The annual Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA) returns from 16 May to 1 June with the theme More Than Ever. Organised by Arts House Limited (AHL) and commissioned by the National Arts Council (NAC), this 2025 edition of Singapore’s pinnacle performing arts festival presents a dynamic line-up that spotlights Singapore’s cultural vitality and boldness in defining its present and its vision for the future. As Singapore celebrates its 60th year of independence, the Festival marks an exciting chapter with its largest showcase of homegrown talent. It is designed to bring the arts everywhere, for audiences of all ages, and across diverse communities, establishing our identity as a creative city for the arts. Building on the theme, six curation strands guide the Festival and its programming: New Urban Realities; Classics Reinvented; History Reimagined; We, International; State of the Arts; and PRISM 48.
Unveiled by Festival Director Natalie Hennedige at Fort Canning Centre, SIFA 2025 will present an unprecedented number of 15 commissioned local works—the highest number in the Festival’s history—including two works-in-progress first staged at SIFA 2024. The quality of these works is a testament to our commitment to develop a performing arts landscape fuelled by artistic talent, excellence and innovation.
In line with efforts to increase accessibility for audiences from all walks of life, the Festival will also feature the SIFA Pavilion at Bedok Town Square, a transient arts space in the heart of the community that is charged with multidisciplinary artistic expression. With an emphasis on public engagement, the SIFA Pavilion is an arts touchpoint in our everyday spaces where Singaporeans live, work and play. It adds a powerful new dimension to the Festival’s relationship with the shared public environment, a common space where narratives co-exist. This year’s edition also sees the return of Little SIFA, situated at Empress Lawn, featuring works by Singapore artists, including an installation encompassing performance, and specially designed arts experiences for families and children. Through embedding arts experiences in key life areas, Little SIFA complements efforts to foster an appreciation for the arts in children from a young age.
Furthering its international standing, the Festival also continues to feature a compelling line-up of invited presentations, and a new international commission. Offering diverse artistic perspectives through high-quality productions curated for local and international audiences alike, these presentations support the development of a globally connected performing arts landscape in Singapore. By boosting the visibility of local performing arts practitioners, we are paving the way for more collaborations with the larger creative industry.
Reflecting on the theme, Festival Director Natalie Hennedige shared, “In a world afflicted with the rhetoric of divide, More Than Ever, we need to resist limiting binaries and relate to each other in nuance. In doing so, we uphold the station of the Arts as a vital space in society that explores differences in opinions, accepts otherness and maintains the past, present, and future as entities that perpetually influence and shape each other, engendering new narratives on a supple timeline that moves forwards, cyclically or in any imaginable configuration.”
Sharon Tan, Executive Director of Arts House Limited, added, “SIFA 2025 is a celebration of Singapore’s cultural vitality and growth, presenting heartfelt stories that resonate deeply with local and international audiences. Through the theme More Than Ever, we aim to create powerful shared moments of connection and reflection, honouring the Festival’s 48-year journey. We continue to make the arts more accessible by enlivening everyday community spaces with artistic encounters, and championing homegrown talent and showcasing Singapore’s creative spirit in fresh and impactful ways. This is made possible by collaborations with artists, stakeholders, and communities such that the arts can form meaningful and lasting experiences for all.”
Low Eng Teong, Chief Executive Officer of NAC, said, “SIFA stands as a beacon of both local and international significance, bringing together the excellence of artistic practices to capture the pulse of our vibrant arts scene. Locally, we aim for the arts to be infused everywhere and for the public to be more engaged with the arts. Internationally, as Singapore continues to build our position as one of the key arts hubs in Asia, the Festival also underscores our capacity to facilitate critical discourse and meaningful connections through the transformative power of the arts. Through platforms like SIFA, we champion the exchange of ideas, inspire artistic innovation, and celebrate the distinct practices that define our local and international arts communities.”
Experience the performing arts in new and unexpected ways
Against the backdrop of Singapore’s 60th anniversary, SIFA 2025 celebrates the nation’s evolving cultural identity by positioning Singapore artistic expression at the fore, while expanding global perspectives with the invitation of distinct international artists. Building on the tenets of the Festival’s 48 years of history and legacy, SIFA’s multi-layered programming embraces diverse contemporary expression, spotlighting the excellence of homegrown artists who play an integral role in shaping the nation’s unique cultural landscape and our continued dialogue with the world through the arts.
The 2025 edition features the SIFA Pavilion at Bedok Town Square, an environment created to engender collaboration, co-creation and gathering through the conduit of arts performance. Over the course of the three-week Festival, the SIFA Pavilion hosts multiple works that bring performance and the public together, becoming its own ecosystem that cycles through a multi-arts experience that sprouts endless creative possibilities. These works include:
● SIFA’s opening performance The Sea and the Neighbourhood is a multidisciplinary work inspired by Bedok’s coastal heritage, neighbourhood charm, and modernity. Anchored by a coral-inspired installation doubling as a stage, the presentation transforms the space into an artistic gathering of multidisciplinary expression featuring visual artist Wang Ruobing, composer Philip Tan, choreographer Christina Chan with Singapore Ballet, and video artist Brian Gothong Tan. Curated by SIFA, this large-scale work captures the ebb and flow of Singapore’s collective past, present, and future.
