Musicity Singapore 2014: Music + spoken word + place at Tiong Bahru
PUBLISHED April 30th, 2014 01:42 am | UPDATED January 20th, 2016 02:44 pm
Musicity gives you even more reasons to visit the already popular and very much hyped about Tiong Bahru Estate. So what’s the big deal? Just another event right?
Having attended the opening night on 25 April, we have no doubt that Musicity will leave even the most cynical and non-artistic of you pleasantly surprised. At its very essence, Musicity Singapore 2014 is as sincere as it is soulful. Sincere because it aims to inspire discussions on the cultural elements of spaces and architecture and how culture and art forms such as music and poetry can play a part in helping us reconnect with our cities. It’s soulful because it aims to do so via original music and poetry created especially by local artists for this event.
And so now let us give you a little flavour of what we sampled at the opening night, and what you can expect from Musicity Singapore 2014:
Music & spoken word performances
Marc Nair, one of the spoken word artists whose lyrical genius will be showcased at Musicity, is a magician with spoken word poetry. He was absolutely captivating on stage, and every syllable, every punctuation, every pause of his demands your wide-eye awe and full attention – anything less is unacceptable. His rendition of a poem on beards left us in stitches while his creation for Musicity, titled ‘All The Songbirds’, rendered us an immense bittersweet aftertaste.
Jennifer Champion, on the other hand, was a unicorn of the poetry world. A delight to watch onstage, she sprinkles her words with magical dust, wielding a hypnotic spell over you like that of the Pied Piper. Her poem, Let It Shine, incorporates her family history and events that occurred at the Tiong Bahru Air Raid Shelter, resulting in a hopeful and inspiring work.
Lastly, local band Seyra whose songs will colour the estate gave an upbeat performance with tracks full of dreamy indie vibes. Their numbers speak of the ‘Singaporean experience’, and express their yearning for simplicity and romantic escapism by an urban generation.
Other than Marc, Jennifer, and Seyra, eight local musicians and spoken word poets including MONSTER CAT, The Sam Willows, and Gideon + Allee, have also composed tracks specially for the event. We strongly urge you to head down to different locations in the Tiong Bahru Estate and experience these performances for yourself.
Mobile Application
If you can’t make it for the ‘live’ performances, try out the Musicity Singapore 2014 location-based mobile application, designed for both iOS and Android devices, it acts as a streaming channel for the 12 original tracks created by local musicians and poets, each tagged to a specific location in Tiong Bahru Estate.
So if you download the app and open it up on your device when you’re at a particular spot in Tiong Bahru, it automatically streams the music and poetry specially crafted for that space, linking your visual senses to your audio ones, giving you an all-rounded experience that is very much larger than life.
Well doesn’t all this sound incredibly exciting? We assure you it’s not a regular hipster event, but a very real and inclusive one that all of us can experience and relate to. Give Musicity a try!
Musicity Singapore 2014 runs from now until 10 May 2014. Tickets and the full programme of performances are available here.
