Ong Keng Sen returns to Sifa to challenge Salome myth

FIVE years since stepping down as festival director of Singapore International Festival of Arts (Sifa), Ong Keng Sen is returning as an artist with a new work titled project SALOME. 

It is based on the scandalous 1st-century story of Salome, a young woman who spurns the incestuous advances of her powerful stepfather Herod Antipas, the Tetrarch of Judea – only to use her beauty and charm later to persuade him to behead the holy man she loves but cannot have. 

Herod carries out Salome’s request because he is smitten with her. He orders his executioner to decapitate the man, Jokanaan, and serve his head to her on a platter – a grotesque image that’s inspired thousands of artworks over the centuries. In some versions of the story, Salome even plants a necrophilic kiss on the severed head, making her doubly monstrous.