Festival Directors' Message
Welcome to the SMU Arts Fest 2024 - PLAY!
In today's unpredictable world, the theme of PLAY for our festival is both timely and significant. Play lies at the heart of creativity and innovation, encouraging experimentation and out-of-the-box thinking. By embracing play, we not only inspire our student artists to push boundaries but also create a space where the community can come together to create new shared memories.
This is why we are excited to collaborate with the Singapore Night Festival for the second time this year, anchoring our position as “youth party central” in the heart of the precinct on SMU Campus Green on the last two weekends of August.
Play allows us to celebrate the joy of art through the dynamic interplay of "the art of play" and "the play of the arts." It gives us the freedom to reimagine cultural traditions and blend them with contemporary influences. In our free anchor program PLAY BACK, eight of our talented SMU student clubs alongside clubs from Republic Polytechnic and Ngee Ann Polytechnic, will bring back pop culture from the bygone years, blending nostalgia with a tinge of Gen Z’s flair.
Play is also essential for mental well-being, offering a much-needed respite from stress and fostering resilience. It also provides a necessary outlet for us to process our emotions. To encourage experimentation and responsible self-expression, we created FREE PLAY, an arts installation inspired by the iconic dragon playground that celebrates the Year of the Dragon. You can interact and colour the dragon, and it serves as a reminder on the power of imagination and its resilience in overcoming challenges.
Through interactive and engaging play, we empower our audience, transforming them from passive spectators to active participants in the creative journey. For the first time, we bring interactive theatre to the festival with GAME PLAY, based on the game mechanics of Dungeons and Dragons. Here, you, the audience, have the power to determine the outcomes of the story, making each performance a unique and engaging adventure.
We are also thrilled to present SCREEN PLAY, a play on the word ‘screenplay’. This unique collaboration between our orchestra, SMU Symphonia, and choir, SMU Chamber Choir, celebrates the immersive and cinematic nature of films through music. Join us for this special one-night-only musical performance, enhanced with large screen projections.
Ultimately, the theme of PLAY encapsulates a philosophy that values joy, connection, community, and empowerment. And through PLAY, we hope to celebrate with everyone, the boundless capacity that the human spirit has for imagination and resilience.We hope you will enjoy this year’s SMU Arts Fest as much as we have enjoyed playfully creating it for you.
Weetz Seah and Japheth Ng,
Festival Directors
