Performing for Ghosts

Hungry Ghost month came & went. I don't miss the ashes flying about or watching out where I walk in case I trip over some offering. But I do look forward to the performances. Typically you either get the Getai, which I'd talked about here or the Chinese Opera. 

There were several going on in my neighborhood throughout the month. 

I asked around & made sure we went for one of the Opera Performances. 

Not quite your Orchestra band

The Girl enjoyed the costume & the makeup. 

Since we don't understand Teochew,

we made up stories on what they were saying & doing on stage

Meanwhile the auction & feasting carried on. 

The performance was indeed for the ghosts & a handful of us. 

RWS Lion Dance Championship

Sometimes browsing sistic could bring surprising & unexpected results. Here is one of them. I found myself drawn to & hence purchasing tickets for the RWS International Lion Dance Competition. The blurb says the event will showcase internationally renowned lion dance troupes. Hey why not right ?

Every year without fail when we were kids, my father, being the businessman that he was, would invite a lion dance troupe to our house to perform & to do the Cai Qing (translated to mean plucking the green). A Chinese belief that it will help the business do well. I love to watch Lion Dance & nowadays apart from Chinese New Year & the occasional shop opening, it's hard to see them in action.

There were 2 days of competition. Semi finals on one day & finals on the other. I figured I'll get tickets for the finals & see the best in action. From 15 groups (not exactly international, they came from China, Macau, Taiwan & even one from Australia), it was down to final 8.

Being the novice that we were, we didn't exactly choose the right seats - it was free seating. We were looking at the performance from this angle as you can see from the above picture. The problem is that you actually don't see how wide the poles go nor how far apart they are. It was only when we view from the big screen that we could see the difference & appreciate the difficulties in doing stunts on them.

This was one of the Singapore lions that unfortunately fell midway through the performance. But they gamely picked themselves up & continued but needless to say had points deducted for the misstep.

By the time we left, this Taiwanese lion was leading the pack. Yup we left at break time cos the noise was getting too much for the Girl & since we weren't supporting any particular group (apart from Singapore), after watching 4 groups perform, that was enough.

It was an interesting experience - quite unlike our usual shows at the Esplanade.

Getai in our backyard

So we moved. Not exactly to the heartlands but definitely to a more local neighbourhood. Proof of this is the fact that a make shift stage was set up over the weekend for a getai show.

For my foreign friends, getai translates to mean "song stage". These are performances typically staged during the Hungry Ghost Festival (which is now) sponsored by the Chinese clan associations or businesses in the area. Gosh I haven't been to one of these in ages & when I realised that there is one right in our backyard, it was time to introduce X & the Girl to this uniquely Singaporean experience.

It was a bit of a lost cause of course cos they kept asking me what was going on & my Hokkien wasn't good enough to do a meaningful translation & X could not appreciate the kitschy appeal of it all. But it was a walk down memory lane for me & I'm glad all this happened right in my hood.

Hungry Ghost Festival occurs in the seventh month of the Chinese Lunar calendar. During this time, the spirits of the netherworld cross over to wander. Hence it is time for the Chinese to burn offerings, incense, put up performances to appease the ghosts so that they may enjoy their brief sojourn & return happily to where they come from.

Be it a make shift stage

there will always be fancy lighting, band & a very powerful sound system

Glam or Kitsch ?

Our fellow audience members

Night festival

We love the Night Festival organised by the National Museum. We've been going to them the past 2 years - you can read about them here & here. This year it was no exception & the best thing is that they have extended it to 2 weekends.

One night in the museum

Eva Quartet singing Bulgarian folk songs

The Museum Rotunda provided good acoustics

This was my favorite

Marco Polo by Taiyuan Puppet Theatre

The story of Marco Polo performed in Hokkien & Italian !

