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Trump, Brexit inspiration for Singapore’s festival of arts

SINGAPORE — The Singapore International Festival of Arts (Sifa) will return for its fourth edition in June under festival director Ong Keng Sen.

SINGAPORE — The Singapore International Festival of Arts (Sifa) will return for its fourth edition in June under festival director Ong Keng Sen.

It will be the last year that Ong will be at the helm of Sifa and, for his last blast, he is taking cues from global issues such as Brexit and the response to American President Donald Trump.

Thanks to world events, the guiding curatorial theme of the entire festival is “enchantment”, Ong told TODAY in an interview.

“It’s about being opposed to cynicism. This theme of enchantment is an antidote against populism, alienation, irrationality,” he said. The aim for each work is to explore how to stay connected to issues, to keep engaged in an age of disenchantment and growing populist sentiments, said Ong.

In fact, the festival programming changed “by 50 per cent” last November — the same month that Trump was elected.

According to Ong, his plans moving into this edition were “to keep the festival on its toes and (be) really responsive to what’s happening in the world”.

He and the festival team have “always said (this fourth edition) would be a wild card, we would respond to what’s happening (around the globe)”, he added. He did not specify which works would directly reference Brexit and the US President, saying that details would be released at a later date.

Sifa starts with the pre-festival, O.P.E.N. (which stands for Open, Participate, Engage, Negotiate), in June. Its main event runs from August to September.

There will be 15 commissions focusing on Singapore artistes and Singapore collaborations with international artistes, alongside seven international productions.

The public will be called upon to participate in a major way. In a special ticketed event to be held in a bungalow, film-maker K Rajagopal will film attendees, who will then be shown in one of the closing Sifa films.

Rajagopal will be making a short film inspired by Singapore-born writer Balli Kaur Jaswal’s novel Inheritance (2013), which follows the life of a Punjabi family living in Singapore.

The film is set against the country’s development era from 1970 to 1990. Attendees of that event will be featured as guests at a wedding, who will witness the fractures in the family portrayed in the book.

The film will make its debut on the last night of Sifa in September. Rajagopal is known for directing and co-writing the feature film A Yellow Bird, which made its debut at the International Critics’ Week at Cannes in May last year and also enjoyed strong showings in regional and local cinemas.

Other local artistes to be featured at Sifa include household names such as Sonny Liew, author of award-winning The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye. Liew will be creating a piece for theatre and will also perform for the first time.

The strong focus on local artistes and productions is part of the festival’s vision of becoming a “biennale” of “Singapore expressions”, said Ong.

Another opportunity for participation from the public will be part of O.P.E.N. Festival organisers are on the hunt for 150 volunteers, who will be “jurors”, offering feedback and contributing dialogue to three new scripts-in-progress by established playwrights, whose names will be released at a later date. The completed works will be read from June 28 to June 30.

Ong is hoping to engage those aged 18 and up. Those invited to participate include people in the arts, entertainment and media fields; education, youth and community services; law; and business and trade. But he hopes that homemakers will not be averse to coming forward to volunteer, either. No performance experience is required.

Last year, Sifa saw 155,000 in attendance, up from 62,000 in 2015. Last year’s edition featured 20 works of theatre, musical and dance performances, and installation art, compared with 66 works in 2015.

For more information on the Singapore International Festival of the Arts, visit www.sifa.sg. To participate in Open Parliament, email angelo [at] artshouse.sg before March 21.

CLARIFICATION: An earlier version of this report said the completed works from the O.P.E.N. event will be held from June 28 to July 2. The organisers have since clarified that it will be held June 28 to June 30.

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