Celebrate Our Vibrant Singapore Chinese culture

Cultural Extravaganza returns to celebrate our vibrant Singapore Chinese culture!

Cultural Extravaganza returns to celebrate our vibrant Singapore Chinese culture! - Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre

Cultural Extravaganza returns to celebrate our vibrant Singapore Chinese culture!

Cultural Extravaganza returns to celebrate our vibrant Singapore Chinese culture!

Singapore, 6 May 2019 – Enjoy a musical performance that boldly fuses Peranakan influences with traditional Nanyin, listen to multi-lingual retellings of lesser-known Singapore legends and myths, learn more about our daily cup of coffee, experience heart-stopping street circus acts and more! Come and witness our Chinese culture come alive at the Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre’s signature programme, Cultural Extravaganza 2019. Returning for its 3rd edition from 24 May to 15 June, the Festival will feature an immersive and entertaining line-up of programmes for people from all walks of life, inviting all to rediscover cultural influences intertwined in our everyday life.

Mr Low Sze Wee, CEO of the Cultural Centre, said, “Culture is all around us. Through Cultural Extravaganza 2019, we hope to cast a spotlight on the many ways in which our evolving local Chinese culture has influenced our social practices, language, music and other art forms. We are delighted to partner many local talents to present our culture in enjoyable ways through a diverse line-up of programmes. We hope that the Festival will kickstart everyone’s journey in discovering more about our distinctive culture, and inspire them to appreciate the strong connections that bind us.”

Local Partners Present A Feast for Your Senses

Participants can look forward to three weeks of programmes specially presented by local arts groups in fresh and innovative ways. It will be a treat for your senses from visually spectacular performances with heart-stopping action to insightful exhibitions about our way of life, soothing tunes that provide a respite from our hectic daily lives, gastronomical delights to delight our taste-buds and not forgetting plenty of hands-on opportunities at our workshops and fairs.

Cultural Extravaganza 2019 will kick off with a cross-cultural musical performance Memoirs of Nanyang by Singapore Chinese Cultural Contribution Award’s first recipient Siong Leng Musical Association. The musical tells a cross-generational tale of an immigrant in Nanyang who grapples with his constant longing for home. This performance will highlight the Association’s bold fusion of traditional Nanyin music with more contemporary Malay and pop tunes for the first time.

The Festival will also see the return of a hallmark of Singapore’s early entertainment scene – circus acts and street wayang. Singapore’s very own community circus Bornfire will be presenting Circus by the People (不马虎,不儿戏) – a visual spectacle of juggling acts, diabolo spinning, and aerial performances; while GroundZ-0 Street Theatre will redefine storytelling and uncover the lesser known legends and myths of Singapore with an interactive retro game show ISland TaleS – A Multi-lingual Street Wayang (岛屿传奇).

Culture in our everyday lives

Many may not be aware of the impact of Singapore Chinese culture on the way we live, work, study and play! Be ready for an exciting and enriching experience at Cultural Extravaganza 2019. Visitors can find out more about our culture through comics at the Creative Market, and craft products by local independent brands while shopping at the Sing Life Collective Market. Planning a wedding or reminiscing the day you walked down the aisle? Join us for a special exhibition which traces how Chinese wedding traditions of the different dialect groups have evolved over the years and reflect about how different it is then and now.

Visitors can also learn more about our culture through a series of hands-on workshops. A topic very close to everyone’s heart – our local breakfast, will be brought to the forefront at Nanyang Coffee Exhibition and Workshop. Participants will learn how Singapore’s quintessential cup of kopi, kaya toast, and traditional teh came to be through a series of interactive experiences by Kossip (口加口非). Other workshop programmes will allow you to hone your imagination with a Peranakan beading and tile colouring workshop; get crafty by creating miniature clay art pieces of local biscuits; and even try your hand at being a percussion artist with Drum Feng.

Visitors will be immersed in an auditory feast of original compositions across musical genres – from popular tunes performed by the Singapore National Youth Chinese Orchestra at Reverberance of Youth II and youth ensemble Reverberance at Evolution of Chinese Wind Percussion; swing tunes at Jazz It Up!; to Chinese chorale music curated by Singapore Chinese Cultural Contribution Award 2018 recipient Mr Lee Yuk Chuan for Our Home. Peranakan Sayang also promises a good laugh with their new song parody “Come and Play Mahjong”, at Peranakan Sayang in Concert.

ce-2019

The Festival’s much-anticipated finale, crowd favourite Sing.Lang Concert will also make a grand return this year, with local headliners such as Kit Chan, A-do, Nathan Hartono and Gentle Bones. Featuring stalwarts of our local music scene, to next generation singers, who are all making waves in international music markets, concert-goers can jive to a night of great tunes! Distinguished music producer for many of Asia’s top stars Ruth Ling will return to helm the concert as the executive producer and creative director, while accomplished homegrown music maestro Jimmy Ye will once again take up the mantle of co-creative director.

Through a selection of programmes that cuts across genres and themes, there is something for everyone at Cultural Extravaganza 2019 to enjoy and uncover the cultural influences in our daily lives. The Festival will be held across various locations within the Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre (1 Straits Boulevard, Singapore 018906). Registration for selected programmes and performances starts 6 May 2019, kindly visit https://www.singaporeccc.org.sg/series/ce2019 for more details.

For the full list of programmes, please refer to the [Media Factsheet].

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