SingartSingapore Night Festival 2014: Highlights
Art lovers are in for a real treat late this August: this year’s Singapore Night Festival’s line up of visual and performing arts are set to thrill and tantalize with louder, edgier and wilder exhibitions, events and performances, transforming the Bras Basah and Bugis precincts into a “Bold & Beautiful” theme park.
Primarily spread over Fridays and Saturdays during this month’s last 2 weekends, this 7th edition of the much-anticipated festivities promises to impress with a stellar smorgasbord of eclectic performances and extraordinary light art – all delivered by the region’s favourite explosive world-class local and international talents.
So gear up for 2 weekends of spell binding fun by marking in your diaries the not to be missed highlights in this bonanza event extraordinaire:
- Performances: William Close with ZingO, The 7 Sopranos & Phoenix
Musician and finalist of the 7th season of “America’s Got Talent”, William Close will transform the National Museum of Singapore (NMS) into a gigantic larger-than-life instrument – the “Earth Harp” – to explore the connection between architecture and music.
Brought to life by renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s belief that ‘architecture is frozen music’, Close creates hypnotic harpist melodies on the front lawn of NMS, as the all female operatic crossover The 7 Sopranos, from Australia, keep in tune with sultry serenades while local drum group, ZingO’s addictive heart-thumping beats and Australian Phoenix’s jaw-dropping acrobatics and pyrotechnics keep in time.
Close also invites you to run your hands along a smaller-scale “Earth Harp” within NMS, at the Rotunda on Level 1, to create your own rendition of beautiful cello-like tones.
Where: National Museum of Singapore, Front Lawn
When: 22 & 23 August
7.30 pm – 8 pm : ZingO
8 pm – 8.30 pm : William Close & ZingO
9.15 pm – 9.45 pm : William Close
10.30 pm – 11 pm : The 7 Sopranos
11.45 pm – 12.15 am : William Close & The 7 Sopranos
When: 29 & 30 August
7.20 pm – 8 pm : William Close & Phoenix
8.45 pm – 9.15 pm : William Close & Phoenix
10 pm – 10.30 pm : Phoenix
11.15 pm – 11.45 pm : William Close & Phoenix
- Performances: a dandypunk’s “Transcend The Box”
A former member of Cirque du Soleil, the American digital light poet’s innovative live projection mapping show completely destroys concepts of thinking inside and outside the ‘box’.
It ingeniously uses digital technology to ‘paint’ light with his fingertips and interact with that projected on 3D objects to tell an epic story filled with strange characters, galloping unicorns, a massive vortex and treacherous landscapes.
Where : National Museum of Singapore, Level 1, near Food For Thought
When : 22 & 23 August
8.30 pm, 9.45 pm, 11 pm & 12.15 am
Duration: 7 minutes
- Performances: The Arts Fission Company’s “Follies For The Birds”
In a magical roosting place for migratory birds, the local dance company emerges as half-human, half-bird creatures that dance and play with a whimsical plethora of movable art installations, called “follies”, for their sheer amusement.
The poetic performance by this local contemporary dance company offers a temporary sanctuary of re-discovering the small wonders and beauty in everyday life and objects as it invites you to mull over the loss of natural habitats and personal space with rapid urban development.
Where : National Museum of Singapore, Level 2, Fashion Gallery
When : 22, 23, 29 & 30 August
7 pm, 8 pm, 9 pm, 10 pm, 11 pm & 12 am
Duration: 25 minutes
- Exhibition: Monster Gallery’s “Daydreams & Nightmares”
The homegrown creative printmaking studio entices you by asking: ‘If Van Gogh had a dream, what would it be like? Could Warhol have woken up in the night to visions of soup cans chasing him?’
And so beseeches you to come up close and personal with strange and bizarre depictions of the brightest daydreams and darkest nightmares of 13 Singapore-based established and emerging artists and art collectives through their original prints – all forged through woodcuts, linocuts, rubber stamp, silk screen, Risograph and Print Gocco.
Where: The Substation Gallery
When : 21, 24 – 28 August : 12 pm – 9 pm
22, 23, 29 & 30 August : 12 pm – 11 pm
- Event: Night Lights
With artworks by local and foreign artists, this year’s Night Lights pay tribute to the power of nature and the creation of light. As you make your way through the festival’s grounds, you will escape your urban jungle into magical forests transformed by beautiful light and sound.
