Art and more from Singapore

The Singapore Arts Festival comes full circle in its 35th year of celebrating Singapore's communities through rediscovering their untold stories, organizers say.

The festival will see Singaporeans of all ages and walks of life, and local companies, contributing.

"Through stories, legends and myths, the festival will bring audiences on a journey of self-discovery through recollections of their past and interactions with their communities," the festival's general manager Low Kee Hong says.

From May 18 to June 2, the festival will present 14 ticketed and 66 non-ticketed productions, presented by more than 500 artists and groups from Singapore and across the globe.

This year's festival will see the culmination of the trilogy of themes that started two years ago - Between You and Me (2010), I Want to Remember (2011) and Our Lost Poems (2012).

This year's program boasts a strong repertoire of contemporary works by local artists and groups, rooted in Asian history and culture.

Performances, such as The Flight of the Jade Bird by Mark Chan and Lear Dreaming by the Theater Works, employ a multidisciplinary approach, infusing various traditional arts forms with modern pop culture.

Performances will explore themes that resonate with any audience - love, identity, aging, education, immigration, and life and death.

Such works as Mammalian Diving Reflex's The Best Sex I've Ever Had addresses identity, love and aging through hilarious and heartwarming sessions with a group of local women performers.

The festival has evolved to become Asian-centric, Low Kee Hong says.

This year's talent hails from such places as Japan, Malaysia, Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland.

The festival will see Huang Ronghai, a rising young Chinese singer, participating as a bass-baritone in the Flight of the Jade Bird.

The work by Singapore's Mark Chan tells the fable of a young boy and a magical jade bird. The production will also feature Hong Kong dancer/choreographer Mui Chuek-yin and erhu player, Wong On-yuen.

Pipa virtuoso Wu Man will stage her first festival performance with Lear Dreaming, an intercultural music theater production based on Shakespeare's King Lear and directed by Ong Keng Sen.

Two projects will appeal to Chinese, organizers say.

One is Lan Fang Chronicles, a multimedia presentation by Choy Ka Fai about the extinct Lan Fang Republic founded in 1777 in West Borneo, Indonesia, by Hakka Chinese Luo Fangbo.

Held at the historic Ying Foh Kuan, the installation performance examines the history of the republic through a series of artifacts, archives and audio-visual works.

Another is Chay Yew's theatrical piece A Language of Their Own, which explores a story of love, lies and loss. It's a tale of four characters battling their own demons, while struggling to free one another from their ghosts of the past. In the process, they create a new language.

"(The festival) has become more of an international showcase of ideas, art and discourse, known for its bold and innovative discussions between vernacular and contemporary art," Low Kee Hong says.