SIFA 2018: The Blues Project by Dorrance Dance (Review)

Tap meets blues in an unlikely but effective collaboration. Is tap dance merely all show and no soul? Or is it possible that given the right music, tap can be a genre catapulted far beyond its stereotypical impression, into a form that seethes with expression and aches with emotion? Furious, rhythmic tap and slowed down, soulful blues might appear to be strange bedfellows at first, … Continue reading SIFA 2018: The Blues Project by Dorrance Dance (Review)

SIFA 2018: OCD Love by L-E-V Dance Company (Review)

Mesmerising, muscular bodies tangle with the simultaneous pain and allure of the mental condition.  Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, or OCD for short, is characterised as a state by which a person’s mind is constantly occupied by cycles of intrusive thoughts and compulsive behaviours. It’s an invisible condition that only really becomes evident when you know someone, and is often a lifelong state an afflicted person finds … Continue reading SIFA 2018: OCD Love by L-E-V Dance Company (Review)

SIFA 2018: The Blues Project by Dorrance Dance (Preview)

Created by an all-star creative team consisting of tap dance extraordinaire Michelle Dorrance, acclaimed choreographer Derick K. Grant, genre-busting musician Toshi Reagon, and tap dance maestress Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards, The Blues Project sees tap dancing break into the modern world set to emotive blues in an explosive fusion of American themes and styles. A multi-genre, multi-medium style performance, The Blues Project unites original live music with raw emotion and dance … Continue reading SIFA 2018: The Blues Project by Dorrance Dance (Preview)

SIFA 2018: OCD Love by L-E-V Dance Company (Preview)

Enter the world of Israel based L-E-V Dance Company’s OCD Love. Based off Neil Hilborn’s famous viral spoken word poem about love lost to the speaker’s obsessive-compulsive disorder, OCD Love interprets the poem with a fierce viscerality, as dancers move to DJ Ori Lichtik’s techno beats to present an epic struggle between the head and the heart. Stylistically abstract, watch as bodies move completely in sync with each other, orbiting and … Continue reading SIFA 2018: OCD Love by L-E-V Dance Company (Preview)

SIFA 2018: Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan’s 1984 (Review)

  SIFA 2018 opens on a chilling note with this dystopian modern classic.  Considered by many to be George Orwell’s magnum opus, 1984 has become the go to model for a dystopian world, a culmination of everything we should avoid becoming at all costs. Yet this is a warning the world seems to have forgotten to heed, as the chilling reality of a society plagued by surveillance … Continue reading SIFA 2018: Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan’s 1984 (Review)

St Petersburg Ballet Theatre’s Swan Lake: An Interview with Prima Ballerina Irina Kolesnikova and Founding Director Konstantin Tachkin

The St Petersburg Ballet Theatre is no stranger to Singapore, with sold out, well-received runs when they came in 2015 and 2016. In May this year, they’re returning for the third time to perform Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake at Mediacorp’s MES Theatre, and featuring not only their prima ballerina Irina Kolesnikova in the starring role of Odile/Odette, but also an entire company of 60, including a number of … Continue reading St Petersburg Ballet Theatre’s Swan Lake: An Interview with Prima Ballerina Irina Kolesnikova and Founding Director Konstantin Tachkin

SIFA 2018: Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan’s 1984 (Preview)

George Orwell’s literary masterpice 1984 remains one of the most iconic depictions of a dystopian society. Despite being written in 1949, the book’s narrative has been shockingly prophetic, raising the idea of a society increasingly under surveillance and cults of personality. Although there’ve been several staged adaptation produced over the years, there’s none you’ll experience quite like the version by award-winning theatremakers Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan. The … Continue reading SIFA 2018: Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan’s 1984 (Preview)

SIFA 2018: An Interview with Festival Director Gaurav Kripalani

As the latest person to take up the mantle of Festival Director for the Singapore International Festival of the Arts (SIFA), Gaurav Kripalani has faced his fair share of criticisms and doubts. But if there’s anything to go by, the numbers don’t lie, and this year’s edition of the festival has seen overwhelmingly positive demand, with multiple sold out shows and all around enthusiasm for … Continue reading SIFA 2018: An Interview with Festival Director Gaurav Kripalani

Preview: The St Petersburg Ballet Theatre’s Swan Lake

We may already have had one fantastic run of Swan Lake this year, but fans of the show won’t need to wait too long before another one comes along, this time by Russia’s St Petersburg Ballet Theatre. Playing at the MES Theatre this May following sold out seasons in London and Paris, the St Petersburg Ballet Theatre is coming to Singapore for a strictly limited … Continue reading Preview: The St Petersburg Ballet Theatre’s Swan Lake

Review: X & Y by RAW Moves

Ricky Sim and Matthew Goh tackle intergenerational conflict and tension in an original and surprisingly humorous performance.   RAW Moves will never fail to surprise us with how much they’re constantly pushing the very definition of dance, and in their latest production, ascends to even greater heights. Spinning off of RAW Moves’ 2018 theme of Competition, the episodic X & Y sees 48-year old artistic director Ricky Sim … Continue reading Review: X & Y by RAW Moves