Reconstructing the Virtual in “Frogman”
By Shawn Chua (1,088 words, 6-minute read) Having securely fastened the headgear, I am submerged into the virtual world of Frogman. The instructional voice of the Queensland Jury service informs me through an earpiece that I have been selected at…
Go Big or Go Home: “Displaced Persons’ Welcome Dinner” Takes Flight
By Helmi Yusof (1,387 words, six-minute read) Why do people choose to go into poor, dangerous, war-torn countries to work as humanitarian workers? Do they have boundless courage, hope and kindness? Do they have a death wish? Do they believe…
“A Dream Under the Southern Bough: Reverie”: Down the Ant Hole
By Jocelyn Chng (1,138 words, five-minute read) My strongest memory from the first instalment of this three-year series by Toy Factory, A Dream Under the Southern Bough: The Beginning, was its dramatic cliffhanger of an ending. There, the protagonist, disgraced…
Mad women, divine punishment, and “Dionysus”
By Corrie Tan (1,700 words, eight-minute read) This review contains spoilers and/or plot points for The Bacchae, a 2,500-year-old ancient Greek tragedy; Beware of Pity, a 1939 German novel adapted for the stage by the Schaubühne Berlin and Complicité; as…
Confronting Truths in Ho Tzu Nyen’s “The Mysterious Lai Teck”
By Patricia Tobin (736 words, 3-minute read) Spoiler Alert: This review contains spoilers for The Mysterious Lai Teck, which will run from 17 to 19 May at the Singapore International Festival of Arts. “I am the shadow of Ho Chi Minh,”…
What If Your Body Turns into a Sculpture?: Interview with Sasha Waltz on “Körper” at SIFA 2019
By Winnie Chen Dixon (600 words, four-minute read) Have you ever imagined dancers’ bodies turning into sculptures, as if time stood still? This is the impression of Körper (Body), the signature dance performance of this year’s edition of the Singapore…
The Beauty of Time and Image: “ST/LL” at SIFA 2019
Seamlessly blending the digital image, live dance and a richly evocative music score, ST/LL is startlingly beautiful treat for the eyes and the ears. This production celebrates the performance collaboration of composer Ryuichi Sakamoto and visual and multimedia artist Shiro Takatani. (Sakamoto’s concert Fragments, with visuals…
SIFA 2019: Top Ten Picks
By Akanksha Raja The 42nd Singapore International Festival of Arts returns this year from 16 May to 2 June 2019. In its second year under Festival Director Gaurav Kripalani, it promises a larger smorgasbord of critically acclaimed international performances as…
Was a Skeptic, Still a Skeptic: A Festival-Goer’s Impressions of SIFA 2018
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…
Voices on Death Row: GroundZ-0’s “0600” at SIFA 2018
By Kirsten Han (1,080 words, six-minute read) 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….
“A Dream Under the Southern Bough – The Beginning”: Kun Opera for the Millennial Stage
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…
“OCD Love” by L-E-V Dance Company: Mental Illness Plus Dance Equals Ballet and Horror
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…
…Sodade… at SIFA 2018
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…
Podcast 39: Toy Factory’s “A Dream Under the Southern Bough” at SIFA 2018
Duration: 19 mins A Dream Under The Southern Bough by Toy Factory is a series of three plays commissioned by the Singapore International Festival of Arts, to be staged over three editions of the festival. The first instalment, titled The Beginning,…
SIFA 2018: Walking death’s footsteps in Zelda Tatiana Ng’s “0600”
0600 is named for the time that executions are carried out. What makes an artist take on the polarising topic of the death penalty in Singapore? Zelda Tatiana Ng has been a fixture in the Singapore performing arts scene for…
SIFA 2018: The Festival House and The Outdoors
By Akanksha Raja The Singapore International Festival of Arts 2018 takes place at different venues across the Civic District, including Victoria Theatre, its sprawling Empress Lawn, and the Esplanade Theatre. Nestled comfortably between these locations is The Arts House, dubbed…
SIFA 2018: Top Ten Picks for the Art Lover
By Akanksha Raja The Singapore International Festival of Arts 2018 is just over a month away, and the programme offers an extensive palette of art and performance not only from Singapore but also as farther afield as Germany, Palestine, India,…
Gaurav Kripalani: a new festival director plots a different path
By Corrie Tan (3,890 words, 20-minute read) A few days after the launch of the 2018 edition of the Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA), I had coffee with newly minted festival director Gaurav Kripalani to discuss the programme he’s…
Ong Keng Sen: educating the curator; curating the everyday
By Corrie Tan (4,360 words, 25-minute read) I sat down with Ong Keng Sen after the conclusion of the first edition of the Curators Academy, which ran from 24 to 28 January. Organised by TheatreWorks, the academy sought to establish…
“Germinal”: Does consciousness go ‘Poc poc’?
