Singapore held her first Night Festival with an evening of impressive performances by world renowed Studio Festi. This group is known the world over for their stunning outdoor performances. Among their performances include the last Winter Olympics and now the Beijing 2008 Olympics.
The newly renovated National Museum of Singapore served as an excellent backdrop to Studio Festi’s performance. The performance was held in front of the National Museum of Singapore and the grounds of the Singapore Management University.
Naturally, the performance was held after dark, but it started much later because of some congestion caused by some members of the audience occurring near the junctions. It was amusing to hear the announcer trying to keep her cool and repeatedly asking the people to move away from the traffic junction.
When it finally started, the audience was treated to a spectacular performance with featuring artists dangling from wires and doing acrobatics and dances. The title of the performance was The Dancing Sky. And it truly was. The dancers were very graceful doing their routine despite the fact that they would be hanging several meters from the ground. One of Studio Festi’s trademarks is the use of huge props that are hung from the wires or freely floating balloons.
The show was done in two parts, the first one was done in front of the museum and the second part was done in the Singapore Management University grounds. The first part consisted of performers hanging from wires interacting with props such as a ship which are likewise hung from the wires. Since all of the performances are up in the sky, it didn’t really matter much where the audience was. The road was also a performance area, naturally this would be off limits to the spectators. Several thousand people crammed on both sides of the street to watch the show.
Aside from performing at the museum grounds, there were also performances along the street infront of the museum. One of the more interesting ones is a ball with a dancer inside it. Not unlike a zorb. The ball was done such that the dancer is suspended inside the ball and when viewed from afar, it is as if the dancer is floating inside. As the performer’s assistant roll the ball towards their destination. The dancer somehow remains upright. It is also a wonder how they managed to put her inside the ball in the first place.
Imagine an entire grand piano dancing in the air. Imagine playing the grand piano while dangling from the air while one of your co-performers dances in the air. That was exactly one of the performances. While, it would have been a so-so performance for me, if it weren’t for the nice piano music. I also wonder if the music played by the pianist was live. Then again, the seat wasn’t really moving, so she might as well be standing still.
In my next post I shall continue with more performances from Studio Festi at the Singapore Night Festival.
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