SINGAPORE — In a jam-packed arts calendar like Singapore’s, it’s no surprise some productions go under the radar. But next year’s M1 Singapore Fringe Festival will bringing some of them back in the spotlight.

Running from Jan 14 to 25, 2015, the 11th edition of the festival carries the theme Art and Loss, and will feature 18 events from eight countries. It also marks a new team helming the festival, with theatre-maker and educator Sean Tobin and Jezamine Tan as artistic director and festival manager, respectively, taking over from long-time festival co-directors Alvin Tan and Haresh Sharma and manager Melissa Lim.

The line-up includes six shows that are either restagings or have been further developed from previous shows. These include include With/Out, a performance installation by Loo Zihan based on The Necessary Stage’s Completely With/Out Character, a monologue by the late Paddy Chew, the first person in Singapore to come out as being HIV-positive. Staged in 1999, Chew passed away a few months after the production. Two more works by TNS from the early 2000s will also be revisited in the double-bill Untitled Women: untitled women number one and untitled cow number one.

More recent works will also get an airing. Playwright Joel Tan’s Mosaic, a coming-of-age piece centred around an ‘80s mosaic playground, was first staged at last year’s Lit Up Festival. The inventive White Rabbit Red Rabbit by Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour was performed earlier this year at the NUS Arts Festival and will feature a different actor for each of its four nights — Lim Kay Siu, Pam Oei, Karen Tan and Benjamin Kheng — who will only get their script on the day itelf.

Meanwhile, Pat Toh’s installation performance Terra Incognita was developed from the 2012 work-in-progress Homogenous and the online exhibition Mambo Night For A King by artist Jason Wee is based on a section he created for the recent Ways Of Wandering production at the Singapore International Festival of Arts’ The OPEN event. The latter looks at dance moves inspired by both the Mambo Nights at Zouk and text from former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew’s book From Third World To First: The Singapore Story.

“Usually in festivals, it’s always brand new work and often underdeveloped. I’ve been very mindful of making sure there’s good, strong local presence (but shown) in a healthy light as well,” said Tobin, who said that for this edition, they decided to go a bit more for work that had already been staged before. By putting an emphasis in restaging, hopefully it would encourage a groundswell of support for newer faces in the scene, he added.

But there will be brand new homegrown works as well, including shows and exhibitions by Shelly Quick, Asha Bee Abraham, ponggurl, Nguan and Tan Ngiap Heng. The latter’s exhibition comprises a thousand personal images taken with his iPhone, which viewers can take home with them.

On having a theme on Loss, Tobin admitted they were initially worried that applications would revolve around the theme’s more gloomy aspects but that didn’t turn out to be the case. “(There were) plenty of nice, strong stuff. Some themes of family relationships, a sense of fantasy and imagination,” he said.

Indeed, the festival will have some quirky international productions as well, including The Duchamp Syndrome from Mexico’s Por Piedad Teatro, which features marionettes, toys and an iRobot Roomba vacuum cleaner; and France’s Groupe ACM, whose Under Pressure—Temporary Title is a behind-the-scenes show about creating a play, which all goes awry.

The festival will also include a masterclass by TNS’ Tan and Sharma, who will present their creative process. There will also be two Fringe-related talks with some of the festival performers: Reimagining Singapore Theatre next month, Nov 22, and The Presence And Power Of The Playwright on Jan 25, 2015.

The M1 Singapore Fringe Festival runs from Jan 14 to 25 at various venues. Tickets at S$19 and S$22 from SISTIC. For more information, visit http://www.singaporefringe.com