Singapore's Lit Up festival restates art
Organisers of Singapore's Lit Up festival say blending different genres is the key to the future of art, writes Clara Chow
An independent arts festival in Singapore is pairing up artists from different genres this week, creating strange bedfellows and reaping new multidisciplinary works.
Lit Up, running from Friday to next Sunday, will see performances, workshops and talks by 50 artists at the new Aliwal Arts Centre, a former school building converted by the National Arts Council to house arts groups and individuals.
Among the offerings are "She Walks Like a Free Country", a series of solo, duet and group performances by Jennifer Champion, Nabilah Husna, Raksha Mahtani and Victoria Lim from Singapore; and Elaine Foster, Sheena Baharudin and Melizarani T. Selva from Malaysia. "Un-Ending Literature of Singapore " is a durational reading of Singapore writing by Lee Wen, best known for his Yellow Man performance art pieces, working with editor-author Ng Yi Sheng.
Initiating new writers into the joys of flash fiction is Samantha De Silva in a two-hour workshop that will put participants through the paces of character, plot, setting, pacing and dialogue.
And while "Basic Lettering Strokes for Beginners" may not seem very performative, workshop leader Vikas Kailankaje, 29, the architecture-trained principal designer of Studio VBK, says it is a deliberate skill involving basic things such as "not tightening your wrist".