High Arts For Everyone

Festival director Natalie Hennedige's swansong embraces diversity and accessibility without dumbing down

- Clement Yong

Straightforward celebrations can make for boring art. In the year of SG60, the heavy duty fell upon Singapore International Festival of Arts (Sifa) director Natalie Hennedige to programme a three-weekend-long festival that could imbue official patriotism with the necessary complexity.

Hennedige, known for her metatheatrical, highbrow aesthetic, responded with innovation for her fourth festival. Her 2025 commissions—including a record 15 works from local groups—expanded inclusivity and accessibility while remaining true to Sifa's mandate to push artistic boundaries, in part by taking her erudition down a notch.

From bite-size experiences to inviting differently abled performers to carve out space at Sifa, it was an edition that democratised the arts without dumbing down. The departing director signed off with a very personal valentine to a Singapore that she hopes, in line with the festival's theme More Than Ever, will be open to embracing the arts as everyday.

The public push began with her opening gambit on May 16, when she relocated Sifa's curtain-raiser from its traditional home ground of indoor theatres to the community square next to Bedok Interchange Hawker Centre.

The heartland pavilion hosted the opening act Pact Of Water and attracted throngs of spontaneous watchers. They crowded around and stared transfixed as the Singapore Ballet's hour-long performance, choreographed by Christina Chan, veered from the energetic to tender, eluding easy, literal interpretation.

On artistic merit alone, the overall work was uneven. But the playground of a kinetic coral-inspired stage—plastic bottles rising and falling through openings—and the grandiosity of a live orchestra and video projections made for a visceral communal experience.