SINGAPORE – Singapore International Festival of Arts (Sifa) 2025 is director Natalie Hennedige’s final year at the helm. She has commissioned a record-breaking number of home-grown works – 15 – for her last hurrah.
With the theme of More Than Ever, the tentpole performing arts festival organised by Arts House Limited will kick off in classic Hennedige multidisciplinary style at Bedok Town Square on May 16. For the first time in Sifa’s history, the opening act is a free event at a neighbourhood site compared with the usual glitzy affair at an indoor arts venue.
Over three weekends till June 1, there will be varied shows on offer, from crowd-pleasing comedy headlined by ever-popular actor Hossan Leong and family-friendly fare at Little Sifa to Drama Box’s participatory theatre piece Hello Is This Working? and the more intimate Japanese Occupation-era tale A Thousand Stitches.
The Straits Times takes a closer look at some of the must-see shows.
Ramesh Meyyappan reimagines King Lear as war veteran and without Shakespeare’s language
Glasgow-based theatremaker Ramesh Meyyappan returns to Singapore with an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Lear. PHOTO: DAHLIA KATZ
At the end of a lively interview with Ramesh Meyyappan, the local theatremaker makes a request.
Signing via an interpreter over the Zoom call, he says to refer to him as a deaf man rather than hearing impaired, a term not widely used in the deaf community as impaired suggests there is something wrong with the person.
“I’ve never considered myself hearing. I was born deaf. I don’t consider that there is anything wrong with me,” he says.
The 51-year-old has turned what some consider a disability into a strength, having built a thriving career as a physical theatre performer, writer and director. Nominated for five Straits Times Life Theatre Awards for Best Actor, he has won twice, for Gin & Tonic (2008) and Snails & Ketchup (2012).
Musician weish conjures ‘ancient Hakka-Greek’ world in live concept album
Performers in Stray Gods include (from left) Ian Lee, weish, Hee Suhui (Anise), Rosemainy Buang, Joanna Dong and Sushma Soma. PHOTO: MARC GABRIEL LOH
Forgotten Hakka mountain songs and an ancient Greek tragedy about mania are the two unlikely ingredients Singaporean indie musician weish will blend to create her live concept album concert, Stray Gods, at the Singapore International Festival of Arts (Sifa).
It all started when she was invited by a Melbourne-based artist to record a song in her mother tongue for an exhibition, which collected songs from across the world. “I realised quite embarrassingly that I had no connection to my Hakka heritage – and it felt wrong to look for a Mandarin song.”
Then, she struck melodic gold and unearthed over 50 fragments of Hakka ditties and melodies in a university archive in Hong Kong.
One song, Bright Moon – about a nomadic girl asking her mother where home is – stayed with her so deeply that she began singing the melody in her sleep.
The Sea And The Neighbourhood transforms Bedok Town Square with music, dance and art
Christina Chan is the choreographer for Pact Of Water. The performance will be part of The Sea And The Neighbourhood, the opening show for Singapore International Festival of Arts.ST PHOTO: LIM YAOHUI
A bustling neighbourhood square surrounded by a train station, a bus interchange and a busy food centre is not the first venue one associates with the Singapore International Festival of Arts (Sifa).
But come May 16, Bedok Town Square will host Sifa 2025’s opening performance, The Sea And The Neighbourhood, an ambitious festival commission which brings together kinetic sculpture, dance and music.
The bustle of everyday life will be the dynamic backdrop, even a part of, the work. As choreographer Christina Chan, 37, observes: “It’s a visually chaotic space.”
After her first site visit, she recalls saying to composer Philip Tan, 52: “But this is already a show.”
The Finger Players’ gruesome Animal Farm features 13 life-size puppet beasts
Animal Farm’s set designer and puppet-maker Loo An Ni (left) and director-playwright Oliver Chong. ST PHOTO: GIN TAY
“All animals are equal” – so goes one of the famed seven commandments in English novelist George Orwell’s classic Animal Farm, after a group of animals rebel against their human farmer to create a free and equal society.
But speak to puppet designer and lead puppet-maker Loo An Ni and she will tell you that is not true. While making the 13 puppets – from pigs to hens to donkeys – one puppet made her job especially difficult.
She is creating the creatures for The Finger Players’ (TFP) production of Animal Farm, which opens at the Singapore International Festival of Arts (Sifa) on May 16.
Loo and her team of six had already been given a challenging brief by director Oliver Chong – to have one puppeteer steer one life-size puppet.
Book it/Singapore International Festival of Arts 2025
Where: Various venues
When: May 16 to June 1, various timings
Admission: Free and ticketed
Info: sifa.sg
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