »
