RE:

Hellooo, Arts!

Having emerged from the cave of concentration, I’m now embracing Arts Festival buzz. Haven’t read enough to have anything substantially developed to say as yet but I’ve noticed the emergence of a few predominant threads of discussion surrounding the festival (besides the usual features publicising the events in the news):

• What seems to be the implicit censorship of theatre groups through the NAC’s funding mechanism. Digression: I just watched the CNA documentary on Dr Goh Keng Swee, and it had a soundbite of him going on about how the government should not provide for the soul (i.e. the arts), because that would be dictating to the people what to think.

• On a note related to that, it seems that the NAC also implicitly desires to curb the generation of serious art critique.

• Questions on the programming of this year’s Arts Fest: traditionally caught between showcasing the avant-garde and catering to the masses, the arts festival has decided to go by way of a more mainstream-inclined strain of schizophrenia which juxtaposes line-dancers, Joshua Bell, Emily of Emerald Hill and Peter Brooks. Some have commented on it lacking a coherent identity (reminds me of the arguments surrounding the SIFF this year…) Digression: today’s Life article featured the GM of the festival discussing the future of the festival’s programme. He’s going to push for premieres and more Asian representation, which all sounds pretty good. I was close to sold…until the article mentioned that he was making his staff read Monocle as part of the “research and rigour that is crucial for the curating decisions that [one] makes.” As much as I value Tyler Brule’s magazine for its luscious reporting on global trends, fashion and accessories like beautiful Porter bags, there are other places I’d go to for art critique.

Nevertheless, I’m looking forward to an entertaining festival, though I’d be regrettably missing most of it in between.