By Akanksha Raja (890 words, 5 minute read) Along the bustling roads of Chinatown and the throngs of long-time residents, local visitors and tourists, there’s an invisible, theatrical time machine that comes to life a few evenings a week, running until mid-August. Chinatown Crossings, Drama Box’s latest promenade theatrical performance, pays tribute to the neighbourhood […]
“Chinatown Crossings”: A Trail of Echoes Read More »
By Akanksha Raja (850 words, six-minute read) In Framed, by Adolf, playwright-director Chong Tze Chien’s fascination with Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust continues from 2016’s Starring Hitler as Jekyll and Hyde, which explored the idea of the dictator as a failed artist. Framed revolves not so much around Hitler, but the journey of one of
“Framed, by Adolf”: Truth as Shadow-Play Read More »
By Jocelyn Chng (960 words, 6-minute read) EARTH opens the 2018 edition of the M1 CONTACT Contemporary Dance Festival, the annual festival organised by T.H.E Dance Company. Now in its ninth year, the festival is a relatively small feature of the performing arts landscape in Singapore, but nevertheless a crucial one. Amidst the generally higher
Flowing Reflections: “EARTH” at the M1 CONTACT Contemporary Dance Festival 2018 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
The Pontianak Talks Back: Two Women Discuss Monstrous Femininity in Their Art Read More »
By Isaac Lim (810 words, five-minute read) At front-of-house before the doors open, a crew member encourages the audience to walk around the theatre space upon entering, and warns sternly against moving the seats. Neat rows of seats welcome the audience in the black box space at Centre 42. Random quotes relating to the number
“Fourteen” by Split Theatre: Getting Schooled Read More »
By Soultari Amin Farid (800 words, six-minute read) “This body… This body is dangerous. It desires, it delights, it delivers, it dances.” On 25 May, I had the pleasure of experiencing a performance of great chemistry between Deaf and disabled artists at the National Museum of Singapore’s Gallery Theatre. And Suddenly I Disappear: The Singapore
“The Singapore ‘d’ Monologues”: And Suddenly I Reflect Upon My Privilege Read More »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
By Elaine Chiew (1,600 words, eight-minute read) Art historian Patrick Flores first addressed the phenomenon of the artist-curator in his seminal essay Turns in Tropics [1] as someone who holds a certain power and who has become a key figure in shaping the art history of contemporary Southeast Asian art. Manit Sriwanichpoom’s exhibition Rediscovering Forgotten
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
Oleh Fasyali Fadzly (1075 patah kata, 9-minit bacaan) Saya mengambil masa yang lama untuk menyiapkan tulisan mengenai teater Version 2020 yang diarahkan oleh Mark Teh. Ia sebuah teater yang memerlukan pengamatan yang tajam, pengetahuan yang luas dan pemahaman terhadap konteks keseluruhan pementasan ini. Kajian teater ini turut mengambil masa yang lama dan penuh kritikal –
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
By Marcus Yee (970 words, 7-minute read) Tucked in Queenstown Residence Committee Centre is a heartfelt homage to Tanglin Halt and the nearby Rail Corridor, nexus of human and bird relationals, collected by Railtrack Songmaps Roosting Post 1. Conceived out of a collaboration, or chorus between artist Lucy Davis, designer Zachary Chan, photographer Kee Ya
“Railtrack Songmaps Roosting Post 1”: The Featherlight of Complexity Read More »
By Patricia Tobin (780 words, five-minute read) It is 2007 on a Thursday night, and I am at the old Phuture on Zion Road. “Smack that, all on the floor,” Akon’s hit single Smack That is booming from the club speakers. “Smack that, give me some more,” the song continues. The club is brimming with
“Thick Beats for Good Girls” Keeps It 100 Read More »
By Akanksha Raja (1,000 words, six-minute read) Four of the five productions from this year’s season of The Studios are commissioned works revolving around the theme of “Between Living and Dying”. Most of these are new, original monologues recounting deeply introspective journeys that navigate the melancholy of loss and seek hope and meaning within grief.
Many Lives in “A Good Death” Read More »
By Corrie Tan (2,400 words, 13-minute read) Four Horse Road is The Theatre Practice’s show pony of the year. It’s got a lot of performance buzzwords going for it – site-specific, interactive, multi-generational, multilingual – and promises an epic odyssey into both the history of the company and of the country it shares a birth
“Four Horse Road”: buried histories and blind spots Read More »
By Corrie Tan (1,160 words, six-minute read) The audio tours of spell#7 – the husband-wife duo of Kaylene Tan and Paul Rae – promise a variety of small adventures. In their previous work, they’ve invited us to move through several spaces in Singapore, peeling back layers of stories and eavesdropping on conversations as the tours
The Loud Echo of “In the Silence of Your Heart” Read More »
By Elaine Chiew (1,135 words, six-minute read) Spectral and iconic, Dinh Q. Lê’s first major solo exhibition in Singapore premieres his Monuments and Memorials series of works, created as artist-in-residence at STPI – Creative Workshop and Gallery. Born in 1968 in Ha Tien, on the border of Cambodia and Vietnam, Lê fled the Khmer Rouge
Dinh Q. Lê’s “Monuments and Memorials”: A Double Haunting Read More »
By Akanksha Raja (825 words, four-minute read) We’ve been seeing a variety of theatre revolving around dementia and its effects on families in Singapore over the past few years, such as Pangdemonium’s The Father, The Necessary Stage’s Don’t Forget to Remember Me, and Drama Box’s forum theatre shows The Wind Came Home and Exit. The
“Potong” by Teater Ekamatra: Of Kin and Skin Read More »
