This year, the Singapore International Festival of the Arts (SIFA) opens with local theatre company Nine Years Theatre’s premiere of Art Studio.

Directed by Nelson Chia and adapted from Cultural Medallion Winner Yeng Pway Ngon’s 2012 Singapore Literature Prize-winning novel of the same name, Art Studio is an epic performance that spans the 60s to the new millennium. Starting with a young school dropout coerced into becoming a life drawing model for a group of artists, Art Studio then branches out and follows the lives of each of these artists as they live through the tumultuous years of Singapore’s development.

From an aspiring singer who travels to India alone to a communist fighter hiding in the Malayan jungle for the rest of his life, Art Studio traces the poetic beauty and sorrow of ordinary human relationships and is a story that will stay with you long after you leave the theatre.

Art Studio plays at Victoria Theatre from 17th-19th August in Mandarin with English surtitles. Tickets available here