★★★★★ Dance Review: Planet [wanderer] by Damien Jalet & Kohei Nawa (SIFA 2026)
Awe-inspiring, hypnotic dance-installation, that takes audiences on an existential odyssey through a world that’s hostile, hauntingly beautiful, and beyond our control. Some performances tell stories, but Planet [wanderer] creates a world. Surreal, unnerving, and at times profoundly unsettling, Damien Jalet and Kohei Nawa’s latest collaboration unfolds less like a dance performance than a waking dream. Playing as part of the 2026 Singapore International Festival of … Continue reading ★★★★★ Dance Review: Planet [wanderer] by Damien Jalet & Kohei Nawa (SIFA 2026)
Art: Hiroshi Sugimoto – Form Is Emptiness explores time, consciousness and seeing at SAM @ Tanjong Pagar
One of the first impressions inside Hiroshi Sugimoto: Form Is Emptiness is not visual in any straightforward sense, but atmospheric. The galleries seem to slow the body before the mind has time to interpret what is happening. Sound falls away into a low, diffuse hush, not quite absolute silence, but instead the softened acoustics of carpeted distance, of people unconsciously lowering their voices as they … Continue reading Art: Hiroshi Sugimoto – Form Is Emptiness explores time, consciousness and seeing at SAM @ Tanjong Pagar
★★★★★ Theatre Review: Hedda Gabler by National Theater Company of Korea (SIFA 2026)
Lee Hyeyoung delivers a masterclass performance in Park Jung-hee’s hypnotic, sexually charged reimagining of Ibsen’s classic, now transformed into a suffocating psychological thriller of a K-drama. Before we see anything in the National Theater Company of Korea’s Hedda Gabler, we hear a gunshot. It tears through the darkness with such violence that the audience visibly jolts. And from that very first moment, director Park Jung-hee … Continue reading ★★★★★ Theatre Review: Hedda Gabler by National Theater Company of Korea (SIFA 2026)
★★★☆☆ Dance Review: Strangely Familiar《熟悉的陌生》 by T.H.E Dance Company (SIFA 2026)
T.H.E toes the line between human and machine in this visually ambitious production, occasionally overwhelmed by technology superseding the very humanity it seeks to explore. Playing as part of the 2026 Singapore International Festival of Arts, before T.H.E Dance Company’s Strangely Familiar even begins, the world of the performance is already quietly consuming us. The soundscape hums through the theatre with an eerie, dystopian distance, … Continue reading ★★★☆☆ Dance Review: Strangely Familiar《熟悉的陌生》 by T.H.E Dance Company (SIFA 2026)
Books: Raphaël Millet’s ‘Singapore – A Cinematic Portrait’ reimagines 125 years of life on screen
What does a city look like when you trace it not through maps or monuments, but through cinema? A new publication from the Asian Film Archive and film scholar Raphaël Millet offers a striking answer: Singapore, reframed as a living, evolving character across more than a century of film. Launched on 21 May 2026 at Oldham Theatre, Singapore: A Cinematic Portrait is a richly illustrated … Continue reading Books: Raphaël Millet’s ‘Singapore – A Cinematic Portrait’ reimagines 125 years of life on screen
Flipside 2026: An interview with Guy Waerenburgh on risk, absurdity and the thrill of unpredictability in ‘Der Lauf (The Way Things Go)’
Contemporary circus rarely sits still, but Der Lauf (The Way Things Go) thrives in a state of beautiful collapse. Created by Belgian juggler and performer Guy Waerenburgh, the internationally acclaimed production transforms juggling into something far stranger and more theatrical: part cabaret, part endurance test, part social experiment. Blindfolded performers navigate towering stacks of wine glasses, spinning plates, flying buckets and razor-sharp knives, while the … Continue reading Flipside 2026: An interview with Guy Waerenburgh on risk, absurdity and the thrill of unpredictability in ‘Der Lauf (The Way Things Go)’
Flipside 2026: Lachlan Binns on how ‘A Simple Space’ celebrates human connection, trust, and play
When A Simple Space first premiered in 2013, contemporary circus was undergoing a global shift. Traditional big-top spectacles and variety-style performances were still dominant, shaped in part by the influence of companies like Cirque du Soleil, with their elaborate staging, narrative framing, and theatrical spectacle. But for co-creator and performer Lachlan Binns, the goal was to go in the opposite direction. “We made the show … Continue reading Flipside 2026: Lachlan Binns on how ‘A Simple Space’ celebrates human connection, trust, and play
Flipside 2026: An Interview with Dwayne Lau on rolling with the punches with ‘Snakes and Ladders!’
For actor and musical theatre performer Dwayne Lau, his original work Snakes & Ladders! is a way of re-living, re-framing, and re-negotiating the unpredictable shape of a life that has unfolded very much like the board game at its centre. What began as a 40-minute showcase at the Esplanade Concourse has now grown into a full 90-minute theatrical experience a year later. But for Dwayne, … Continue reading Flipside 2026: An Interview with Dwayne Lau on rolling with the punches with ‘Snakes and Ladders!’
SIFA 2026: Lush Life – An interview with director Ong Keng Sen on making art out of life and legacy
Before streaming platforms, before bedroom recordings, and before Singapore had any real infrastructure for popular music, there were artists like Jacintha Abisheganaden and Dick Lee, figures who carved out creative lives with few precedents and even fewer guarantees. Their songs, relationships and artistic decisions did not just define their own careers; they helped shape what it meant to be a musician in Singapore at all. … Continue reading SIFA 2026: Lush Life – An interview with director Ong Keng Sen on making art out of life and legacy
SIFA 2026: Planet [wanderer] – An interview with choreographer Damien Jalet and scenographer Kohei Nawa in search of the body’s place in the world
Strange and bewitching, Planet [wanderer] is a rare theatre production that unfolds like a dream one cannot quite hold onto. Created by choreographer Damien Jalet and visual artist Kohei Nawa, the work brings eight dancers into a shifting terrain of textures and matter, where bodies bend, sway, and reorganise themselves like reeds in the wind, caught in a fragile balance between “power and vulnerability, harmony … Continue reading SIFA 2026: Planet [wanderer] – An interview with choreographer Damien Jalet and scenographer Kohei Nawa in search of the body’s place in the world
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