Singapore International Festival of Arts shape-shifts again

YOU never can tell what the Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA) will look like, with Natalie Hennedige as its festival director. Now on the second of her three-year term, she’s taken the festival in another direction, with its eschewing of the grand for the intimate, a deployment of 14 words – 14! – as sub-themes, and an unexpected focus on mid-career artists instead of marquee names.

Long before she founded her own company Cake Theatrical Productions in 2005, she was already marching to the beat of her own drum. And now as festival director of the country’s biggest performing arts platform, she’s suffused the entire festival with a sense of transiency and unpredictability, unravelling and rebirthing.  

If her previous festival was grandly themed around “Ritual”, this year’s edition is themed more intimately around “Some People”, with 14 verbs acting as sub-themes linking each of the 15 main productions to each other. These verbs include “remember”, “grieve”, “linger”, “prevail”, “observe”, “endure”, “reclaim”, “dare” and “shimmer” – which, taken together, feel like a road map for personal transformation. 

“Human experience exists on a spectrum. We are the sum of all the narratives that chapter our lives,” says Hennedige. “Each of these words could be linked directly to one production, but each one could also refer to other productions. One production may deal specifically with people grieving, another production may look at people who are daring to defy (the status quo)... But the words ultimately help us to focus (on a specific production) and also reflect on the festival as a whole.”

Ever the iconoclast, Hennedige has chosen to commission new productions by certain mid-career artists – such as multimedia artist Brian Gothong Tan, theatre practitioner Edith Podesta and filmmaker K Rajagopal – instead of established arts companies, as previous festival directors tended to do. Such a move allows the artist to create more freely without the aesthetic values and traditions of the companies they might be associated with.

Like in the previous edition curated by Hennedige, many of the productions in SIFA 2023 are trippy, genre-defying works that demand your undivided attention. The festival runs from May 19 to Jun 4. Here are our picks of the best: 

1) £¥€$ (Lies)

Belgian theatre troupe Ontroerend Goed explores the intricacies of the global financial markets in this immersive and participatory production where the audience becomes the moneyed elite frantically buying, selling and shorting stocks and bonds. What you decide to do may have repercussions on large groups of people – countries even – as the high-stakes game-like environment puts you in the mindset of the men and women who instigated the global financial crisis.

2) The school

Relive your school days in this newly commissioned participatory work that takes place across multiple classrooms and communal spaces at Stamford Arts Centre. You’ll be putting on a uniform and taking part in school assemblies, group classes and solo assignments. These will occasionally throw up curveballs and surprises, compelling you to reassess how the regimens of school life impacted your individual development. The work is conceived by Singapore artists Jean Ng, Li Xie and Joavien Ng. 

3) Humans 2.0

The circus is in town, but not quite how you’d expect it to be. Cutting-edge Australia-based circus company Circa performs with only people – no animals – and creates fantastical shapes and imagery by having them toss and tumble through every possible human-made configuration their bodies can assume. With no colourful costumes or elaborate sets, it relies purely on the performers’ physical strength, timing and creativity to entertain you. 

SEE ALSO

Women filming women

Singapore art shows inspired by Covid-19 lockdowns

New book shines light on region’s vast art scene

4) Angel Island

In the early 1940s, many new Chinese immigrants to the US were held at a detention centre on Angel Island as a form of population control. Living under horrific conditions, some took to inscribing poetry on the walls to alleviate their pain. Asian-American composer Huang Ruo and Singapore artist Brian Gothong Tan have teamed up to create a beautiful operatic piece inspired by these poems. The performance will feature San Francisco-based Del Sol Quartet performing in collaboration with choral ensemble Taipei Chamber Singers.

5) We will slam you with our wings

Reclaiming power for women, Australian artist Joanna Dudley takes the famous portraits of powerful men and replaces them with young girls aged eight to 16, who express their individual sense of empowerment through their poses. Dudley also takes the speeches of male leaders and reshapes them as feminist diatribes against sexism and brutality. The work brims with hope for a different and better world led by women.

For more details on the shows, visit sifa.sg