★★★★☆ Review: Offstage 3.0 by Emergency Stairs

Unpacking the absurdity of the arts scene, and the need to keep pushing at our invisible walls. Even before forming Emergency Stairs, Liu Xiaoyi has always been interested in challenging the norm, and provoking thought by asking difficult questions. With his Offstage series of work, he’s managed to put the results of those discussions into performance, reimagining how much importance we ascribe to offstage roles, … Continue reading ★★★★☆ Review: Offstage 3.0 by Emergency Stairs

Review: A Grand Tour for Winds by re:Sound Collective

A welcome return for wind instruments onstage. For the past year, wind instruments have been unable to take to the stage due to the increased restrictions on live performance. So to have them onstage again is certainly cause for celebrating. Kicking off their 2021 season, re:Sound Collective presented a “Grand Tour” of wind quintet music, featuring works by Franz Danzi, Jacques Ibert and Carl Nielsen … Continue reading Review: A Grand Tour for Winds by re:Sound Collective

★★★☆☆ Book Review: Suka-Suka the Cement Truck by Ng Swee San and Han Qingping

A colourful lesson on being responsible and picking up after yourself.  The sheer number of cars is probably one of the biggest contributors towards global warming and climate change today. But perhaps that’s precisely why they make for the best characters to explain the importance of being responsible for one’s actions, and being conscientious towards others. That’s the big lesson that Suka-Suka the Cement Truck … Continue reading ★★★☆☆ Book Review: Suka-Suka the Cement Truck by Ng Swee San and Han Qingping

★★★★☆ Review: Pandan by Rupa co.lab

Examining the hard truths that hurt most. There are always two sides to every person – the public self we present to the world, and the private one we keep to ourselves. And for many of us, these secret selves could spell disaster if they became known, from being shunned by society, to crushing entire careers. But really, why is it that we’re so quick … Continue reading ★★★★☆ Review: Pandan by Rupa co.lab

Review: I, Frida by Ay, Caramba! Theatre

Heartfelt one woman show of a Hispanic family’s struggles as migrants in Canada. In Carol Ann Duffy’s poem Foreign, the Scottish poet invites readers to imagine themselves as a migrant in a strange country, where ‘You think/in a language of your own and talk in theirs’. Unless you’ve lived in a country with a vastly different culture from your own for an extended period of … Continue reading Review: I, Frida by Ay, Caramba! Theatre

Review: Snow Whitening Revisited by New Cambodian Artists

Haunting, moving dance work embodying what it means to hold on when everything is falling apart. When a country has no contemporary arts scene to speak of, it would be easy for one of the only contemporary dancers to use it as an excuse to produce less than stellar work. But for the New Cambodian Artists, Snow Whitening Revisited is more than enough proof that … Continue reading Review: Snow Whitening Revisited by New Cambodian Artists

★★★★☆ Review: WAN BELANTARA – Enjet-Enjet Semut by Saiful Amri & Anwar Hadi Ramli

Political problems abound in the animal kingdom. From ancient fables passed down from generation to generation, to modern day nature documentaries, there’s always been something about using the animal kingdom as a medium for telling stories about the human condition. And as part of the M1 Singapore Fringe Festival, director Saiful Amri and playwright Anwar Hadi Ramli are only adding to that canon, with the … Continue reading ★★★★☆ Review: WAN BELANTARA – Enjet-Enjet Semut by Saiful Amri & Anwar Hadi Ramli

M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2021: Liu Xiaoyi goes on the record about ‘Offstage 3.0’

Liu Xiaoyi has always been a man determined to think out of the box. And as a theatremaker, perhaps one of the biggest boxes he finds himself in is literally the theatre itself, where we’ve often limited our perception of what theatre is. For a long time now, Xiaoyi has been chipping away at what it means to create theatre, from the Southernmost Festival’s prioritising … Continue reading M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2021: Liu Xiaoyi goes on the record about ‘Offstage 3.0’

M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2021: Hazwan Norly and Rizman Putra sink their teeth into ‘Pandan’

After making a splash with their debut production back in 2019, local theatre company Rupa co.lab is stepping up their game with their second production this January. Directed by seasoned theatremaker Rizman Putra, and a script by Rupa co.lab founding member Hazwan Norly, Pandan is set to premiere at the 2021 M1 Singapore Fringe Festival, as four characters come together when an old public swimming … Continue reading M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2021: Hazwan Norly and Rizman Putra sink their teeth into ‘Pandan’

★★★☆☆ Review: Havoc Girls & Kamikaze Boys by Brian Gothong Tan and NAFA

The youth of today grapple with difficult world issues. Are the youth of today as ‘woke’ as they think they are? Directed by Brian Gothong Tan and written by Nabilah Said, Havoc Girls & Kamikaze Boys features the BA (Hons) Theatre Arts students from the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) as they perform in this show exploring some of the world’s most significant social and political … Continue reading ★★★☆☆ Review: Havoc Girls & Kamikaze Boys by Brian Gothong Tan and NAFA