Arts House turns 'dance club' to fete 10th year

The Arts House celebrates its 10th anniversary next month with a series of interactive events to engage the public in different ways over a two-week period.

The anchor show, announced at a media conference yesterday, will be an immersive visual and performance installation show. Titled The Next Page and directed by Chong Tze Chien of The Finger Players, it reinterprets the spaces of The Arts House, transforming the building into a dance club, a five-star boutique hotel and a bookstore.

During the show, which runs nightly from March 27 to 30, the audience will walk through a tour given by four "historians", before listening to an acounnt by a cleaner and eavesdropping on a conversation by a couple trying to salvage their marriage.

The audience can then visit the dance hall, set in the former Parliamentary Chamber. There will also be a literary maze, where visitors are invited to write their favourite literary quotes on the white walls.

"We tend to miss things most when they are gone. It's only when there's a void that we better appreciate their impact on our lives," says Chong, 38. "As such, I want to play on this sentiment with The Arts House's 10th anniversary."

The almost 200-year-old building, which was Singapore's first Parliament House, was renovated in 2002 to convert it into The Arts House. The Arts House was opened on March 26, 2004.

With the aim of promoting local artists and works, it now provides space for the performing arts, film screenings, talks and seminars.

Another event from April 2 to 4, called Night Walk With The Storyteller, has storyteller Kamini Ramachandran taking the audience through three venues previously inaccessible to the public: a storeroom, the rooftop and the back garden. The hour-long event promises a multi-sensorial experience, with food, scents and sounds involved.

Ramachandran, 44, co-founded MoonShadow stories 10 years ago, focusing on adult audiences.

The storeroom inspired her to narrate the French folktale, Bluebeard. It involves a man who marries women and then kills his wives in a chamber.

She says: "Arts venues including The Esplanade and the Arts House recognise storytellers and performance artists. They are not amusement entertainers at children's birthday parties and libraries anymore. That's what The Arts House has done for storytelling and I'm grateful for that."

Other events in the line-up include Going Places, a visual-audio installation exhibition featuring almost 30 recordings of poems by 25 poets, including Alfian Sa'at, Boey Kim Cheng and Edwin Thumboo.

Writer X Writer will pair off writers to critique each other's works. The pairings include Cyril Wong and Verena Tay, Isa Kamari and Mohd Latiff Mohd, and Rafaat Hamzah and Noor Hasnah Adam.

There will also be a debate where two teams of writers will debate the motion, Singapore Can Be A City Of Literature.

Other events include a free outdoor concert and a weekend will be dedicated to an open house where visitors can enjoy performances and workshops, chosen from an open call for submissions.

The Arts House director William Phuan says: "We want people to come and engage in the different works and also to rediscover this space.

"They can come here to encounter texts, performance, films and exhibitions to feel that this is all part of what they can enjoy."

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