SIFA 2024: 7 must-see highlights of the Singapore International Festival of Arts

Over two weekends, homegrown theatre groups gather at the various spaces within the Stamford Arts Centre and 42 Waterloo Street to present new works in the making. This is an opportunity for audiences to get to know to witness the diverse practices of Singapore’s theatre groups, from The Necessary Stage and Nine Years Theatre, Pangdemonium to Teater Ekamatra, on a single platform and discover the full potential of the contemporary theatre scene.

From May 17 to June 1. Stamford Arts Centre and 42 Waterloo Street.

Suara is “voice, or sound” in Malay, while oro rua means “to resonate” in Māori. When put together, the power of the voice, along with what voices and our breath can bring into being, are explored in the work Suara / Oro Rua. With original music composed and directed by Safuan Johari and performed by Singaporean musicians and vocalists, as well as dance and movement choreographed by Eddie Elliott and performed by dancers from Aotearoa, this imagination of a distant, post-anthropocentric future takes inspiration from the Māori concept of Te Kore,  or the “void” that exists beyond the world of everyday experience, together with the sonic history of the Earth. 

From May 24 to 26. Singtel Waterfront Theatre at Esplanade.

With hundreds of illustrated paper puppets, two-dimensional props and songs, US performance collective Manual Cinema brings a theatre adaptation of Mo Willems’s books in Leonardo! A Wonderful Show About A Terrible Monster. This Little SIFA programme explores the unlikely friendship between Leonardo, a terrible monster, and Sam, the most scaredy-cat kid in the world, re-creating the experience of holding one of Mo’s signature big, bold and colourful books.

From May 24 to 26. SOTA Drama Theatre.

Through light, architecture and music, an artificial beach is created in the Esplanade Theatre and the “vacationers” in their colourful bathing suits are lying on the sand, while the audience observes them from higher ground, as if from the point of view of the sun. As the characters on the crowded beach begin to tell their stories, from frivolous micro-stories to more serious topics, including the threat of  climate change, the work culminates in a symphony. The ecological work explores how the human species consistently fails to recognise the urgency of climate action, when we ourselves are the cumulative cause. As there is standing room only on this “beach”, get ready to rise up and take action.

From May 30 to June 1. Esplanade Theatre.

Taking inspiration from E M Forster, one of the greatest English novelists of all time, and his letters, his life, and his novels (including A Passage to India and Maurice), playwright Haresh Sharma and director Chong Tze Chien create a theatrical world where reality and fiction intersect. In The Prose and the Passion, time is fluid and human connection is more crucial than ever, bound together by the characters of Forster’s novels.

From May 31 to June 2. Victoria Theatre.

Art, music and nature intertwine in this experimental short film, shot entirely on VHS with deliberate generation loss, by Singaporean film editor Natalie Soh. Taking inspiration from the enigmatic specimen ZRC_1_3200:3203 at the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum, the film explores the recursive nature of memory and meaning-making, featuring artist-jeweller Shing of Argentum, taxonomist Tan Swee Hee of the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum, and principal conductor Jason Lai of the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music.

Online from May on Sifa Digital.

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