M1 Singapore Fringe Festival debuts

The annual M1 Singapore Fringe Festival debuted on 26 February 2005 and closed on 12 March 2005 at the Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay.^[1] It was organised by local theatre troupe The Necessary Stage (TNS) and sponsored by established corporate and state entities such as telecommunications company M1 and various embassies such as France and Israel.^[2] The festival was immediately recognised as a “serious contender to the more established Singapore Arts Festival.”^[3]

Festival co-directors Alvin Tan and Haresh Sharma, artistic director and resident playwright of TNS respectively,^[4] expressed that fringe festivals reflect the maturation of the local cultural landscape and act as a counterbalance to the surplus of mainstream/commercial arts events in Singapore, such as the Mamma Mia! and Saturday Night Fever Broadway musicals that had been staged a year earlier in 2004.^[5] Tan and Sharma also asserted that the festival is distinguished from other fringe programmes —namely the Esplanade’s Flipside and the Toy Factory’s The Fringe Festival — by being the “first to openly embrace non-mainstream, socially-conscious art works across different genres.”^[6]

The festival’s inaugural edition featured a line-up of 20 acts from various countries such as Israel, China, the United Kingdom, India, and Singapore^[7] and cost S$270,000 to stage.^[8] Its theme was “Art and War” and its programmed material revolved around the subject matter.^[9] For instance, the Pip Utton Theatre Company’s Adolf (U.K.) and Acco Theatre Centre’s Anthology (Israel), a dramatisation of Hitler and a localised re-contextualisation of World War II victims respectively, held their local premieres at the festival.^[10] Other highlights included the world premiere of Autumn Rain, a Chinese film on the Sino-Japanese war,^[11] and Sharma’s commissioned play, What Big Bombs You Have.^[12] To realise the festival’s vision of acquainting Singapore with alternative performances and thus becoming gradually more receptive toward such works,^[13] tickets were priced affordably.^[14]

While detractors of the festival variously charged that it should be subordinate to a ‘main’ event such as the Singapore Arts Festival and that the festival’s name lacked creativity,^[15] it was a success overall: there was an 85 percent attendance rate for ticketed events while more than 30,000 people attended its free programmes.^[16] This enthusiastic reception to the festival’s debut heralded a larger-scale sophomore edition in 2006, which boasted twice as many programmes and twice the budget.^[17]

References
1. Narayanan, S. (2005, February 28). Fringe benefits. The New Paper, p. 31; Oon, C. (2005, January 26). Fringe festival remembers the war. The Straits Times, p. 1. Retrieved from NewspaperSG.
2. Hong, X. (2005, December 15). More Fringe benefits. The Straits Times, p. 5. Retrieved from NewspaperSG.
3. The Straits Times, 15 Dec 2005, p. 5.
4. The Straits Times, 15 Dec 2005, p. 5.
5. Cheah, U.-I. (2005, January 14). A feast of fringe events. The Straits Times, p. 9; Chew, D. (2005, January 14). Fringe for the masses. Today, p. 46. Retrieved from NewspaperSG; The Straits Times, 26 Jan 2005, p. 1.
6. The Straits Times, 26 Jan 2005, p. 1.
7. The Straits Times, 14 Jan 2005, p. 9.
8. The Straits Times, 15 Dec 2005, p. 5.
9. The New Paper, 28 Feb 2005, p. 31.
10. Hong, X. (2005, March 3). The master and his victims. The Straits Times, p. 7. Retrieved from NewspaperSG.
11. Today, 14 Jan 2005, p. 46; The Straits Times, 26 Jan 2005, p. 1.
12. The Straits Times, 26 Jan 2005, p. 1.
13. Chew, D. (2006, February 22). A necessary REVOLUTION. Today, p. 42. Retrieved from NewspaperSG.
14. The Straits Times, 15 Dec 2005, p. 5.
15. The New Paper, 28 Feb 2005, p. 31.
16. Chew, D. (2005, March 24). Fringe festival draws 30,000. Today, p. 54. Retrieved from NewspaperSG.
17. The Straits Times, 15 Dec 2005, p. 5.