(with subtitles of course)

Parking Mad by Benedetto Buffalino

parked Volvo cars in front of SAM flashing red & white lights from within

a crowd favorite

Curiosities by Alain Benini

Jellyfish attack - courtyard of SAM

Beautiful

Since it was raining on Saturday night & most of the events were pushed back, we headed over to the Peranakan Museum for their Night Ride programme.

The Girl got to do her sand art in their glow in the dark room.

Always popular with the children

Performance by Fusion Beats

Our biggest disappointment was not being able to catch the highlight of the Festival - Corazon de Angeles in Paradise. Originally scheduled for 10.30pm (which is already late for the little one) but got pushed back to 11.45pm due to the rain & there was no way she could stay up that late (she fell asleep at 10 in the cab on the way home).

There's more this weekend so grab a program & enjoy the museums at night.

Cirque Eloize ID

We just watched this brilliant show & I can't wait to recommend it to you.

I'm reluctant to call Cirque Eloize ID a circus performance cos it is unlike any I've seen. Like Cirque du Soleil there are no animals & both are based in Canada. But that is kind of where the similarity ends. This is a highly charged show with an urban setting. No glamorous costumes, the performers are in street clothes. Where Cirque du Soleil has haunting music, this here is rock, electronica & hip hop.

You get the usual contortionist, juggler, aerial acrobat, balancing chairs but done in a new & exciting way mixed with skates, stunt bicycles, skipping ropes & break dancing.

For me, the highlight has to be the finale trampoline act. The performance is done against a wall that is constantly changing with the video projection making it absolutely amazing. Catch the show while it is still in town, you won't regret it.

ilike ilight

You have till Nov 7th to catch ilight, a sustainable light art festival. It's free, it's beautiful & what better way to enjoy the lights of the marina bay area. We had dinner at One Fullerton & then made our way around.

Check out the website to see where the 24 installations are located. If you have an iphone, download the app. We didn't even get to see all of them. Here's a look at what we did manage.

The beautiful city that I call home
It takes my breath away

CBD has never looked more beautiful

The beautiful Helix bridge that links Marina Bay Sands

The *surf board* - Skypark, Ku De Tah & the infinity pool

YOG

The inaugural Youth Olympic Games that was held in Singapore just came to a close. I know the organising committee has gotten a lot of flack for the poor turnout at events, availability or rather unavailability of tickets, bad quality of food for volunteers etc. But overall we had a very good experience.

I had only myself to blame for booking tickets at the last minute so needless to say, by the time I checked all the popular events like gymnastics, badminton & swimming were sold out. My one suggestion is that they should have a way of letting you know which tickets were still available on a summary level instead of having to click into each sport & each date to find out if the event was sold out or not. Anyway I did manage to secure tickets for handball which I figured The Girl would find interesting as well.

Oh & each ticket for the Games came with a transit link card for 4 free rides on the MRT which I thought was quite cool.

Handball was one of 3 sports held at Suntec Convention Centre. Just before we entered the venue, we were given a little brochure explaining the rules of the game, which I thought was a very nice touch. I've never been to a sports event where they did that - they always kind of assume that you already know what you will be watching. I wonder if they do that for the Olympics as well.

What makes every sporting event interesting are the fans. There's nothing quite like sports to bring out the patriotic spirit in us. We didn't get to catch the Singapore team in action & when I asked The Girl which team she wanted to support, she said "Of course yellow, their clothes (I guess she meant jerseys) look nice" - you can't argue with that logic.

We caught 2 games - the first Angola 27 vs Brazil 30. It was an exciting game. Both teams were quite closely matched & the yellow team (Brazil) won. The second was between Australia & Kazakhstan with the latter being clearly a much stronger team. In case you are wondering, Denmark's the champion for Women's Handball.

I was quite impressed with the half time performances. They had MCs to get the crowd riled up, threw prizes into the stands & gave our students opportunities to perform.

Not exactly the Cheerios but they put up a very credible show

Maybe because it was Suntec, just outside the halls there were lots of activities

Art exhibition

Games

Performances

Not bad for $10. Where else can you get all these entertainment at that price ?