PUBLISHED April 14th, 2021 06:00 am | UPDATED July 25th, 2024 12:35 pm
Great art crosses borders, as this year’s Singapore International Festival of Arts continues to prove. Travel restrictions notwithstanding, SIFA 2021 will stage a vibrant medley of performances both local and global, live and virtual. Running from 14 to 30 May 2021, the lineup sees a slew of works revolving around connection, community, and climate change – themes that hold up a mirror to our post-pandemic times. From mind-reading tricks through your screen to immersive adventures through Singapore’s streets, here’re our top picks you shouldn’t miss.
The Journey
Let travel restrictions fall away as you journey with mentalist Scott Silven into the seaside home of his childhood… while he journeys into your mind. This world-renowned illusionist is known for his slick mind-reading tricks, and The Journey brings his telepathy online in an hourlong voyage through space and time. Staged in Silven’s native village in Scotland’s Glasgow – a place of crashing waves, mysterious cairns, and misty skies – the real-time show weaves connections between an intimate audience of 30, as well as larger questions of memory and self.
The Journey by Scott Silven runs online from 21 to 30 May 2021. Tickets are priced at S$40 via SISTIC.
A Dream Under The Southern Bough: Existence
Have you ever had a dream in which you lived a whole different lifetime – a dream in which all your dreams came true? Staged by local theatre company Toy Factory Productions, A Dream Under The Southern Bough: Existence is a modern adaptation of Tang Xianzu’s haunting 16th-century epic. Falling into slumber, a disgraced naval officer dreams of an ‘ant kingdom’ where he lives out the perfect life he cannot quite achieve. He marries the kingdom’s princess and happily rules his realm for 20 years – until a series of unfortunate events unravel his dream into the waking world once more.
A Dream Under The Southern Bough: Existence by Toy Factory Productions runs from 29 to 30 May 2021 at Drama Centre Theatre, National Library Building, Level 3, 100 Victoria Street, Singapore 188064. Tickets are priced from S$48 via SISTIC.
As Far As Isolation Goes
We may not be able to walk a mile in the shoes of the world’s refugees, but in As Far As Isolation Goes, we can inscribe their experiences in our skin and minds. A sensory performance by Lebanese-British artist Tania El Khoury and musician Basel Zaraa, this one-on-one encounter brings you into contact with refugees who have endured inhumane detention centres and inadequate mental health systems. Through song, stories, and even a segment involving drawing on your own skin, be drawn into a life-changing brush with those facing unfathomable loss and isolation.
As Far As Isolation Goes runs online from 21 to 30 May 2021. Tickets are priced at S$20 via SISTIC.
Singular Screens 2021
Singular Screens is back with its annual slew of experimental films that shine a different lens on the world, curated by the Asian Film Archive from visionaries local and global. Highlights include The Human Voice, a haunting arthouse film revolving around two abandoned beings on the abyss of despair – a woman whose ex-lover never arrives and a dog in endless waiting for his master. Another meditation on expression and silence, Singapore director Liao Jiekai’s Light of A Burning Moth centres around a dancer who loses her power of speech and becomes a ‘voice’ for silent people.
If documentaries are more your jam, Oscar-shortlisted documentary The Mole Agent will get both your laughs and waterworks going. An 83-year-old spy is tasked to infiltrate a Chilean retirement home and report on how its residents are treated, becoming drawn into their loneliness and life stories in the process. Or get an intimate pig’s-eye view of the world with GUNDA – a soul-stirring documentary which follows the lives of a pig caring for her brood, a herd of cattle, and a one-legged chicken.
Singular Screens 2021 runs from 14 to 30 May 2021 at Oldham Theatre, National Archives of Singapore, 1 Canning Rise, Singapore 179868. Tickets are priced at S$15 each, with bundles of four priced at S$50 via SISTIC.
en route
It’s all about rediscovering Singapore these days, and what better way than falling in love with its lively streets all over again? Immersive performance en route draws you on a live adventure through Singapore’s boulevards and back alleys, accompanied by an audio medley of music, musings, and found experiences. However familiar you are with our cityscape, you’re sure to find fresh magic in these mundane streets, and perhaps even unearth new nooks and crannies.
en route by one step at a time like this runs from 14 to 30 May 2021 around central Singapore. Tickets are priced at S$35 via SISTIC.
Echoes of Fire and Water
Climate change is a wake-up call to which we can’t afford to close our ears, and Echoes of Fire and Water is a powerful expression of our planet’s lament. Performed by Ensemble Æquilibrium, a local music ensemble dedicated to contemporary works, this concert explores our fraught relationship with nature and the earth’s endless cycle of destruction and regeneration. Compelling meditations on nature and our future is George Crumb’s spellbinding Eleven Echoes of Autumn, alongside works by Kaija Saariaho, Toru Takemitsu, and Chen Zhangyi.
Echoes of Fire and Water by Ensemble Æquilibrium happens on 23 May 2021 at The Arts House, 1 Old Parliament Lane, Singapore 179429. Tickets are priced at S$15 via SISTIC.
The Singapore International Festival of Arts 2021 runs from 14 to 30 May 2021. Tickets can be purchased online or via p. +65 6348 5555.
Top Image: David Wilkinson, Empirical Photography