The first sneak peek of the programme for the Singapore International Festival of Arts 2022 (Sifa) was something that those who saw it will talk about for years to come.

In what looked like a gorgeous cosmic collision between tradition and the avant garde, the preview performance mounted on Tuesday night transfixed its select audience, and heralded the much-anticipated tenure of Sifa’s new festival director, Natalie Hennedige.

Hennedige is well-known for her aesthetically-progressive, multidisciplinary productions for Cake Theatre, of which she is founder and artistic director. But she has never been given a platform this large and prestigious before.

Tasked with programming a mix of local and foreign shows for the national festival, one that simultaneously acknowledges cutting-edge art practices and preserves Singapore’s customs and traditions, she has expertly spliced a broad range of artistic forms to bring something utterly fresh and new to the table.

Tan Boon Hui, executive director of Art House Limited (the festival organiser) said in a separate speech that the festival seeks “to embrace the intersectionality of global artistic practices… beyond the silos of physical vs digital, local vs global, Asian vs non-Asian, and accept that contemporary performance globally is informed and transformed by its encounters with other genres and creative disciplines”.

As if the festival wasn’t progressive enough, Hennedige has conceived an even more radical component of the festival called Sifa X, which offers “alternative”, “wilder”, “more eclectic” performance offerings at Goodman Arts Centre and Aliwal Arts Centre. The inaugural edition is helmed by SAtheCollective’s artistic director Andy Chia, who will create works that evoke oneirism, defined as “an abnormal state of consciousness in which dream-like illusions are experienced while awake”.

Read the full article with the five recommended shows here.

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