If you thought Singapore was a country that was all too young, commercialized and antiseptic with a culture that was regimented, vapid and rootless—a city state with nothing to offer but shopping malls, themed bars and one too many fines—then you are so embarrassingly wrong and so terribly behind. The same people who transformed this tiny island country into a first world wonder in less than a generation with their tiger economy are now advancing their culture by leaps and bounds. They aren‘t just catching up with centuries-old cultures; they have arrived.
Hear the Merlion City‘s arts communities roar with one voice at the Singapore Arts Festival 2007 ongoing until June 24. The 31-day event with a budget of $7 million brings together 1,900 artists from 27 countries and regions for 486 performances and activities with a combined projected local and tourist audience of 600,000 attempts to transform the city state into Southeast Asia‘s cultural hub and international center for artistic synergy.
The arts fest kicked off on May 25 with Dreams in Flight, a free open-air performance of Spain‘s La Fura dels Baus in Padang. The performance began with a shadow play enumerating a routine life. Then dancers inside a giant steel wheel suspended atop a multistory construction crane rotated the structure with their body movements like caged hamsters. To further wow audiences, the towering crane moved the gigantic structure over audiences. After the structure was set down to the ground dancers made their way through the crowd formed a human pyramid several times. Next, 26 local volunteers trained and qualified by the Spaniards suspended themselves on wires and executed coordinated movements as a light show illuminated their bodies and jets of smoke spewed from their limbs. The finale was a fireworks display.
This foreign performance art group opened Singapore‘s Arts Festival with maximum impact. Though the shadow play and the fireworks seemed disjointed and superfluous elements and the aerial performances were more a feat of engineering than a display of artistry, the show created a spectacle that demanded awe from its audience through sheer magnitude and audacity.
Dreaming of Kuanyin, Meeting Madonna, a contemporary dance and musical play that premiered at Victoria Theater last June 1, brought together Mark Chan—counter tenor, Chinese bamboo flutist and pan-Asian pop music phenomenon—with multimedia artist Brian Gothong Long, contemporary dance choreographer Angela Long and the Art Fission company dancers.
The performance juxtaposes Kuanyin, originally a male bodhisattva [saint of mercy] that Buddhist believers have chosen to venerate as a female over the centuries, with the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus Christ, and pop star Madonna.
Interviewed during rehearsals, Chan reveals he was inspired by a nightmare where in Kuanyin revealed herself to him and cut him open. Baptized as a Christian at the age of 21, Chan sees parallelisms and interplay with the two faiths as well as with that of his pop star existence. He ponders, “If I wasn‘t famous, nothing would work.”
The performance is ambitious in scope, spanning cultures as well as musical genre and artistic disciplines and is exemplifies the creative synergy that the festival hopes to foster.
Equally interesting is Wong Kar Wai Dreams, a puppet play by the Finger Players that runs from June 13 to 15 at the Drama Center Theatre. The play expands the artistic horizons of puppetry in several directions. It refuses to confine the medium to children‘s stories. It tells the story of a woman who dreams that the famous Hong Kong film director invites him to be his muse and deals with adulterous longing. Company Director Chong Tze Tien explains, “They are trying to do the right thing but are following blindly.”
The Finger Players fuse several puppeteer traditions, from traditional Chinese finger puppets to Malay shadow puppets to French marionettes. Most importantly, live actors interact with their puppets onstage. Company Director Chong Tze Tien explains, “We no longer hide behind our puppets.”
More than a spectacle of local and international artistry, the arts fest is a showcase of ways to accelerate the growth of the arts: by pump priming, by luring foreign investment, by target marketing and by technology transfer. That means: adequate funding and building necessary infrastructure for artists; enticing foreign artists to reside; and workshops, seminars, master classes conducted by visiting foreign artists as well as collaborative works with local talents.
Singapore is applying the same marketing science and business savvy that made it a tiger economy to its arts. Nigel Sim, the festival‘s assistant director for corporate communications, revealed that event organizers have been monitoring the festival‘s attendees and analyzing their demographics. Knowing than many of the audiences are young, they tailor their festival program to suit their tastes while broadening their appreciation.
The Singapore Arts Festival is also an example of how strategically promoting culture pays the right dividends for a country. More than just a shopping or theme park destination, the island now entices visitors to stay longer with cultural tourism. More than entertaining locals and foreigners, the Singapore Arts Festival creates national pride through fostering a unique cultural identity. Be there and see it happen.
Source: www.manilatimes.net (4 Juni 2007)
