Singapore Arts Festival
You’re walking, hair damp from the rain. Then, a peculiar sight steals your attention. She’s in a pink frock and ballet shoes, while he’s dressed in bright blue shirt with flamboyant frills. Piercing in her lip. Mona Lisa tattooed on his back. Radiohead is blasting through the speakers. Brash, loud, assertive and in-your-face.

Their quirkiness and dissimilarity seduce you, so you stop your march home and start speaking to them. You don’t understand what they’re saying at first, but when you finally do, you marvel at their insights and how much their actions reflect life.

That’s the UrbanWire‘s personification of the Singapore Arts Festival 2008.

To keep you updated on the culture vulture scene, UrbanWire has prepared a special 9-week Singapore Arts Festival edition that will last from today till Jul 13. In this edition, expect to find reviews, profiles about the interesting people behind these productions and feature articles that will discuss the different themes in the festival.

Here are our 24 articles:

Main Programmes:
Water Fools: Singapore Arts Festival Opening Show
Edward Clug: Choreographer of Architecture of Silence
The Architecture of Silence Gala Premiere
Lord Of The Rings Symphony: A Preview
no direction
Kok Heng Leun: Director of Drift
Drift
Full Frontal: Rhinoceros Preview
King Lear: A Critical Analysis
Small Metal Objects
Haris Pasovic: Director of Class Enemy
Class Enemy: An Enemy Of The People
Edouard Lock – Choreographer of Amjad

Singapore Street Festival:
Singapore Street Festival: A Preview
POWer Graffiti
Battle Of The Year 08

Arts On The Move:
Arts On The Move: An Overview
Association of Capoeira Argola De Ouro
Mayang Sari Fuses Old and New at SAF

Flipside:
Flipside: A Preview
Creator of Auto Auto: The Man Who Smashes Up Cars For Music
Auto Auto
Five Foot Mini Broadway Musicals

Festival Club:
Rock The Sub

This is certainly an enticing edition as the Singapore Arts Festival has moved beyond the usual and into the uncharted, and sometimes seemingly strange, territories of the avant garde.

Goh Ching Lee, director of the Singapore Arts Festival, told UrbanWire, “The festival have changed over the last 30 years. When the festival first started, it’s about creating demand for the arts. We wanted to grow the arts audience in Singapore – and I think we have managed to do that over 30 years – so the festival brought in many interesting and accessible programmes in the early days. With a bigger audience in mind, we are now moving towards a festival that takes a more critical look at the art process and the art work itself.”

In this edition, we will be taking a look at performances that range from the world-renowned to the esoteric gem, contemporary ballet to traditional music, and normalcy to the bizarre. Among others, we will be discussing themes of society, people, intellectual disabilities, marginalisation and rejection, and the unknown.

For those of you who are less interested in the arts, we promise to maintain our regular mainstream entertainment content.

But whether you’re interested in the arts or not, we invite you to join us in this journey. After all, philosopher Aristotle once said, “The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.”

The subject today isn’t just about the Singapore Arts Festival, dear reader. It’s about the “inward significance” that will resonate deeply within you, a significance that reflects the different facets of the sometimes contradictory and discombobulating lives we all lead.