SINGAPORE ARTS’ FESTIVAL VILLAGE Highlights 2012

FindYourWayInSG presents SINGAPORE ARTS’ FESTIVAL VILLAGE Opening Highlights 

Dance

Located at the Café at the Festival Village, the Bridge Café Project is a community-driven arts project led by renowned Japanese choreographer Kim Itoh.  Catch “oyajis” (Japanese for “uncles”) and youths from the community burst into sporadic and thoroughly entertaining dance routines as they perform and sing to familiar, well-loved tunes. A fun and accessible performance for people of all ages! 

Inspired by a monologue written by Malaysian playwright Leow Puay Tin, Malaysian artist Marion D’Cruz presents Dream Country, a dance that explores the themes of birth, life and death. The performance will feature 41 Singaporean women, mostly non-theatre or dance professionals, aged 17 to 58 years old, from a wide range of social backgrounds. Through this thought-provoking movement piece, audiences are invited to find their own monologues, journeys and stories.

Theatre
Caught between two natures and embodied in contrasted myths, centaurs – half man, half horse – are creatures that exist both in our imagination and now, at the Singapore Arts Festival. Presented by French theatre company, Théâtre du Centaure, Flux tells the story of two mythical centaurs co-existing within our realm. Like us, they shop, they work and they play – look out for these stallions as they come alive in the evening at the Festival Village.

The Book of Living and Dying tells the story of a daughter struggling to come to terms with the death of her transvestite father. Presented by The Finger Players, one of Singapore’s leading theatre companies, in association with Teatri Sbagliati (Italy), the play explores philosophical themes that we often question on a daily basis – questions about life, relationships, identity and the afterlife.

Experiential

Presented by Tara Tan of Studio Now & Then, OPEN-STUDIO 2012 Featuring SONGBIRD is a real-life location-based drama about a singer who goes missing on the day of her debut performance. Uncover a journey of ambition, obsession, aspiration and love through an interactive storytelling experience. Go in search of SONGBIRD at the Festival Village when you download the iPhone app at www.hellosongbird.com.

In Umbrella for 2, two people share an umbrella equipped with an MP3 player and two sets of headphones. Audiences take a “sound walk” through the vicinity of the Esplanade Park, as the voice within the umbrella shares its fresh insights and perspectives of the surroundings. The engulfing ambient reality moves audiences to perceive the landscape in manner that even they wouldn’t have imagined.

Music
From recognisable music faces in Singapore and funkier, more stylistic music trends of our younger generation, to renowned international musicians and music mixers, there’s a tune to soothe every palette at the Festival Village.

Well-loved local musicians T’ang Quartet, Budak Pantai, Claressa Monterio, Vanessa Fernandez and Choral Association will present music inspired by the Festival’s theme, Our Lost Poems. Their renditions of lyrical and familiar melodies will take audiences down memory lane to time’s past. For the young and young at heart, catch The FFF Girl DJ Block Party!, a line-up of female DJs spinning  disco classics, classical themed and Bollywood-inspired beats.

For international acts, award-winning British composer Soumik Datta and Austrian percussionist Bernhard Schimpelsberger combine Indian music, drum and bass, electronics and visuals to spectacular effect in Circle of Sound. Both men have collaborated with renowned musicians such as Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Talvin Singh, Akram Khan, Nitin Sawhney, Bill Bailey, Susheela Rahman and Raghu Dixit, among others. Also catch Japanese sonic artist, Toru Yamanaka, a collaborator on the Singapore Arts Festival’s 2012 LEAR DREAMING commission, as he deejays some of his finest works at the Festival Village.

Others/Film

Do you know what Singaporeans consider national icons? Featuring a group of seven veteran theatre practitioners led by Oliver Chong (The Finger Players), XII – In Search of 13 tells the tale of 12 contenders vying to become the ultimate national icon, amid a backdrop of myths, stories and drama at the Festival Village.

Young@Heart is a chorus of senior citizens averaging 80 years, who come together to sing contemporary pop and rock music. Apart from their ticketed performance, End of the Road, at the SOTA Drama Theatre from 23 to 25 May, the Festival Village will also screen the inspiring documentary film made of this unique choral group, demonstrating how age is no barrier to achieving great things.

Kids Arts Village (For kids and family)

The Kids Arts Village (KAV) returns and promises an exciting experience for all. This year, Tangle will take centre stage at KAV, and will be an interactive play space for children and their family. Kids are encouraged to imaginatively transform the area into an organic, touch-friendly life-size web by intertwining huge coloured elastic bands. Tangle blends colour, people and texture to transform place and space, in what will be an iconic monument at the Festival Village.

Other programmes include The Young Ones! Performance Showcase, a series of dance, music and drama performance by children from various schools and community groups in Singapore, as well as Spooky Stories, a ghost storytelling session by children, and Splash Art and Crafts, a handicraft area for kids to lose their artistic restraints and fill their world with exuberant colours.
All activities at the Kids Arts Village(KAV) are curated by the Festival’s Kids Advisory Panel made up of a team of seven under 12 year-olds. The panelists, selected during the Festival in 2011, underwent arts appreciation sessions and volunteered their time to conceptualise the programmes for KAV 2012.

- Pictures from Chee Yong Goh –