Closer to actual life

Now that we’ve realized COVID-19 just never ends and thus we have to find ways to enjoy life as much as we can. As evidenced during Songkran holidays, many of us have started traveling again and Singapore remains one of our favorite destinations. For arts lovers, a visit to the most Southern tip of Indochina would never include only tourist attractions, food and shopping but also arts and cultural activities. On that note, the annual Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA), organized by Arts House Limited and mainly supported by National Arts Council, completes our itinerary and is another reason to revisit Singapore every late May to June.

Themed “The Anatomy of Performance—Some People”, SIFA 2023 is the second edition under the directorship of Natalie Hennedige. The subtitle of her first festival last year is “Rituals” and next year’s is “Confession”. In an exclusive interview with The Nation, she explains the meaning of “performance” in the context of SIFA, which doesn’t put works into such categories as theatre, dance, music, visual arts, etc., saying “I wanted to emphasize the word ‘performance’ as a way to bring it closer to actual life. I feel what we relate to both in performance and in life, what we value, are rituals which can be simply defined with three elements namely time, gesture and artefact.”

“For example, a birthday party is a ritual; the cake is an artefact; photographs of a birthday party capture a moment in time and people in space who’re commemorating a moment in a person’s life. Rather than alienating, we’re trying to offer a line that links the arts to life with this word ‘performance’. In a more organic, or even spiritual, way, it links the arts, or performance, to something that’s there at the very beginning before it had names and terms. In that way, performance encompasses what we need to remember and embrace in our experience as a human being, to put things together, to make sense of personal, social and political conflicts, or just to capture beauty and transience of life.”   

In comparison to SIFA 2022, the festival director notes “One of the things that I’m editing is the festival’s relationship to the digital space. [With the uncertainty of pandemic situation affecting creations of works and travels] In 2022, we created ‘Life Profusion’ which became like a digital venue. The thinking is that if in case we can’t do our live works, what is the potential of the [digital] venue. For 2023, the distinct difference is how technology can then be applied as an element, or a collaborator, in live performance. For example, [Canadian multidisciplinary artist] Sougwen Chung, in her ‘Realm of Silk’ [one of the four commissioned works by SIFA], is really looking at the relationship between human and non-human collaboration, her preoccupation for many years beyond the pandemic.”

“I think we will continue to have a conversation with the virtual space as we’re engaged in the making of contemporary creations. It’s part of life and something we have to negotiate.”

As for this year’s subtitle, “Some People”, Hennedige says, “It’s definitely a continuation from ‘Ritual’—I see ‘Some People’ as a layer on top of ‘Ritual’. While I feel that all performances embed ritual, performances and creations are also about perspectives—this idea that we all live in this world but we don’t experience the world the same way. In performance, it’s an opportunity to listen to another’s perspective. Therefore, I wanted to use this term ‘Some People’ which is an invitation to open one’s mind, one’s heart, to another narrative that may be different from yours. It’s a way for performance to be a space to create more empathy because you simply gain more empathy by seeing something else, someone else, another story or point of view—even one that might challenge your held beliefs.”

   
SIFA 2023 invites the audience to respond to works that encompass those who grieve, transform, remember, dominate, disappear, feel, prevail, linger, shimmer, observe, reclaim, endure, dare and transcend. 

“These 14 words have active quality to them. While they are common to all of us, I feel there are specific ways in which we, for example, grieve. How do you express grief? Some people are stoic about it; others just need to go shopping. With this title ‘Some People’, I try to embrace things that are related to all of us both universally and specifically.” 

Unlike in the past when Singapore Arts Festival (SAF) featured works by a good number of internationally renowned artists, SIFA is presenting works by those who, in Hennedige’s words, “may not be marquee names but are iconic in their own ways. It’s our desire to really invite audiences to discover these icons who either have already had journeys or will have ones that are going to unfold. I feel that the gratification may be less instant but more enduring.”

Kicking off on May 19 with another SIFA-commissioned work “Angel Island”, a music theatre work by Asian-American composer Huang Ruo and Singaporean performance maker Brian Gothong Tan, the festival have also invited international works such as Joyce Ho’s (Taiwan) spatial mixed media installation “A Day, 2023”, Hyerim Jang’s (South Korea) all-female dance work “Abyss” expressing human sorrow, Jaha Koo’s (South Korea) unique performances “Cuckoo” and “Lolling & Rolling” which discuss linguistic imperialism and isolation, Circa’s (Australia) acrobatic performance “Humans 2.0” as well as Andrea Salustri’s (Italy) object theatre performance using polystyrene “Materia”, the fastest selling ticket by far.

A familiar Japanese name for Thai theatregoers thanks to his four works previously presented here, Toshiki Okada will also bring in “New-Illusion”, with a new innovative style EIZO-Theatre blending reality and fiction.    

It’s been a while since a Thai work was presented at SIFA—if the five doses of vaccine haven’t affected my brain yet, the last time was Pichet Klunchun Dance Company’s “Nijinsky Siam” in 2010. This year Thanapol “Dtam” Virulhakul’s “Intermission”, featuring traditional singer Champa Saenprom and contemporary dancer Vidura Amranand, will be part of SIFA X, which Hennedige describes as “a potent discovery and an opportunity to push boundaries even more.”

For this coproduction by SIFA, BIPAM [Bangkok’s International Performing Arts Meeting] and Georgetown Festival (Penang, Malaysia), Hennedige notes “The conversations with BIPAM began as early as 2000 when we looked around the region for entities which I felt were like-minded. Over time we’re discussing whether we should do a collaboration or what it should be. Over time we took time apart. Finally, when we landed on the theme ‘Some People’, we met with BIPAM team and said, ‘Let’s come behind a work that brings a kind of Thai perspective in a very unique contemporary way to local audiences.”

Having attended its rehearsals and performance at BIPAM last month, Hennedige says that the work is “highly delightful and accessible actually” and “tickles the imagination.”

For Thai arts lovers who’re planning a trip to Singapore, Hennedige says, “I trust that arts-loving audiences will see the nuances in the festival like its regional and international presence. [For example] There’s an intentional effort to invite international artists with Asian origins to tell stories about what we care about like xenophobia and systemic racial discrimination that’s epitomized in our opening show ‘Angel Island’. There’s also a hook of hip-hop in [UK dance artist] Botis Seva’s ‘Blkdog’ and the rich exploration of technology in ‘Realm of Silk’. It’s the space where we’ve done our work to embrace works and artists—these potent voices—that are coming from the region and hopefully that will be a draw for the Thai arts lovers who I feel are a sophisticated bunch of people.”

SIFA 2023 is from May 19 to June 4 at various venues in the island state. For more details and tickets (student discounts also available), www.sifa.sg. Also check out Singapore International Festival of Arts - Home | Facebook, Singapore International Festival of Arts (@sifa_sg) • Instagram photos and videos, SIFA (@sifa_sg) / Twitter and Arts House Limited - YouTube.

 

Photo credit: (for “A Day, 2023”) Lai Chih-Sheng; (for “Abyss”) Jaehoon Jeong; (for “Cuckoo”) Radovan Dranga; (for “Humans 2.0”) David Kelly; (for “Materia”) Milan Szypura; (for “New-Illusion) Ryohei Tomita; and (for “Intermission”) Wichaya Artamat.