Established in 1999

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New Finds

In Asian premieres which will present a unique vision of animation theatre, the Festival will present The Great War by Hotel Modern (The Netherlands), and SAMOVAR: Check Out Chekov by Schauspielhaus Vienna (Austria).

In another Asian premiere, leading company in contemporary music theatre, Chamber Made Opera (Australia) will perform Phobia, a Hitchcock-inspired thriller complete with an enchanting soundscape created in the fashion of multi-tasking Foley artists.

In the vein of regularly showcasing emerging artists, the Festival presents Victoria Hanna and the Israeli Contemporary String Quartet (Israel) in Jerusalem Dreaming, where ancient prayer texts and Hebrew poetry are rendered in original compositions.

In the concert by The Vegetable Orchestra (Austria), audiences will enjoy the organic contemporary music of vegetable instruments.

Other acts making their Festival debut include Al Kasaba Theatre & Cinematheque (The Palestinian Territories) with their work The Wall, and Singapore’s premier wind orchestra, The Philharmonic Winds, whose concert presents a repertoire of wind music that includes the world premiere of artistic director and resident conductor Dr Robert Casteels’ Second Symphony.

　

WORKSHOPS & TALKS

In another Festival first, we will be presenting a 5-day International Workshop on Suzuki and Viewpoints Acting Method by the visionary artistic director of the SITI Company (USA) Anne Bogart, and members of the company. The workshop, organised in association with Practice's Theatre Training & Research Programme, will provide theatre professionals in Singapore and Asia a first-hand opportunity to learn from Bogart, who co-founded the company with renowned theatre artist Tadashi Suzuki, the name behind the Suzuki Method of Actor Training.

There are many other workshops and talks in the Festival. Please refer to the annexes for more details.

Outreach Programme

An integral component of the Singapore Arts Festival has always been its extensive Outreach Programme which brings the Festival mostly free to people throughout Singapore. 

This year, regular features such as KIDSFEST, Special Events, Weekend Highlights, Arts on the Move and Closing Celebrations return with high-action, interactive shows for everyone. The unique and entertaining shows in the Special Events include Finals! by Grejpfrut (Slovenia), where unsuspecting passerbys are pit against one another in an interactive soccer match right on the streets; and Deviation’s (France) Ecrans Tambours (Screen Drums), whose thumping voyage of movement and percussion music in water are a definite must-see. Weekend Highlights includes a Grandioso of Hundred Guzhengs, combining Java and Sundanese zithers, the Morinkhuur and Yatga from Mongolia with the Chinese guzheng.

In a first for the Festival, Singapore’s newest music platform POPagenda Singapore brings three weekends of Asian pop n’ rock music developing Singapore’s own brand of S-Pop.  A contemporary pop music platform showcasing established and emerging local and regional talents, it is also planned as a hub for discovering new Asian talents. Four key events make up the new platform - Rock D’Fort; Pop Village; Rock Opera the Musical and Bandhana.

In Asian Showcase, the richness of traditional Asian arts feature strongly. Pasar Theatre entertains with street puppetry, cross-talk, jianggu (storytelling), martial arts and folk singing. Baba Nyonya, HIStory and HERitage by The Main Wayang Company, delves into the colourful Peranakan past of romance and courtship rituals, handicrafts, traditional games and tales in music, song and dance. Other Asian Showcase productions include Taal Express by the Temple of Fine Arts, Sichuan Province Chuan Opera Spectacular and Zhanjiang Cantonese Opera Evergreens by the Kreta Ayer People’s Theatre and Street Play by The Theatre Practice.

In the Festival’s Visual Arts programme this year, the biennial Month of Photography 2006 (Singapore) will bring together French Masters, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Doisneau and five new Singaporean photographers. Supernatural Artificial features contemporary photo-based art from Australia while Titled-Untitled, a project of the Singapore-India Executive Programme, will showcase 60 paintings by 30 of India’s eminent abstract artists.  Migration Addicts at Sculpture Square features site-specifc works of 6 artists Ang Soo Koon (Singapore), Susanne Winterling (Germany), Naho Kawabe (Japan) , Jin Shan, Huang Kui and Jiang Chongwu (China). islanded at the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore is an exhibition of works by 12 established and emerging contemporary artists from three islands in the Asia-Pacific region: New Zealand, Singapore and Taiwan.  The Scenic Eye at the National Museum of Singapore explores the meaning of theatre to visual artists.

As always the Festival will come to a breathtaking close with Closing Celebrations. This year Spanish troupe, Puja! performs K@osmos, an aerial acrobatic performance with live music, daredevil artistes, special effects and pyrotechnics in mid-air.

Be ready to explore, enjoy and experience the finest of the performing arts and a wide array of engaging programmes, dialogues and workshops at affordable prices and accessible venues. Join in the revelry and celebration of the many faces of the arts!

Annex 1

Festival Hotline: (65) 6837 9589

Festival Website: www.singaporeartsfest.com

Festival Email: NAC_ArtsFest@nac.gov.sg

Annex 2

* includes core, outreach and KIDSFEST

Information accurate as of 31 March 2006

Annex 3

Summary of Productions

(I) CORE PROGRAMMES DANCE