★★★★☆ Review: SUARA / Oro Rua by Safuan Johari and Eddie Elliott

Unearthing the voices of a distant past. Safuan Johari is a musician and composer from Singapore. Eddie Elliott is a dancer and choreographer from New Zealand. While the two artists’ practices seem rather distant, there is a link that makes them surprisingly good collaborators with each other – their shared respect for their own cultural inheritance, and a keen interest in the land we walk … Continue reading ★★★★☆ Review: SUARA / Oro Rua by Safuan Johari and Eddie Elliott

★★★★☆ Review: The Romeo by Trajal Harrell

Drawing from historical form to imagine a new canon of dance, including everybody and any body. Conceptualised by Trajal Harrell, it’s hard to pin down exactly what The Romeo is. While ostensibly categorised as a dance, The Romeo is also a work that is completely fictional, and expanding beyond mere choreography to imagine a history and legacy. In the space of the theatre where The … Continue reading ★★★★☆ Review: The Romeo by Trajal Harrell

★★★★☆ Review: Moby Dick by Plexus Polaire (SIFA 2024)

Glimmers of terrible beauty amidst a savage, age-old battle of man versus nature. The beauty of a novel like Moby Dick has always lain in how open to interpretation it is, where everything from the tumult of the sea, to the conversations between crewmates, to the chase for the elusive white whale itself becomes a metaphor for whatever one might be going through in life … Continue reading ★★★★☆ Review: Moby Dick by Plexus Polaire (SIFA 2024)

SIFA 2024: An Interview with director Haresh Sharma and playwright Chong Tze Chien on Forster-inspired ‘The Prose and the Passion’

“Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height.” Such was the way English author E.M. Forster wrote of the importance of using both head and heart in Howard’s End, to connect both critical thought and deep emotion that we can achieve the full potential of humanity itself. Inspired by this quote and … Continue reading SIFA 2024: An Interview with director Haresh Sharma and playwright Chong Tze Chien on Forster-inspired ‘The Prose and the Passion’

SIFA 2024: An Interview with Singapore experimental band The Observatory on exploring darkness and the underground in ‘REFUGE’

The Observatory are not your ordinary band. Going beyond making music alone, the local Singaporean band has been closely involved in art beyond entertainment for two decades, always ready to speak truth to power and constantly using their sound to amplify their thoughts and feelings about social issues, even expanding into the realm of visual art in 2022’s REFUSE at the Singapore Art Museum which … Continue reading SIFA 2024: An Interview with Singapore experimental band The Observatory on exploring darkness and the underground in ‘REFUGE’

SIFA 2024: An Interview with composer Safuan Johari and choreographer Eddie Elliott on collaboration and culture in ‘Suara / Oro Rua’

If we put our ears to the Earth and listened, what would we hear? In Suara / Oro Rua, Singapore’s Safuan Johari and New Zealand’s Eddie Elliott come together in an unexpected cross-country collaboration to imagine the sound of fossilised voices emerging from the deep, and what we leave behind year after year, as the dance performance premieres this May as part of the 2024 … Continue reading SIFA 2024: An Interview with composer Safuan Johari and choreographer Eddie Elliott on collaboration and culture in ‘Suara / Oro Rua’

SIFA 2024: An Interview with Lithuanian artists Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė, Vaiva Grainytė & Lina Lapelytė on beach opera ‘Sun & Sea’

One of the most exciting and outrageous pavilions at the 2019 Venice Biennale came from a rather surprising source – Lithuania, which till then had only occasionally caught the public eye when it came to the art world. When visitors stepped into the Lithuanian pavilion, they entered an entirely different world, one that was dappled in sunlight, a room full of sand and actual people … Continue reading SIFA 2024: An Interview with Lithuanian artists Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė, Vaiva Grainytė & Lina Lapelytė on beach opera ‘Sun & Sea’

SIFA 2024: An Interview with Trajal Harrell, creator and choreographer of speculative dance ‘The Romeo’

Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou? The answer might surprise you, with Trajal Harrell’s dance work The Romeo, which takes inspiration from Shakespeare’s young lover and star of tragedy Romeo and Juliet, from which is crafted a dance for people of all origins, genders, and generations, of all temperaments and moods, dance when they face their tragedies and only dance. Making its Singapore premiere this May … Continue reading SIFA 2024: An Interview with Trajal Harrell, creator and choreographer of speculative dance ‘The Romeo’

SIFA 2024: An Interview with Alex Serrano, co-creator of AI-driven dance performance ‘Una Isla’

The arts have always grown in tandem with technology, be it developments in set-building and engineering that allow for new stunts and stage movements, or in terms of audio and the ability to bring sound and voice to new heights. With Artificial Intelligence (AI) touted as the next big thing, it was only a matter of time before it too was incorporated into theatrical productions. … Continue reading SIFA 2024: An Interview with Alex Serrano, co-creator of AI-driven dance performance ‘Una Isla’

SIFA 2024: An Interview with puppeteer Viktor Lukawski on playing Captain Ahab and puppetry in Plexus Polaire’s ‘Moby Dick’

Herman Melville’s Moby Dick has long been considered an epic of literature – a massive tome of a book that chronicles the odyssey of the Pequod, as they’re led by their obsessive Captain Ahab seeking revenge on the sperm whale that bit his leg off – the titular Moby Dick. Often considered one of the Great American Novels, the novel has been countlessly referenced across … Continue reading SIFA 2024: An Interview with puppeteer Viktor Lukawski on playing Captain Ahab and puppetry in Plexus Polaire’s ‘Moby Dick’