10 must-sees at the Singapore Arts Festival

Date: 1 & 2 Jun

Time: Fri & Sat 8pm

Venue: Esplanade Theatre

Cost: $20-$100

 

Having assembled an eclectic cast from Asia, Europe and the Middle East, multiple award-winning dancer/choreographer Akram Khan serves up a performance spotlighting marvelous movement to depict how humans use rituals and actions to transcend their limitations. Inspired by Sufi tradition and the works of Persian poet and philosopher Rumi, and scored by composer Nitin Sawhney, Vertical Road delivers an evening of enchantment and energy.

Time: 8pm

 

Conceptualised by six of Singapore's leading female theatre practitioners, this dreamlike piece featuring 41 women moving amid 35 sizeable urns offers more than simply large-scale spectacle. Ranging in age from 17 to 58, the performers aim to evoke rich, strangely familiar memories and images of birth, life and death. The performance is based on a monologue by Malaysian playwright Leow Puay Tin, which has been lost but lives on in dance form. Dream Country – A Lost Monologue is performed at Esplanade Park against the stunning backdrop of the Singapore skyline.

Date: 18 May-2 Jun
Time: Multiple slots, 5-9pm
Venue: Singapore Arts Festival Village

Cost: Free, pre-register at singaporeartsfest.com/event/an-umbrella-for-2 .

 

Date: 18 May-2 Jun

Time: Various timings

Venue: Various venues

Cost: $36

 

This project from a trio of artists from different countries, set in three different locations, allows audiences to take a walk in the shoes of strangers. Take a break from following the Twitter feeds of celebrities and enter the seldom chronicled lives of some of the ordinary people all around us. Step into a hotel room where immigrant cleaners pick up after well-heeled fellow foreigners. Enter a factory and listen in as workers on a production line share startlingly personal feelings. And join a blind man on a rooftop and find out how people can experience the same day in utterly different ways.

Date: 18 May-2 Jun

Time: Thu & Fri 7pm, Sat 3.30pm & 7pm

Venue: Ying Foh Kuan (Shuang Long Shan), 9 ­­Commonwealth Lane

Cost: $25

 

Artist Choy Ka Fai resurrects an entire nation. In 1777, Hakka Chinese goldminer Luo Fang Bao and his fellow labourers in West Borneo formed the small but self-sufficient and democratic Lan Fang Republic, which thrived for 107 years under 10 presidents until the Dutch conquered and dissolved it. These days, the republic is little more than a memory, though Choy is working to change that. In a sprawling Hakka ancestral hall, this young artist creates a living museum where fact mixes with fiction, and explores not just what the republic was but what it could have been. Prepare to be surprised: the republic bears a striking resemblance to a city we know quite well.

 

Date: 25-27 May

Time: Fri 8pm, Sat & Sun 2.30pm & 8pm

Venue: Esplanade Theatre Studio

Cost: $36

 

Sorry chaps, this party-cum-performance is a ladies-only event. Here's what the men will be missing: women aged 65 and above share candid conversations about sex, complete with dancing and videos, presumably not of the act itself. The point of this fabulously honest, hilarious and heartwarming theatrical piece is to just come out and say that sex is all around us, enjoyed by both taut-bodied young things and those with quite a few more kilometres on the old odometer. So come have fun with Singapore's coolest golden girls. As for the guys: take solace in the fact that women are celebrating the joy of sex. What’s not to like about that?

 

 

Songbird
Date: 24-27 May

Time: Various timings

Venue: Esplanade Park

Cost: Free, pre-register at hellosongbird.com

 

Think theatre is out of touch? Come connect with Singapore's first iPhone-based theatre experience. Audiences on foot use their smart devices to access site-embedded videos and recordings in a bid to trace the whereabouts of a sweet young singer who goes missing just before her big debut. Before beginning your smartphone snooping, swot up on the songbird you'll be hunting. She has a full online personality at www.hellosongbird.com complete with revealing blog, Twitter feed, Facebook profile and accompanying photos and videos. Wear comfortable shoes and bring your iPhone to access films and a soundtrack with which to track her down.

Also: Read our feature story

 

Date: 22-27 May

Time: Tue, Wed & Sun 7.30 & 10pm; Thu, Fri & Sat 8pm & 10.30pm

Venue: Old School @Mt Sophia

Cost: $36

Forget Diablo 3. For something truly big on bite, get out of your seat, onto your feet and wander through an abandoned Singaporean school: one of the world's longest-lasting bastions against the horrifying vampire virus that has grown in sophistication thanks to human technology. As an audience member, you are among the few survivors who must investigate why this fortress manned by a quasi-religious group lasted so long and yet ultimately fell. But beware, the vampires come at night. Created by award-winning British company Slung Low, specialists in site-specific theatrical projects.

 

Date: 25 & 26 May

Time: Fri 8pm, Sat 3pm & 8pm

Venue: Esplanade Theatre

Cost: $20-$110, Sistic link

 

A man loses his cat and then his wife. No, this isn’t the set-up for a joke. However, this critically acclaimed production, an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Haruki Murakami, is both warped and whimsical. What’s more, getting it to the stage took over seven years of experimentation by lauded film director Stephen Earnhart. Expect the unexpected as you follow the hero's bizarre quest to locate his lost loves: think surreal characters such as a bossy prostitute and a sadistic politician, and spectacular multimedia flourishes like Japanese bunraku (shadow puppetry).

 

 

Date: 18-23 May

Time: 8pm

Venue: Singapore Arts Festival Village

Cost: Free

 

Are we surrounded by creatures of myth? Such as in Orchard Road boutiques, in offices in the financial district and at Chinese New Year celebrations? With this playful and fantastical physical performance that touches on the theme of international relations, French troupe Le Théâtre du Centaure offers persuasive evidence that centaurs and the like may indeed have be hiding in plain sight. One fun scene to look out for: what happens when a centaur meets a Chinese dragon over the Lunar New Year? Best of all: the performance is free. Now that's a fantasy come true.