The River Remembers an ambitious if patchy SG60 project

With dance and tableaux elements in addition to the music, Ding Yi's production was less than the sum of its parts

- Chang Tou Liang

CONCERT THE RIVER REMEMBERS Ding Yi Music Company Drama Centre Theatre Aug 16

The River Remembers is Ding Yi Music Company's big SG60 project, a multi-genre tribute to the history and legacy of the Singapore River, and the nation as well.

With music by Cultural Medallion recipient Law Wai Lun and playwriting and stage direction by Toy Factory Productions' chief artistic director Goh Boon Teck, it sought to capture the essence and significance of Singapore's iconic waterway within a compact 70 minutes.

It did so, however, in fits and starts. The premise was familiar as this was an expansion of Ding Yi's 2019 River Of Life production, also with Law's music, which had the coherent feel of a documentary and show-and-tell session.

The River Remembers took the path of a series of choreographed tableaux narrating the story of an orphaned baby-boomer Everyman from a humble 1950s childhood to the present of glorious fruition, and everything else in between.