● Inspired by Singapore’s coral reefs and the nation’s ambitious reef restoration efforts, visual artist Wang Ruobing’s large-scale installation explores sustainability, climate resilience, and what it means to be a liveable island. Known for her environmentally minded works, Ruobing’s installation captures the public’s imagination as both an installation and a performance stage.
● Singapore theatre company Drama Box’s hello, is this working? builds on its work in-progress showing at SIFA 2024’s Tomorrow and tomorrow platform. This interactive work invites audiences to reflect on the future of work and challenge societal narratives about labour. It also reflects the Festival’s intent to encourage diverse ways of experiencing performance, activating new spaces for artists to reach broader audiences and communities by infusing the arts everywhere.
Connecting younger audiences to the arts
Little SIFA returns for its second edition, setting up camp at Empress Lawn and offering a curated series of family-friendly programmes by homegrown talent spanning two weekends. Little SIFA expands its scope to feature diverse art forms, including The House Between the Winds by Singapore artist Yang Jie. Set within a kinetic soundscape installation and performance, the work recalls the plantations that gave Orchard Road its name and the selfless trees that sustained its people.
Continuing the Festival’s efforts to introduce young audiences to the arts, Festivalgoers may experience a 30-minute adaptation of The Finger Player’s Animal Farm, where George Orwell’s iconic characters come to life in an unexpected setting. This production offers two unique experiences: the full theatrical presentation at the SOTA Drama Theatre and a free variation of the piece performed outdoors at Empress Lawn. In addition to these key works, Little SIFA aims to provide children with exposure to and engagement with Singapore’s vibrant arts landscape from young, by offering a range of activities and performances, from puppetry to film, to facilitate memorable art encounters.
Homegrown talents shine at SIFA 2025
SIFA stays committed to nurturing local talent and providing them with an international platform to reach more audiences, spotlighting Singapore artists through commissioned presentations. These commissions include:
● Waiting For Audience: Originally presented as a work-in-progress at SIFA 2024 as part of Tomorrow and tomorrow, this piece by Nine Years Theatre now occurs in its next iteration. Directed by Nelson Chia and Mia Chee, it explores the enduring vitality of theatre as an ancient art form, delving into the challenges of artistic creation and the timeless adage that theatre reflects society.
● COLONY – A True Colors Project: Directed by Remesh Panicker, this dance production features 13 diverse dancers from Singapore, Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand, the Philippines and Japan. Seamlessly blending live performance with raw, unscripted rehearsal room footage, COLONY explores the challenges and possibilities of diversity in human society, and celebrates the individual within an interconnected, inclusive “colony” of souls.
● In LEAR, Glasgow-based Singaporean artist Ramesh Meyyappan transforms Shakespeare’s classic through visual and physical storytelling. Collaborating with Scotland’s Raw Material, Ramesh explores the fractures in familial relationships and the corrosive effects of a patriarch’s deteriorating body and mind.
● Animal Farm, presented by The Finger Players, breathes new life into George Orwell’s iconic tale. This adaptation, directed by Oliver Chong, fuses masterful puppetry with rich theatrical storytelling to offer a fresh, visually stunning take on Orwell’s cautionary parable.
● In Umbilical by Rizman Putra, Zul Mahmod, and thesupersystem, the story of an island unfolds across time, navigating the interplay between natural forces and human ingenuity. This evocative work captures pivotal moments of transformation from ancient history to a speculative future.
The Festival also features PRISM 48, a conversation series curated by writer, editor, and producer Hong Xinyi. Titled to reflect the multifaceted perspectives shaping Singapore’s evolving cultural identity anchored on shared arts and culture, PRISM 48 explores our understanding of ourselves and our region, and the nation’s place within global artistic circuits. A range of thinkers and cultural advocates, who work both locally and regionally, will be in dialogue about topics such as What Difference Can Singapore Storytelling Make, exploring and reframing cultural narratives through the performing arts and beyond.
International perspectives at SIFA 2025
As part of the offerings catering to various audiences, SIFA 2025 also presents a distinct line up of four international works by artists creating with strong individual voices globally.
● HOME by Geoff Sobelle is a moving meditation on the relentless passage of time and a breathtaking spectacle of illusion, choreography, music, and storytelling that explores the everyday drama of what makes a house a home.
● Lebanese dancer and choreographer Ali Chahrour presents the second part of his trilogy on love in Told By My Mother, drawing inspiration from his family history and a fractured Lebanon. Joined by actress Hala Omra and the musicians of Two or The Dragon, the performance blends movement, song, and music rooted in Arab culture and urban sounds, evoking the deep and complex love between a mother and her child.
● Chilean playwright Manuela Infante brings Vampyr, a mockumentary that blends black humour with commentary on energy, labour, and environmental concerns. Set in Chile’s unregulated wind turbine parks, it follows shapeshifting creatures—half human, half-animal—offering a perspective that bridges European myths and the plight of Chile’s hematophagous bats. Vampyr explores the relationship between non humans (read: animals) and how we engage with their cultures in the context of mankind’s energy ambitions for the future.
Credit: Art Daily
