Singapore sets the stage

THE CHEQUERED FLAG was waved last night in Singapore and another major cultural event, the Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA) 2014 also came to a close with the Wooster Group’s “Cry, Trojans!” 

While the performance programme lasted six weeks, getting underway on August 12, the discussion on its main theme of “Legacy and the Expanded Classics” began in late June, through talks, discussions, film screenings and performances as part of SIFA’s “OPEN”, short for open, participate, enrich and negotiate. 

Along with a new name and direction, the festival also has a new director and I’m betting my jaw wasn’t the only one to drop in amazement when his name was announced.

The most acclaimed theatre director in the region, Ong Keng Sen, like his many Southeast Asian colleagues, has been spending his time working and studying away from his home country for decades.

Ong tells me he took this job because “the festival has become independent and there’s a shift in paradigm.” In other words, instead of being organised and produced by National Arts Council (NAC), it is being commissioned by NAC. He cites the role of the UK’s Arts Council as an “enabler” as an example. 

Ong says one fun problem with the former name Singapore Arts Festival was that people referred to it as SAF, which is also Singapore Armed Forces. He notes that the new name highlights the fact that it’s both a Singapore festival and an international one. For me, it also puts the festival in the same league – which it deserves – as the prominent Edinburgh International Festival of Arts.

He wants the festival to be less about consumerism and serve more as a “pinnacle” of arts.

Ong reveals that SIFA has about the same budget as SAF, about S$5 million (Bt127 million) yet presents considerably fewer performances. 

“We want to focus on people who love arts and want specialised arts experiences. You may be talking about 300 audience members in the theatre, but these people are also important. It’s not just about masses and masses all the time. There are other organisations who are doing that job.”

To achieve what Ong refers to as “a more qualitative experience”, SIFA spreads its 12 productions over six weeks.

“It has become a diet for people during any given weekend, instead of having to cram many shows into two weeks like in the past. I feel that quality of life has made it into a pressure cooker for lovers of the arts to the extent that many of them have opted to drop arts.

“Southeast Asia is becoming more like a weekend travel destination. You fly in, watch a show, see friends and have enough time to relax. We also realise from our study that Singapore festival audiences don’t come from faraway countries – they’re mostly from the region.”

This year, about three quarters of the SIFA programme was international, with the remainder being Singaporean and international collaborations, like the festival opener Ong’s “Facing Goya”, whose music by Michael Nyman was performed by Singapore Symphony Orchestra. “Listen to the 20th Century” was a music exploration with different programmes over four evenings and saw the collaboration of London’s Southbank Centre, London Sinfonietta and Singapore’s Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Orchestra. 

For next year, Ong says the ratio will be reversed, with many more local works than international. SIFA has already commissioned new works by, among others, two Singapore dance doyens Goh Lay Kuan and Santha Bhaskar in their respective productions, Wild Rice Productions’ Ivan Heng, Drama Box’s Kok Heng “Luen”, Cake Theatricals’ Natalie Hennedige and the Tang Quartet. 

“We want to make it possible for them to work on projects that they can’t do in their normal season. It’s a straightforward commission and they don’t have to worry about box office the way they would year round.”

For 2016, Ong says the scope for commissioned works will be broader and that it will include Southeast Asia.

While Thai artists had no presence in SIFA this year, Ong and his team are planning to visit Thailand soon, probably during the Bangkok Theatre Festival, looking to commission a new work by Thai artists for SIFA 2016. He points out that as part of the OPEN, a Thai activist famous for, among other matters, his fight against the schoolchildren haircut restriction, was a panellist in “89 Plus”, which explored the views of those who were born on or after 1989, the digital age.

Veteran Thai actress and director Pattarasuda Anuman Rajadhon flew to Singapore to catch Robert Wilson’s production of “Peter Pan”, performed by the Berliner Ensemble. While she was not totally satisfied with it, after watching Wilson’s old tricks many times before, she also noted that the young audiences, or the audiences of the future, loved it. 

“They even sang along. I didn’t expect that but I’m glad he [Wilson] gets the next generation,” she notes.

She didn’t plan on watching another SIFA performance at first, but then – it looks here that SIFA’s marketing plan works – she booked her ticket for “Amid the Clouds” by Iranian playwright Amir Reza Koohestani and Mehr Theatre Group.

“It was beautiful, powerful, simple and very strong – with only two actors, and lots of water in a fish tank. The story was developed at [London’s] Royal Court Theatre in 2004,” she says.

It’s not only noteworthy but also worth our serious attention that Singapore is only 49 years old and their performing arts festival is 37. Meanwhile, Thailand is seven centuries older, and our performing arts festival has never existed. 

Pattarasuda is pessimistic about its future too. “We don’t have the facilities and the organisation to manage it, I think it’s almost impossible. It’s easier to fly and watch it elsewhere,” she says.

“Take Bangkok’s International Festival of Music and Dance, for example. They always bring the same type of ballet and opera. There’s nothing new. And there’s only Thailand Cultural Centre and super small-scale theatres. There’s no variety. And there are shows that wouldn’t work either at the cultural centre or any blackbox spaces.”

Perhaps the new culture minister might like to take this issue into consideration?

 

The writer wishes to thank Tay Tong for all assistance.

 

SEE YOU NEXT YEAR

The theme of SIFA 2015 is “Post-Empire”, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Singapore’s independence. It will run from August 13 to September 20, 2015. 

For more details, check www.SIFA.sg.