By Isaac Lim (496 words, 4 minute read) In the beginning, there was light. Four characters are glimpsed on a bare stage as it gradually and sporadically lights up. They each hold a portable control board that operates the venue’s…
“Germinal”: Mystery, Science, Theatre
By Patricia Tobin (500 words, 5-minute read) “Are you interested in the first series of major discoveries, such as the law of elementary mechanics?” a friendly voice asks over an intercom. “The wheel, perhaps?” Halory’s three companions shake their heads…
The Easy Trigger of “Guilty Landscapes III”
By Chan Sze-Wei (920 words, 8-minute read) Given that the publicity synopsis to Dries Verhoeven’s video installation pretty much tells all, I’m surprised by how excited I am by the time I’m finally summoned to enter the heavy white door. A…
“And So You See…”: The Irrational is in the Eye of the Beholder
By Felipe Cervera (1400 words, 10-minute read) It is as if Mozart were able to capture what death sounds like, in those moments when people run around trying to assert themselves in the face of a body that has just…
SIFA’s “Trojan Women”: An Allegory for Modern Times
By Elaine Chiew (1116 words, 10-minute read) Euripides’ play Trojan Women has been adapted and performed numerous times around the world, from a version written by Jean Paul Sartre to American playwright Charles Mee’s 2003 adaptation that included Holocaust and…
“Germinal”: Metaphysical Magnificence
By Naeem Kapadia (738 words, 7-minute read) What are human beings without language, possessions and a sense of time and place? How do we make sense of our surroundings? Stripped of all trappings of civilisation, can one start from scratch…
“Dragonflies”: The Foreseeable Truth Hurts
By Isaac Lim (514 words, 5-minute read) A large red-orange hued, tile-patterned cloth dramatically falls in a Kabuki drop, then rain falls on stage. The year is 2022, Brexit is complete and Trump has won a second term. The stage…
“Dragonflies”: A Migrant Dreams For Home
By: Patricia Tobin (500 words, 5-minute read) We are no different from dragonflies. With their tiny transparent wings flapping at 30 beats per second, these creatures travel thousands of kilometers to reproduce, to find a new home, to fight for…
“Becoming Graphic”: Life in Graphic Form
By Alvin Lim (1235 words, 10-minute read) Becoming Graphic is both a meditative and mediated performance about living and dying. Commissioned by Singapore International Festival of Arts, graphic novelist Sonny Liew and theatre practitioner Edith Podesta come together to create…
“Art Studio” by Nine Years Theatre: Back to the Page
By Dan Koh (1,263 words, 12-minute read) “I finally felt that being an artist was a meaningful vocation,” Chua Mia Tee says towards the end of a career-spanning interview.[1] Best known for his 1950s oil paintings Epic Poem of Malaya,…
Podcast 22: Open Homes at SIFA 2017
Duration: 31 min Akanksha Raja speaks with Jeffrey Tan, producer of Open Homes, a theatre-in-the-home experience presented as part of the Singapore International Festival of Arts 2017. Audiences are welcomed into the homes of residents where they enter not only…