French artist, Clement Briend’s “Divine Trees” ‘clothes’ the towering plants on the main ground in front of the National Museum of Singapore (NMS) with serenely mystical light projected mirages of divine figures highly revered in Asia, creating the surreal illusion of awakened deities looming over you.
Also from France, Agathe Bailliencourt’s “Landscape By Landscape” turns the pebbles behind NMS’s main ground into entities that glow, in the dark, to the mysterious strains of Morton Fedman’s “Crippled Symmetry”, making the place ethereal, ephemeral, intimate and yet infinite.
At the same time, MNS’s front lawn is comically alit with Singaporean artist, Ryf’s “Insert Caption Please”. The LED-lit screen is a giant speech bubble displaying thoughts and messages akin to comic strips and takes its cues from an imaginary world where everyone walks around with speech bubbles that reveal their inner thoughts.
On the other hand, the collaboration between Singaporean Randy Chan and British Philippa Lawrence births “Angles of Incidences”. A set of reflective multi-faceted steel structures, patterned with crystal elements, it merges into the landscape behind NMS’s iconic Banyan Tree to form beautiful geometric shadows under the light of the night.
The grounds of the Armenian Church are also hypnotically lit with light and sound by French artist, Scenoscosme’s “Alsos*”, an interactive installation where you shine flashlights at fluorescent flowers on trees that then enchantingly play a melody with an intensity that mirrors that of your touch light. Each flower has a different tune, and when more than 1 is simultaneously shone upon; you become splendidly immersed in a complex acoustic ‘star-spangled’ universe.
Then enter into the church’s sanctuary and be enthralled by France-based Korean artist, Taegon Kim’s “Dresses of Memory”. Breathtakingly woven from 40 km of fiber optic cables, they slowly change colour through the course of the night; thus appearing to float in the dark as physical manifestations of the blissful memories shared by couples who have chosen to tie the knot in this Armenian sanctuary.
Then there is Wecomeinpeace’s “Spirits of Nature”. From France, it transforms the Singapore Art Museum’s façade into a vast canvas that pays homage to mother nature: natural elements come alive with spirits of their own as winds rumble and blow, fires spark and nature blooms.
Cumulus Collectif’s “Cynanea”, from the French side of the English Channel too, sits like a gigantic floating living lamp at Cathay Green, enigmatically changing hues and periodically emitting bellows of smoke and sound – just like its inspirational muse: the world’s largest jellyfish, Cynae capillata.
Moving from the whimsical to the serious is another pair from the French’s homeland. Maro Avrabou and Dimitri Xenakis’ “Greenhouse Effect”, on the walkway of the Singapore Management University, transforms a lighted up car into a small, closed universe as physical reminder of its role in adding to environmental pollution.
And view it under the clusters of umbrellas lit up by the local School of the Arts’ (SOTA) collaboration with The Lighting Detectives (TLD). You can pick up these covers from SOTA’s West Plaza steps, after home-spun TLD enthrall you with their “Light Up Ninja” light and shadow activities there: like last year, they are inviting you, yet again, to create glow in the dark paintings, along with distinct shadows, with fluorescent pens and paints.
Playing with a careful positioning of lights and shadows too is the Singapore University of Technology and Design’s (SUTD) “Flights of Fancy”. To be created only on 22 August at The National Design Centre’s atrium, the sea of shimmering ‘butterflies’ will float heaven wards to inject into its immense space an idyllic atmosphere most conducive for true romance.
This then sets you in the right frame of mind to revel in the SUTD’s light installation, “Stop And Smell The Flowers”. You get to slow down and take time to do the small things in life, like searching for secret messages disguised in its flashing lights along the Singapore Management University’s walkway.
Its “Your Canvas”, at the National Design Centre’s courtyard, next entreat you to prolong your time of smelling the roses by turning it into a splashing goofy 1: you get the joy of playing with its floating ‘lily pads’. This small act of child-like wonder kindles changes in the reflections of water waves bouncing off the artwork’s walls, along with the accompanying shadows, light refractions and reflections.
When: 22, 23, 29 & 30 August : 7.30 pm – 2 am
24 – 28 August : 7.30 pm – 11 pm
Feature photo: Clement Briend’s “Divine Trees”. Photo credit: Clement Briend
Right photo: The performing Phoenix. Photo credit: Phoenix
