SIFA 2026: Chong Tze Chien’s vision for a city at play takes shape at Singapore International Festival of Arts

That sense of continuity extends to one of the festival’s most anticipated revivals—the return of Festival Village. Located at Empress Lawn and stretching towards Anderson Bridge, the open-access hub recalls the lively outdoor gatherings that once defined earlier editions of the Singapore Arts Festival.

For Chong, the decision to revive it is as much about atmosphere as programming. “It’s an opportunity for us to be one with the elements,” he says, “[during] that time in the evenings, [where] we don’t mind hanging out, perspiring a little because it feels good.”

His affection for the Festival Village comes with a personal memory. As a young intern at the NAC during the festival’s early years, Chong was tasked with handling practicalities such as portable toilets for the event at Fort Canning. In the rush of preparations, he forgot one crucial detail: lighting. The oversight prompted a last‑minute scramble before opening night, with colleagues working together to solve the problem.

What remained with him was not embarrassment but exhilaration—the collective energy that comes with making something happen. He remembers the crowds, the warm night air and the glow of lights under the open sky. The arts, in that moment, felt less like an institution and more like a shared celebration.

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The 2026 programme seeks to capture that spirit while expanding its reach across the city. The Festival Village will host Just Keep Swimming, Just Keep Swimming by The Theatre Practice, a participatory work exploring artistic lineage and intergenerational dialogue. Rupture by The Observatory unfolds as a sound installation at dawn, while Makan Culture transforms the Festival Market into an interactive performance space shaped by puppetry, music and Singapore’s culinary imagination.

After dark, audiences can encounter Automata, part of the Festival Late Nites series, while Festival Play!Ground extends Sifa’s reach into the heartlands. At Nexus in Punggol Digital District, the aerial spectacle Noli Timere unfolds above the urban landscape. Indoors, the Festival Stage presents a wide‑ranging line-up, from international productions such as Lacrima, Hedda Gabler and Hamlet to the homecoming of New York‑based Singaporean playwright Jeremy Tiang’s Obie Award‑winning play Salesman 之死‭‬‬, the bilingual (Mandarin and English) adaptation of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. Closer to home, works such as T.H.E Dance Company’s Strangely Familiar as well as Last Rites by Emergency Stairs’ Liu Xiaoyi, reflect the festival’s continued investment in local voices. Then there is Lush Life, a documentary performance bringing together singer-actress Jacintha Abisheganaden and her long-time collaborator and former husband, Dick Lee, directed by Ong Keng Sen of T:>Works. Meanwhile, The Lighthouse by Australia’s Patch Theatre beckons younger audiences.

Yet for Chong, programming alone does not define a festival’s legacy. Equally important are the structures that sustain artistic creation. One of his key initiatives is a two-year development model for selected local commissions. Artists may first present an initial version of their work at the Festival Village in 2026 before spending the following year refining ideas through research and experimentation, eventually returning to the festival in 2027 or 2028 with a fully realised production.

The approach reflects Chong’s own experience as a theatre-maker. Some of his most ambitious productions, including Oiwa – The Ghost of Yotsuya presented at Sifa 2021, have taken shape over several years, allowing ideas to mature and deepen. Singapore’s creative landscape, by contrast, often demands rapid output. “In Singapore, we work like a horse,” he observes. “We develop five new works in one year, which is very unusual.”

Such speed, he believes, risks reducing artistic practice to what he calls a “microwave culture”. Works appear quickly but may lack the depth that comes from sustained reflection. By slowing the process, Sifa can offer artists something rarer than funding or exposure: time. “It’s like ageing wine,” Chong says. “It needs time to age.”

Beyond artistic development, Chong is also thinking about how the festival connects with wider audiences. For him, it begins with framing accessibility not as an afterthought but as a central part of the festival’s design. He wants the festival to function as a gathering place where different communities encounter one another through art. He speaks about disability arts in particular, emphasising the importance of disabled artists taking creative leadership rather than simply being included in existing structures.

For all the strategic thinking involved in directing a major festival, Chong remains unmistakably a theatre-maker at heart. The stage still carries a particular power for him. “I always go into a theatre space and see its potential for infinite possibilities,” he says. “When I see a stage, I get very excited because it’s a blank canvas.”

Perhaps that is the quiet promise behind “Let’s Play!”. Beneath the phrase lies an understanding that the arts thrive not through certainty but through curiosity—through the willingness to experiment and discover something unexpected in the process. It is a modest image for a national arts festival. Yet perhaps that is the point. A festival succeeds not only when it dazzles, but when it becomes part of the rhythm of a city—when play, in all its seriousness, becomes second nature.

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