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THE RIGHT CHANNEL: In Homocatodicus, actors from The Excuse Theatre Company amused onlookers at Raffles Place with a whimsical street theatre performance. It was one of over 400 outreach events during the Singapore Arts Festival. -- PHOTOS: NATIONAL ARTS COUNCIL
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ON PAPER, it looked like a happy 30th birthday for the Singapore Arts Festival, which closed on a high note last Sunday.
Attendance was at a three-year high, bucking the trend of falling figures for the past two years.
But the annual arts extravaganza seemed unable to shake off the perception that its programming could do with a little more pizzazz.
The good news: The five-week-long arts extravaganza drew 718,542 people to its 22 core shows and more than 400 outreach programmes. It topped last year's 522,685 figure, and 2005's 601,359.
The 20 festival-goers and arts lovers that Life! spoke to, however, gave a mixed verdict to the national celebration of the arts.
While two-thirds liked the festival offerings, the rest found them too safe. Most of those who liked the programming this year cited Sacred Monsters as one of the festival's high points.
The dance production - which was not sold out - was a collaboration between French ballet star Sylvie Guillem and Akram Khan, one of the hottest contemporary choreographers in London.
Ms Audrey Wong, 39, co-artistic director of The Substation, says: 'It was just such a pleasure to see Sylvie Guillem dance. This is what the arts fest is about, bringing in people at the peak of the craft and doing work so passionately.'
But others begged to differ.
Dr Robin Loon, 39, assistant professor of theatre studies at the National University of Singapore, puts it this way: 'It's not a festival you love or hate. It was very safe.
'It had your usual East European Shakespeare in Romeo & Juliet, your 20th-century realism in Beijing Ren and it had your avant-garde group in Mabou Mines.'
Dr Loon, who works with TheatreWorks, cited the company's 2000 pan-Asian play Desdemona as one of the love-it, hate-it high points of the festival's history. Shakespeare's Othello was turned completely on its head to include Myanmar puppets and a Kathakali actress.
The work divided opinion and generated fierce discussion in the media and in the arts community.
'There were few of such moments this year,' he says, lamenting the slim pickings for Fest Pest, Life!'s annual gossip column for the festival. 'I felt sorry for the fest bug, there wasn't much gossip and buzz for her to report.'
Choreographer-dancer Daniel Kok, 31, who took part in this year's Forward Moves, a platform in the festival to showcase up-and-coming choreographers, thought the programming lacked focus.
He says: 'It catered to a good variety of tastes, but the festival needs to have a critical voice. We need to find issues relevant to Singapore to investigate, and not just to bring in who is big and who will sell tickets.'
To vary the festival's identity and personality from year to year, theatre academic K.K. Seet suggests that an injection of new blood might be helpful.
New planning committees would stamp their different identities on the festival based on their artistic preferences, he says.
But festival director Goh Ching Lee's stance is that an arts festival's vision must stay consistent. She says: 'I've been made to feel that I must meet people's expectations of something new and different each year.
'There was a radical change in 2000 but, now, change will be evolutionary. If a festival changes its character every year, it's not a serious festival. It's a festival that can't make up its mind.'
The 46-year-old took over the reins in 2000, injecting a contemporary Asian flavour and edgier commissions to the programming. Since then, the festival has reflected the multi-disciplinary nature of the global arts scene.
As for programming buzzy productions designed to divide opinion, she says that 'controversy is not for the festival to create'.
'We look for interesting and insightful programmes,' she adds. 'If it creates controversy, we don't shy away from it.'
There were also those who felt that the quality of local productions did not match up to the foreign ones. This year, such productions accounted for nine out of the 22 shows in the main programme.
But they achieved an average of 74.6 per cent attendance, below the 81.2 per cent for all the core productions.
Poorest-faring were Dreaming Of Kuanyin, Meeting Madonna, a music and dance piece by Mark Chan and The Arts Fission Company, and Wong Kar Wai Dreams, a play by theatre company The Finger Players. Average house for the two shows was 59 per cent.
Alvin Tan, 44, artistic director of theatre group The Necessary Stage, suggests commissioning the works earlier and even having platforms to develop works-in-progress, to improve the quality of commissions.
He adds that the festival could also work with incubatory programmes offered by arts groups here, so that works can be played to small audiences before heading for the big time in the Arts Festival.
'We should help begin a mechanism for works to ready themselves for the arts fest,' he says. 'If a work can be premiered internally, then there can be greater quality control.'
But Ms Goh says that the festival budget, at $6 million to $7 million a year, does not permit such schemes. Besides, a longer lead time does not necessarily mean better work. She says: 'Time is only one aspect of it. There are other factors like the nature of the collaboration and the artistic input into a production. Giving a longer lead time doesn't quite solve the problem.'
While the debate rages on, there is no denying that for some arts fans, the festival continues to inspire and excite.
Civil servant Chan Cheow Thia, 29, who has been catching arts festival shows for the past four years, was impressed by the variety in this year's programme.
'The range of options ran from free shows to expensive ones and they were very interesting,' he says.
Natalie Hennedige, 32, artistic director of Cake Theatrical Productions, says: 'There was a great buzz this year and the programme was interesting. I could make a lot of meaningful compare-and-contrasts. DollHouse and Beijing Ren, for instance. I could see how two classics can be treated in very different ways.'
Toy Factory Theatre Ensemble's artistic director Goh Boon Teck, who caught four shows, picks Sacred Monsters as his favourite.
He says: 'It was nice to see the audience giving a standing ovation for Sacred Monsters. This is very unusual in Singapore. It shows that art is still powerful and people appreciate it.'
chiahta@sph.com.sg
'We look for interesting and insightful programmes. If it creates controversy, we don't shy away from it.'
Ms Goh Ching Lee, director of the Singapore Arts Festival, which included Cogito, the play by Checkpoint Theatre
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