SIFA 2016: The Olympic connection, fashion statements

SINGAPORE — This year’s Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA) has a slight Olympics connection, while its pre-festival event The OPEN is also taking a more fashionable turn. 

After revealing in February the partial lineup for both events, the full list was announced yesterday at a media conference. The main festival, which will be held from Aug 11 to Sept 17, will comprise 20 productions, which include 15 new creations. 

Meanwhile, The OPEN, which will run from June 22 to July 9, will have a bumper crop of 43 programmes. And for the first time, it will include two fashion-related shows: An actual fashion show and a performance involving former supermodels.

Mexican fashion designer Carla Fernandez will be unveiling her Spring/Summer 2017 collection titled Dances And Ceremonies. But it’s no ordinary catwalk show — Fernandez has worked closely with different indigenous and mixed ancestry tribes in her country to come up with her designs. Elsewhere, prominent French fashion historian Olivier Saillard is presenting Models Never Talk, a performance where former supermodels such as Christine Bergstrom actually talk about their careers.

The OPEN has been described by festival director Ong Keng Sen as a “popular academy”. Coupled with the previously announced participation of Voice Of China star Perhat Kaliq and a reimagining of Singapore’s 1940s and 1950s night club scene in the Club Malam event, the presence of fashion events certainly puts the “pop” in “popular”. 

But The OPEN director Noorlinah Mohamed pointed out the inclusion of these events is not pop for pop’s sake. Fernandez, for instance, is also a cultural historian and her practice has an “anthropological perspective” as it connects her fashion sensibilities with what’s directly happening in her society, said Noorlinah. 

Club Malam is also more than just a retro throwback party. The multimedia event, which she had conceived, features eight contemporary artists and musicians such as Singapore’s Speak Cryptic, Brandon Tay, Eugene Soh and duo NADA, and Jogjakarta rockers Senyawa. But at the same time, it harkens back to happening music scenes in the mid-20th century such as in Gay World — which is near the Old Kallang Airport where Club Malam will be held.

As for SIFA proper itself, three shows incidentally have links to the Olympics. 

The artists behind the opening and closing ceremonies of the Athens and Beijing Olympics in 2004 and 2008, respectively, are presenting shows. Greek choreographer Dimitris Papaioannou is presenting the physical theatre-meets-performance art piece Still Life while visual artist Jennifer Wen Ma has classic opera The Peony Pavilion-inspired Paradise Interrupted. 

Meanwhile, Singaporean artist Brian Gothong Tan — who had directed the visual components of the closing and opening ceremonies of the Youth Olympic Games in Singapore in 2010 — is also presenting Tropical Traumas, a multimedia performance based on the writings of Sophia Hull (Stamford Raffles’ wife) and naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace. It will be presented at Gardens By The Bay in another SIFA artist’s installation site: Ron Arad’s 720 Degrees.

Performance and durational art is also big this year at SIFA. 

One of Argentine artist Fernando Rubio’s two works will involve Singaporean actor and director Oliver Chong living alone in a custom-built house at Marina Bay Sands Event Plaza for 108 hours and visitors can visit him or attend to his storytelling sessions. 

The festival is also holding a retrospective of seminal Indonesian performance artist Sardono Kusumo’s works, and a four-hour durational performance by Singaporean artist Loo Zihan and Kuala Lumpur-based Ray Langenbach. The latter, titled I Am LGB, combines archives and performances based on Langenbach’s performances in Singapore in the 1990s, when he was a fixture — albeit probably overlooked — in the performance art scene.

Another artist who had made Singapore home is also in the spotlight in Checkpoint Theatre’s The Last Bull: A Life In Flamenco, which tells the story of Antonio Vargas, who now lives in Singapore and is one of the flamenco world’s leading names. The choreographer is known for his turn in Baz Luhrmann’s Strictly Ballroom and for his choreography in Mission: Impossible II.

And speaking of iconic names in dance, American choreographer Bill T Jones returns to the festival after 2007 with two productions, including a new work to be done in collaboration with LASALLE College of the Arts students. 

This year’s theme Potentialities marks the third in a trilogy of SIFA editions dealing with “past, present and future”, said festival director Ong, who himself is directing the production Sandaime Richard, a playful take on Richard III. 

While the previous two editions under his leadership dealt with Legacies and Post-Empires, and took on large issues such as apartheid and globalisation, “the focus is now on individuals who are changing the world,” he said, point out its relevance in Singapore where we’re “always talking about the large, engineered plans but not the people in these large, engineered plans.” 

SIFA 2016 will run from Aug 11 to Sept 17, while The OPEN will run from June 22 to July 9. Tickets are set to go on sale tomorrow on SISTIC. For more info on the programmes as well as early bird and SIFA and The OPEN ticket deals, visit https://sifa.sg/