Greg & Veronica's Singapore Update

Greg & Veronica's Singapore Update

Volume 9

Saturday, 28JUN98

"Life on the Fringe: Strange Fruit & Welshcake"

During the early 1980s, Singapore was in the midst of major boom; economic growth was in the double digits, unemployment virtually non-existent, tourism was at record levels and Singapore was being hailed as a modern Asian miracle. During this transition from an exotic port in the mysterious Far East to a modern, worldly center of finance and technology, much of the older parts of town were bulldozed down to make room for the skyscrapers necessary to indicate its new status.

Fortunately, before they were all destroyed, someone realized that these old buildings and narrow winding streets and alleys were one of the major things that attracted the tourists. And attracted them in huge numbers: Singapore, with a population of 2.5 million, was being visited by another 2-3 million tourists every year. So, the remaining buildings were left standing, to undergo massive renovations and pretty paintjobs. The results are quite attractive and picturesque but a little too clean to fit the image of the exotic and mysterious Far East. However, since the tourists keep coming (something like 6 million visitors last year), Singapore decided these folks need something else to see. So, Singapore is now the city of festivals! Every month another major festival. April had the Singapore International Film Festival with over 90 films from all over the world. Singapore hopes to become the Cannes of Asia; however, given the strict censorship of films and art here in Singapore, this may be difficult. Next month (July), features the International Food Festival (food, glorious, food) AND The Great Singapore Sale (an island wide, month long bargain hunter's dream). This month (June) witnessed the Singapore Festival of the Arts.

The Singapore Festival of the Arts was 4 weeks of more art (drama, theater, dance, music) then a single person could take. The main festival program was filled with 20-30 major international acts, staged in Singapore's theaters and requiring tickets. In addition, the Festival Fringe featured an additional 90 acts that performed for free at shopping malls, community centers and other public places (including the airport: each day 5 or 6 performances were held in the 2 terminals solely for the entertainment of the passengers arriving, departing or in transit). Greg and Veronica who had missed the Film Festival due to ignorance and procrastination decided to cram as much of this art crap into their heads as they could. Tickets for an ambitious slate of 6 main festival performances were purchased; and a large number of fringe events were identified as not-to-be missed. A grueling schedule of 3-4 performances a week was developed. We are happy to report that not only did your Singapore Dream Team survive but also virtually all of the identified must-sees were seen. The remainder of this newsletter will be a review of some of the events we attended.

Superfriends at the Hall of Justice - The month started with this locally written, directed, and produced theater piece. Although the festival program implied that this would feature a superhero disguised as a taxi driver, no crime fighting was involved. Actually, maybe there was. It is hard to say. While we enjoyed the performance, neither of us actually understood what we had seen (in spite of it being performed in English). We stayed after the performance to take part in a "Chat Session" with the play's writer and director. Since most of their comments included phrases like "post-modernist paradigms" and "non-linear story telling", we were happy to find out we weren't supposed to understand. One interesting point of contention between the writer and a member of the audience centered around whether the writer had chickened out and subverted the post-modernist approach by becoming didactic at the end. Veronica and Greg are divided, I'm sure you know who took which side. We should mention that the play did feature: several characters in tights, a man standing on a box throughout the performance changing costumes and striking poses, and a TV gameshow featuring Singaporeans (dead and living) vying for the title of "Superhero of the Millenium".

Alexander the Jester -This was an American juggler, acrobat and multi-flute playing water spitter initially dressed as a monk. Very entertaining and impressive (he managed to get more than 50 squirts of water out of a single mouthful of water). And people say Americans have no culture.

Strange Fruit - Weird, strange, and wonderful. Eight Australians (4 men, 4 woman) lashed to the tops of 12-foot flexible metal poles that sway and bend as the performers dance and move to music. This is a not-to-be missed event if they come to your town. Seriously. Eight Australians who came out, shimmied up high metal poles and proceeded to dance and move to music. The poles bend and move, the performers move towards each other and then away from each other dressed in garishly colored dresses and tuxedos, all 12 feet above your head.

Airborne Comedians - Just another two wisecracking American juggling unicyclists. A lot of fun.

Jazz in the Park - This was a jazz-filled afternoon in the Botanical Gardens. We sat on the grass and ate a picnic lunch/dinner while listening to three acts. Accoule Sax is a French jazz band from Marseilles that included 6 sax players. Very good. Blair's Bunch was a small American jazz quartet; not bad. World Beat was a collection of 8 or 9 guys from all over the world. Their jazz music included the sounds of the Australian digeredoo and Indian tabla (drums). Very good but we had to leave a little early to see the next event.

Ensembal Karel: Bike Orkestra - This is a Canadian group from Montreal that performs on Mad Max inspired bicycles and tricycles that double as musical instruments. Speakers, drums, keyboards, organs and a huge library of digitized sounds all come together to make a very odd event/sound. A little hard to listen to but a very interesting collection of vehicles. This was staged at the Creative Technologies Amphitheater, on the grounds of the Creative Technology (maker of the Sound Blaster computer sound board) corporate headquarters (they're a Singaporean company). Having seen both these folks and the Cirque du Soleil, we are convinced Montreal must be a very strange city.

Free Radicals (Sydney Dance Company) - Another must see. Even Greg, who isn't that into dance, enjoyed this. This was modern dance teamed with lots of percussion and amazing lighting.

Afrodonia - This was a Scottish African dance group; seriously. This group from Scotland combines Scottish and African dancing and music. Surprisingly, it works pretty well. Who would have thought bagpipes go with African drumming? We squeezed this one in during a lunch hour and were even dragged into the dancing. This established that Americans and Scottish-African dancing do NOT mix well.

Daiko Drummers - We saw two different Singaporean groups that perform with the Japanese Daiko drums. These are the very large wooden drums that make a really cool "boom" when hit. Greg really liked all of the noise.

Kannagi - Although this was billed as a traditional Indian dance performance, it turned out to be 2.5 hours of a modern retelling of a classic Indian story that featured much singing (in English) and dancing. Sort of like opera and ballet combined. It actually wasn't bad. More impressive than the show was the audience. This was obviously one of the big big events for the local Indian community and they came out in force and dressed to kill. The place was an explosion of brightly colored silk, gold and jet black hair.

Diary of a Welshcake - This was a one-man show featuring a young Welsh writer talking about a year or two he spent in Hong Kong. Parts were very funny, others very sad. It was very good and we both enjoyed it. (By the way, a "welshcake" is sort of like a scone.) We were accompanied by one of our tenants who happened to be in town--he travels a lot for business and it was nice to get a chance to get to know one of the people to whom we have entrusted our home.

Water Station - This was a 2-hour Japanese play that did not include any dialog, i.e. no words were spoken for the 2 entire hours (or 120 minutes, or 7200 seconds--it gave us time to do the math). The play centered around a water pump/fountain and was made up of a number of short vignettes. The playwright/director was heavily influenced by the ancient Japanese Noh theater tradition. For those not familiar with Japanese theater, I believe Noh is thought to be the most difficult to understand and enjoy; it requires an appreciation for that which isn't said. Two hours is a very long time and can pass painfully slow. Just so no one accuses us of being thick, most of the performance was filled with the audience fidgeting in their seats and/or coughing. The performance was noteworthy in that one of the Japanese actresses took off all of her clothes, every last stitch. This is quite a thing here in Singapore where FRIENDS and FRAISER are shown after 11 p.m. and Cosmopolitan magazine is banned.

Greg & Veronica