Calling all culture enthusiasts! Singapore’s premier performing arts festival is returning bigger and bolder than ever for its 48th edition.
The annual Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA) will be returning from May 16 to June 1, 2025, with the theme More Than Ever. This year marks the 48th edition of the popular performing arts festival in Singapore and is set to present a dynamic line-up highlighting Singapore’s cultural vitality and boldness in defining its present and vision for the future.
The 2025 edition will also feature its largest showcase of homegrown talent with 15 commissioned local works, the festival’s highest number in history, and will establish Singapore as a prominent city for the arts.
Festival director Natalie Hennedige reflected on the theme “More Than Ever” and said, “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.”
The Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA) 2025
From May 16 to June 1, 2025, the festival will feature the SIFA Pavilion at Bedok Town Square, which was created to foster collaboration, shared creation, and gathering through the conduit of arts performance.
Some of the works to be featured include the SIFA’s opening performance of “The Sea and the Neighbourhood” featuring visual artist Wang Ruobin, composer Philip Tan, choreographer Christina Chan with the Singapore Ballet, and video artist Brian Gothong Tan. This artwork is curated by SIFA and is described as “capturing the ebb and flow of Singapore’s collective past, present, and future.”
Another to be featured at the SIFA Pavilion is “hello, is this working?” by the Singapore theatre company Drama Box. Building from their work-in-progress show from last year’s SIFA, this interactive work invites audiences to reflect on the future of work and challenge societal narratives about labor.
Visitors and enthusiasts can look forward to local adaptations of international classics, such as The Finger Player’s adaptation of George Orwell’s “Animal Farm,” a contemporary reimagining of the Shakespearean classic “King Lear” by Ramesh Meyyappan, and more.
Visitors can also relive the history of Singapore, with the 60th birthday of the Lion City coming closer, through a multi-sensorial performance titled “Umbilical”, by artists Rizman Putra, Zul Mahmod, and thesupersystem, which tells the stories of people who lived through the separation of Singapore from Malaysia in 1965.
Other homegrown talent commissions include “Waiting For Audience” by Nine Years Theatre, which was also presented as a work-in-progress in SIFA 2024, and presents the enduring vitality of theatre as an ancient art form; “COLONY – A True Colors Project,” a dance production directed by Remesh Panicker featuring 13 dancers from Singapore, Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Japan. The production explores diversity and “celebrates the individual within an interconnected, inclusive 'colony' of souls.”
“PRISM 48,” a conversation series curated by writer, editor, and producer Hong Xinyi, is also featured by the festival. It explores and reflects on the multifaceted perspectives that shape Singapore’s evolving cultural identity that is anchored on shared arts and culture. This series will also include a range of thinkers and cultural advocates that will touch on topics like “What Difference Can Singapore Storytelling Make?”
The Singapore International Festival of Arts 2025 will also feature international works, such as “HOME” by Geoff Sobelle, “Told By Mother” by Ali Chahrour, and “Vampyr” by Manuela Infante.
Little SIFA also makes a return for the 2025 edition, offering a curated series of family-friendly programmes by homegrown talents for two weekends and featuring diverse art forms. These include “The House Between the Winds” by Singaporean artist Yang Jie and a 30-minute performance of The Finger Player’s “Animal Farm” adaptation.
Much like its first iteration, Little SIFA aims to expose children to these artworks and to engage them with Singapore’s vibrant art landscapes at a young age through a range of activities and performances.
Early bird tickets for SIFA 2025 are now available from Mar. 11 to April 14, 2025, giving a 20% discount for SIFA-goers. You can buy the tickets on the SIFA 2025 website, Phone Booking, and BookMyShow.
For more updates, visit the Singapore International Festival of Arts website, Facebook, X (Formerly Twitter), and Instagram pages.
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