★★★★☆ Dance Review: Elusive—A Double Bill by T.H.E Dance Company

International collaborations produce clean, thematically-resonant double bill that proves T.H.E’s dancers are still at the top of the game. Contemporary dance often gravitates towards the intangible: memory, emotion, systems of power, the invisible forces that shape how we move through the world. Elusive, T.H.E Dance Company’s latest double bill presented as part of cont·act Dance Festival, pairs two international collaborations that approach these concerns from … Continue reading ★★★★☆ Dance Review: Elusive—A Double Bill by T.H.E Dance Company

★★★★☆ Circus Review: Der Lauf (The Way Things Go) by Les Vélocimanes Associés

A delirious circus of near-disasters that transforms juggling into a nerve-shredding game of trust and keeps audiences holding their breath. With Der Lauf (The Way Things Go), Belgian company Les Vélocimanes Associés has created what may be one of the most stressful circus experiences in recent memory. Presented as part of Esplanade’s Flipside 2026 programme, this deliriously inventive work transforms juggling into something stranger and … Continue reading ★★★★☆ Circus Review: Der Lauf (The Way Things Go) by Les Vélocimanes Associés

★★★★★ Theatre Review: Lush Life by Ong Keng Sen / T:>Works, Jacintha & Dick Lee (SIFA 2026)

Icon of Singapore’s music scene tells the story of her three ex-husbands through docudrama and song, in a theatrical concert that captures her verve for love, life and all it offers. There is a word Jacintha Abisheganaden uses early in Lush Life that tells you everything about what kind of evening this will be. Recounting her years performing in Hawaii, where a manager suggested she … Continue reading ★★★★★ Theatre Review: Lush Life by Ong Keng Sen / T:>Works, Jacintha & Dick Lee (SIFA 2026)

★★★★★ Circus Review: A Simple Space by Gravity & Other Myths (Flipside 2026)

Ingeniously simple concept that reminds us of the joy of circus, stripping is back to its essentials and delivering on a rollicking good time. When most people think of circus, they imagine massive spectacle: towering big tops, elaborate costumes, dazzling lighting rigs, and performers transformed into larger-than-life characters. Contemporary circus after all, often leans towards ever-greater scale, bigger stunts, more ambitious concepts, and increasingly elaborate … Continue reading ★★★★★ Circus Review: A Simple Space by Gravity & Other Myths (Flipside 2026)

Theatre Review: Snakes and Ladders! by Dwayne Lau (Flipside 2026)

Theatrical metaphor for how life never progresses in a straight line, but we keep rolling the dice and continue moving forward amidst the ups and downs. Back in June when Snakes & Ladders premiered as a 40-minute work-in-progress at the Esplanade Concourse, it felt like a charming autobiographical cabaret searching for a stronger narrative spine. Now expanded into a full-length production for the Esplanade’s Flipside … Continue reading Theatre Review: Snakes and Ladders! by Dwayne Lau (Flipside 2026)

★★★★★ 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)

★★★★★ 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)

★★★★★ Theatre Review: Last Rites by Liu Xiaoyi / Emergency Stairs (SIFA 2026)

Five masters of performance confront mortality and artistic legacy in Liu Xiaoyi’s ambitious, cathartic cross-border work. What has always made theatre so beautiful is its temporality. Every performance exists only once; even repeated over multiple nights, no show will ever look or feel exactly the same again. It is fragile, fleeting, and alive precisely because it disappears the moment it is completed. By extension, the … Continue reading ★★★★★ Theatre Review: Last Rites by Liu Xiaoyi / Emergency Stairs (SIFA 2026)

★★★★☆ Theatre Review: 6 Microlectures on Genocides (May 2026) by theriverproduction

Anxious, tightly constructed theatre that confronts the limits of speech, empathy, and artistic response in the face of ongoing catastrophe. Singapore’s relationship with the Israel–Palestine conflict is shaped by a long-standing posture of official neutrality, coupled with tight constraints on public political expression. In practice, this has produced a civic environment where public commentary on the conflict is often carefully circumscribed, reflecting both domestic concerns … Continue reading ★★★★☆ Theatre Review: 6 Microlectures on Genocides (May 2026) by theriverproduction