French flavours in Singapore

Earlier this month, three colourful tents, in red, orange and yellow suddenly made an appearance in an open field opposite Bugis Junction, a popular shopping area in Singapore. 

The people followed. On each of five consecutive evenings, a few hundred Singaporeans and foreign visitors poured into the area and entered one or more of the tents to enjoy Buren Cirque’s “Cabanons”.

Staged as part of the Singapore International Festival of the Arts (Sifa), the programme in each of the tents lasted about 23 minutes and showcased not only the extraordinary talents of acrobats, an aerial silks artist and a Cyr wheel performer as well as a powerful singer backed by a traditional African string instrumentalist, but also the immaculate design of the space and its relationship to the performance.

 Waiting to enter another tent, we thought again about the experience and, looking at the tents from outside on a rare empty space in this Southeast Asian concrete forest, connected it to our lives. 

The following weekend, another group of French artists graced the stage of the historic Victoria Theatre. Theatre de la Ville’s production of Luigi Pirandello’s “Six Characters in Search of an Author” premiered 14 years ago and director Emmanuel Demarcy-Mota has already revived it a few times, mostly with the same cast members from the first production. The ensemble spirit was evident in their performance, which ran for two hours without an intermission.

With Demarcy-Mota’s keen direction and the visual support from set and lighting designer Yves Collet, the line between reality and fiction, and between life and theatre, was thin and at times blurred. It didn’t feel like a 94-year-old play or a 14-year-old production. And in a 50-year-old democratic country where one political party always wins the election and where the sense of discipline and control is strong, watching characters who wanted to have their stories told the way they wanted was certainly political. 

While French artists are prolific in both dance and theatre and French audiences apparently enjoy both, it’s rare for this part of the world to see an example of the latter. This is either because of the high cost or cultural attaches who believe that we don’t understand the language, having forgotten the fact that we grew up watching movies with subtitles. This “Six Characters”, in French with English surtitles, was thus a rare treat.

There are not many performing arts festivals that not only entertain their audience with what they cannot get to see outside the event but also ask spectators to keep thinking of how what they’ve just watched is related to the main theme or concepts and more importantly, their lives. 

Sifa, which picks each programme specifically by theme and, with strong financial support from the government, can afford to invite many performances other festivals cannot – is one of the very few. 

The writer’s trip was supported by Sifa He wishes to thank Tay Tong and Eileen Chua for all assistance.

 

On the Web:

www.BurenCirque.fr for more details.

Check out www.TheatredelaVille-Paris.com before planning any trip to the French capital.

And keep an eye on the the development of next year’s SIFA at www.SIFA.sg,