National Museum Of Singapore Opening Festival
2nd - 31st December 2006
National Museum of Singapore
Singapore
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The long-awaited National Museum of Singapore will finally be open in December this year. Unlike conventional history museums, the Museum will present the history of Singapore from the 14th century to the present, as a multitude of stories, using narrative approaches inspired by contemporary film, installation and theatre, with cutting-edge modes of presentation. More than just a space for exhibitions, the new Museum will also be a lifestyle centre featuring vibrant cultural festivals and regular seasons of live performances and film events.

The Museum will celebrate its opening with a month-long festival from 2nd to 31st December 2006, which will showcase outstanding performances from local talents and foreign groups, including United Kingdom, Cambodia, US, Thailand, Australia, Taipei amongst others. Don't miss the opening performance on 2nd December, Hydromania by Avanti Display, United Kingdom, as the National Museum building comes to life with an extraordinary outdoor water and light display performance.

Opening Celebrations

Festival
2nd-31st December 2006

Official Opening Ceremony
7th December 2006

About the Opening Festival of the National Museum of Singapore

In the rapidly globalizing world of today, cultural traditions and history take on a new urgency, not as fixed, unchanging constants from the past, but rather a cradle, a new source of ideas for the creation of new cultures and traditions. This dynamic stance on cultural heritage forms the basis for Wellspring, the curatorial theme of the National Museum of Singapore’s Opening Festival. The present cultural landscape is seen as composed of sedimented layers of old and new processes simultaneously, just like the Museum building in which the events will take place.

The artistic events in the festival – be it theatre, film, dance, music or visual arts – become opportunities and platforms to explore varying perspectives and stances that contemporary artists have adopted towards the difficult and complex issues of the relevance of cultural traditions to contemporary society. Beyond documentation, the performance and exhibition events in the festival demonstrate how each generation of artists create cultural traditions anew by reconstructing or deconstructing in startling ways those practices and forms we sometimes take for granted.

In addition to the performances and exhibitions at the Opening Festival, concurrent workshops, demonstrations, seminars and talks will add to the discovery of the influence in our contemporary culture.