The Singapore Arts Festival is the premier arts activity of the year. I invite you to join us between 28 May and 20 June for a host of memorable performances.
This year is a significant milestone for the festival. We have combined two former biennial arts events - the Festival of Arts and Festival of Asian Performing Arts - into a single annual event and renamed it The Singapore Arts Festival. To project the new identity of the annual festival, a permanent logo has been created. Adding a special dimension to Singapore Arts Festival 99 is its status as a major millennium celebration event.
Singapore Arts Festival 1999 is an international arts festival with a strong Asian flavour. Just over half of the 67 core performances will come from Asia. In the core festival, 29 international and Singapore groups will offer an exciting array of dance, theatre and music performances from North America, Europe and Asia.
Highlights from overseas include Opera Atelier’s baroque opera, Robert Lepage’s multi-dimensional Geometry of Miracles, the Afro-Cuban All Stars, the National Ballet of China and Trisha Brown Company's contemporary modern dance.
Singaporean talents will enjoy prominence this year. The Asian premiere of Singapore Repertory Theatre's Fabric by Singapore playwright Henry Ong, or the collaborative contemporary ballet by The Australian Ballet and Singapore Dance Theatre, or an original composition Reminiscences of March by Phoon Yew Tien performed by the Singapore Chinese Orchestra are not to be missed. Also not to be missed are the performances of home-coming artists - toy piano diva Margaret Leng Tan, award-winning pianist Lim Jing Jing and violist Jensen Lam.
Kicking off the Festival will be Festival Village at Fort Canning Park, with the pulsating sounds of tribal and folk music and dance performances accompanied by crafts and glorious food. The groups will hail from countries such as Australia, Egypt, Korea, Mexico, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore. Bring your family to revel in this highly popular outdoor event. The Festival also features a vibrant fringe programme with more than 200 mostly free activities, in a variety of venues all over the island from shopping centres to outdoor parks.
There will also be a Kidsfest, a children’s festival themed on puppetry and a Late Night Series, showcasing new Singaporean works by young dance and theatre companies. Closing the Festival with a bang will be the Festival Showdown, a spectacular visual display of pyrotechnics, marching bands, barrels, cans, confetti, monsters and fabulous creatures led by Plasticiens Volants from France.
The Festival has been planned with you in mind. Do come and enjoy.
– Liu Thai Ker (National Arts Council Chairman)
(Source: National Arts Council Programme)