Singapore Fringe Festival

Introduction

The M1 Singapore Fringe Festival is an annual festival of theatre, performance art, film, dance, visual arts, mixed media, music and forum created and presented by Singaporean and international artists. Based on a different theme every year and curated by The Necessary Stage, the festival aims to bring the best of contemporary, cutting-edge and socially engaged works to the Singapore audience.

The M1 Singapore Fringe Festival is set to be a creative centre with a twin-purpose of innovation and discussion, a platform for meaningful and provocative art to engage our increasingly connected and complex world.

Previously known as the M1 Theatre Connect, it was renamed the M1 Singapore Fringe Festival in 2005. The inaugural edition of the Festival featured 14 works, and had the theme of Art and War. In 2006, the 12-day Festival featured a total of 51 works from 20 countries, centred around the theme of Art and Healing. The 2007 edition of the Festival was held from 30 January to 11 February 2007 had the theme of Art and Disability, and hosted a total of 22 works from 12 countries, reaching out to an audienceship of 153,000. The most recent Festival in 2008 took place from 16 to 27 January, focusing on the theme of Art and History. It featured 20 works from 13 countries, and had an increased audience reach of 200,000 through free and ticketed events.

Come 2009, the Festival's theme will be Art and Family, and will take place from 7 to 18 January 2009.

M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2009: Art and Family

(taken from the curatorial statement in the application form for the Festival, which can be downloaded [http://www.singaporefringe.com/m1sff09app.pdf here] :)

"Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family:Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one."- Jane Howard

Today, the term "family" extends beyond the biological and other limitations based on the traditional context of what a family constitutes.

Families could refer to anything that provides us with references to and support for our own identity. These can be networks within a geographical region, as well as communities that are focused along specific lines of ethnicity, citizenship, sexuality, age, occupation, language, marital status and so on. Families often come with their unique set of rules, rituals and icons – some families are driven by the fetishisation of these, others by the destruction of these same identity signposts. Families could now also be expanded beyond the tangible – in this technological age, they include virtual networks where members are as faceless as each decides to be.

Nations are also positioning themselves within "families". The growth of regionalisation indicates that for political and economic survival, it is imperative that we consider regional families to negotiate and develop socio-cultural understanding with other such entities.

"All humanity is one undivided and indivisible family, and each one of us is responsible for the misdeeds of all the others."- Gandhi

By exploring the myriad notions of “families”, we also need to look at what threatens to tear them apart. The fragility of our social fabric can be seen in the uproar that follows bombings and threats in countless cities in recent years. Racial and cultural tensions are quickly brought to the fore, and blame-games result in even more bloodshed, frustration and impasse.

As politicians and economists explore new policies to manage nations and foreign relations, the repercussions of these policies are captured and reflected back to us all through art. Art has the vital responsibility to address how communities inter-relate with the dominant culture or amongst each other; from inter-state to the inter-national.

ART AND FAMILY looks at the concerns of such communities and their struggles to gain respectability and acceptance on their terms. The M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2009 challenges artists to review our long-held principles, and to regard multiple forms of democracies as a necessary move towards addressing the problems in our present global village.

"A family is a place where minds come in contact with one another."- Buddha

External links

* [http://www.necessary.org The Necessary Stage]
* [http://www.singaporefringe.com M1 Singapore Fringe Festival]