M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2018: Attempts: Singapore by Rei Poh (Review)

There’s no need for any hints as to how much we enjoyed this impeccably produced participatory theatre experience.  In a world of innovative theatrical experiences, you often come across too many that scrimp on either execution or narrative. That’s not the case for Rei Poh’s Attempts: Singapore, which provided a thoroughly well-planned out participatory ‘game’ as its audience worked together to unravel a mystery, one clue at … Continue reading M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2018: Attempts: Singapore by Rei Poh (Review)

M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2018: The Neighbor’s Grief Is Greener by Emanuella Amichai (Review)

Stepford wives from 1950s America get a macabre, surreal twist in this bloody good show.  There are times we find ourselves wondering when exactly the seeds of feminism were sown. In 1940s America, as men were shipped off to become soldiers during the war, the running of the country was left to women, as wives stepped foot into factories and worked for the first time. … Continue reading M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2018: The Neighbor’s Grief Is Greener by Emanuella Amichai (Review)

M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2018: A Beginner’s Guide To Walking In Beauty with Petrina Kow and Anita Kapoor (Interview)

Petrina Kow is a storyteller. And we don’t mean that metaphorically – she is, after all, a co-founder of storytelling platform Telling Stories Live,  and as a vocal and speech trainer, not to mention a former top radio deejay, she’s basically a master of the spoken word. So when she was approached by M1 Singapore Fringe Festival artistic director Sean Tobin to do a show this year, naturally, … Continue reading M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2018: A Beginner’s Guide To Walking In Beauty with Petrina Kow and Anita Kapoor (Interview)

M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2018: An Interview with Kenneth Chia and Mitchell Fang (One Thousand Millennials Crying)

Lazy. Entitled. Selfish. Shallow. Narcissistic. These are probably some of the most common generalizations about the millennial generation (loosely defined as those born between the late 80s and early 2000s). So what happens when you ask an actual millennial to respond to those accusations? You might just get something like One Thousand Millennials Crying, as co-creators and theatremakers Kenneth Chia and Mitchell Fang premiere this self-reflexive, comedic … Continue reading M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2018: An Interview with Kenneth Chia and Mitchell Fang (One Thousand Millennials Crying)

M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2018: All In by ATRESBANDES (Review)

EDM, North Korea and storage space collapse into an absurdist reflection on the difficulty of remaining an individual in an already overcrowded world.  Two figures clad in black zentai suits discuss getting a self storage space in distorted voices. A man finds his opinions constantly silenced and quashed whenever he raises them to his ‘friends’. A ghostly figure meets a red suited, Japanese-speaking man in … Continue reading M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2018: All In by ATRESBANDES (Review)

M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2018: If there’s not dancing at the revolution, I’m not coming by Julia Croft (Review)

An unusually moving neo-burlesque reflection on film and pop culture’s influence on women.  One of the key theories any film studies student learns early on is the concept of the male gaze and visual pleasure, coined by seminal film critic Laura Mulvey. In short, it’s a concept that discusses how Hollywood films are essentially born from an unconscious patriarchal desire to derive pleasure from voyeurism … Continue reading M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2018: If there’s not dancing at the revolution, I’m not coming by Julia Croft (Review)

M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2018: Step Outta Line by Thong Pei Qin (Review)

Thong Pei Qin summons the old guard of feminist artists for a new generation. If Step Outta Line was anyone’s first introduction to playwright Ovidia Yu, they’d probably come away with the impression that this was one angry woman. And rightfully so. Yu was one of the most outspoken and prominent female local playwrights of the 90s, with seminal plays that dared rebel against the patriarchy, pushed … Continue reading M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2018: Step Outta Line by Thong Pei Qin (Review)

M1 Fringe Festival 2018: The Immortal Sole by Edith Podesta (Review)

A confident, powerful performance to kick off the 2018 M1 Singapore Fringe Festival. By now, Edith Podesta has firmly established herself as the mistress of just about every performing art form. From her years of experience as a theatre director leading up to the award-winning BITCH, to her stint as a choreographer in RAW Moves’ Indices of Vanishment, Podesta’s breadth of work has grown from strength to strength, … Continue reading M1 Fringe Festival 2018: The Immortal Sole by Edith Podesta (Review)

M1 Fringe Festival 2018: Hayat by Pink Gajah Theatre (Review)

The transformative power of pain is on full display in a moving work from Pink Gajah. Hayat may be a word that means life, but in Pink Gajah’s newest work of the same name, it begins with a death. Specifically, the memory of the death of performer Ajuntha Anwari’s mother, a trigger to reflect upon her life and begin her journey of grief, not only for her mother, … Continue reading M1 Fringe Festival 2018: Hayat by Pink Gajah Theatre (Review)

M1 Fringe Festival 2017: Skin Tight by Ah Hock and Peng Yu

Have you ever felt constricted in your shirt and blazer and then imagined the need to peel away those layers and freestyle in a zentai suit? Skin Tight answers that question, and the exquisite choreography of Ah Hock and Peng Yu will give you a glimpse into what those escapist desires could signal for you, and more. I was reminded of the recent dance sensation World Order as … Continue reading M1 Fringe Festival 2017: Skin Tight by Ah Hock and Peng Yu