SINGAPORE - A film set of sorts has sprouted at a patch of grass in front of the Cathay Building in Handy Road.

The Cathay Hotel, the tent-pole attraction of the Singapore Night Festival, will welcome visitors to a Cathay film multiverse from Aug 19.

As visitors wander through its six rooms, they will meet characters such as Mambo Girl from the titular 1957 Cathay film and the protagonist from the 1958 horror film Serangan Orang Minyak (The Oily Man).

The work's creator Justin Loke, co-founder of art collective Vertical Submarine, is fascinated with old films which capture Singapore's lost landscapes.

The 42-year-old says his work draws inspiration from the Cathay studio's storied past. "In history, there are always gaps and these are areas where I can create myths and fiction. I want to contribute to this myth-making. We have national history, so I'm not out to revise or contest it, but to add to it," he says.

The show's director, veteran theatre-maker Jeremiah Choy, 60, says: "We want to generate interest in people, help them rediscover these films. We parody and pay tribute to these characters."

He is quick to emphasise that Cathay Hotel is not a full theatrical experience, but an "architectural site-specific work".

He says: "The design of the rooms is just beautiful. I want people to have time to stop and take selfies."

This original commission also marks a new direction for Singapore's oldest large-scale night festival, which is rediscovering its roots in the Bras Basah-Bugis precinct and focusing on commissioning more home-grown artists to create works which relate to the neighbourhood.

First-time festival director David Chew, 41, says the pandemic-enforced hiatus for the 14-year-old event prompted a review as there are other competing evening festivals now on the calendar.

The conclusion from surveys and focus group sessions was that the neighbourhood is the night festival's unique selling point. "You have the old and the new, there are HDB flats and hipster cafes. There's so much texture and flavour. This is the distinctive identity of the night festival.

"Our brief to artists is, whatever you do, you have respond to Bras Basah-Bugis history. The works will all be site-specific."

Hence programmes such as Yesterday Once More: Queen Street, which brings together performers from Euphoria Pole & Aerial Studio, Chowk Productions and CJ Bubble Girl to a soundtrack composed by Inch Chua and Tim De Cotta.

Chua, 33, says that while the performing art genres seem disparate, there is method to the madness. "What I like is genuine collaboration and I really do believe all art forms can find some common ground," she adds.

CJ Bubble Girl, a performer who specialises in creating bubbles, will collaborate with Chowk's contemporary Odissi dancers to tell the story of the dhobies, or Indian laundry men, who used to live in the neighbourhood.

Chua spent a few weeks researching the street's history and serendipitously found someone who was born in Queen Street and lived there throughout the Japanese Occupation. Auntie Cecilia's story is one of four stories woven into the narrative, which visitors to the festival can access on the Cinewav app.

Singer-songwriter Chua says: "I love the medium of sonic storytelling, and in a sonic play, people get to travel in their heads."

While previous festivals imported plenty of spectacular international acts, Mr Chew says he is moving away from circus spectacles to more local works. It is also part of a strategic repositioning of the festival in the context of other events in Singapore's increasingly crowded arts scene.

"We want to use the festival as a platform for capability development for local artists," he says. "We are talking to other festivals such as the Singapore International Festival of the Arts (Sifa) to see how we can link up with them and, hopefully, create a developmental pipeline for artists."

Younger artists taking part in this year's festival are already benefiting from some of these initiatives.

Visual artist and graphic designer Toby Tan Xun Yi, also known as tobyato, has tried his hand at making three-dimensional objects for the first time in his commission for the festival.

The 28-year-old has created giant inflatables for the tobyato bird pitstop, inspired by the William Farquhar collection of 19th-century natural history drawings.

The visual artist is happy to be given the opportunity to try something new. "As a primarily 2D artist who is more used to murals and brand collaborations, translating my work into a 3D inflatable sculpture was really exciting and challenging."

Visual artist Amanda Tan, 36, was invited by the festival to attend a masterclass on projection mapping and has created a light work for the first time which will be featured on the Stamford clock tower at Stamford Court.

She says: "I am always looking for opportunities to expand and learn. The prospect of being inspired and showing new work was appealing as well. The class gave a deeper insight into how to create a live visual experience using Disguise, a complex but very versatile platform."

Loke notes that the festival has marked several milestones in his career. Vertical Submarine first participated in 2010, creating a tongue-in-cheek Abusement Park which attracted long queues of visitors, and in 2014. The 2010 experience, he recalls, was like "a kampung".

He says: "It was like a school undergraduate project. But 10 years later, people still mention Abusement Park."

Just as that work opened doors for the then young collective, Loke is hoping Cathay Hotel might go on to bigger and better things. "The aim is for the show to travel. Hopefully, Sifa and the Singapore Tourism Board might promote it."

Book It

Cathay Hotel: The Curse Of The Missing Red Shoe

Where: Cathay Green
When: Aug 19 and 20, Aug 24 to 26, 7.30 and 8.45pm, with additional shows at 10pm on Fridays and Saturdays
Admission: $33 a person, $112 for a bundle of four tickets

Yesterday Once More: Queen Street

Where: Various locations in Queen Street
When: Aug 19 and 20, Aug 26 and 27, 8.30 and 9.30pm
Admission: Free

tobyato bird pitstop

Where: Various locations at Fort Canning Park
When: Aug 19 to 27
Admission: Free
Info: Night Festival website