About
21 – 24 June 2019
The Arts House
Presented by The Storytelling Centre Limited and The Arts House, StoryFest is an annual festival that celebrates and showcases a variety of styles, repertoire and cultural arts presentations of storytelling from Singapore and around the world. With the theme of ‘Make Believe’, StoryFest 2019 invites audiences to be open to new experiences and to allow their imagination to soar as they listen to stories that are beyond belief.
Our Asian premieres present the epic poem of Gilgamesh, the life story of Frida Kahlo as well as Celtic and Italian legends. Family audiences will be delighted by South American jungle folktales and partake in storytelling with music.
The festival features local commissions – the Young Storytellers Showcase ‘The Wings of Love’ presenting emerging storytelling talents, and The Singapore Showcase ‘Make Believe’ featuring storytelling and spoken word artists.
Through workshops and masterclasses by practitioners from Singapore and global experts, participants can identify the various ways of using applied storytelling in their daily life or in their work space.
This year the festival explores visual storytelling through a curated exhibition that encourages audiences to actively make meaning for themselves through the artworks.
The festival celebrates the spirit of ‘Make Believe’ with free community engagement activities to inspire conversation, the sharing of spoken stories and creation of visual stories – all programmed to get audiences off their digital devices.
2019 marks the third edition.
2018 : Be Legendary 2017 : Stories for Change
Festival Organiser
The Storytelling Centre Limited is a non-profit organisation based in Singapore. Our core mission is to foster and advance the art of storytelling through performances, collaborations, artistic exchanges, mentorships, training and community outreach.
The Storytelling Centre Limited firmly believes that stories are storehouses of Singapore’s unique multidimensional legacy. The oral traditions of folktales, mythology, legends and fables are avenues for preserving, showcasing and developing Singapore’s rich and diverse heritage. Our focus is on ensuring the sustainability of the art form by nurturing emerging Young Storytellers.
Flagship programmes:
- StoryFest: International Storytelling Festival Singapore
- The Young Storytellers Mentorship Project
Festival Team
Kamini Ramachandran
Creative Producer
A pioneer in the field of storytelling in Asia, Kamini is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts with a Bachelor’s degree in English Language & Literature (Hons) from the University of Reading (UK) and a Master’s degree in Arts Pedagogy & Practice from Goldsmith’s, University of London (UK).
A respected artist educator Kamini is a specialist storytelling lecturer for tertiary level programmes. She founded the non-profit organisation The Storytelling Centre Limited to advance the art of storytelling. She is passionate about the nurturing of emerging artists and established the Young Storytellers Mentorship Programme.
She is the creative force behind MoonShadow Stories, which spearheaded performance storytelling for adult audiences in Singapore and has produced World Storytelling Day in Singapore since 2005.
She has been featured twice at the Scottish International Storytelling Festival, Federation of European Storytelling Conference, Festivale Internazionale di Storytelling Roma in Italy, Festival at the Edge in England, Alden Biesen International Storytelling Festival in Belgium, Beyond the Border International Storytelling Festival in Wales, Sharjah International Storytelling Festival UAE, Hans Christian Andersen International Storytelling Festival in Denmark, Sydney International Storytelling Conference, Chennai International Storytelling Festival, Georgetown Festival in Penang and more.
Kamini was commissioned by the Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA) to produce a site-specific storytelling experience, The Hidden, as part of the Monuments Series. Described as “Singapore’s most mesmerising storyteller” by Professor Tommy Koh at the International Summit of the Book, she is one of today’s most unique voices in storytelling.
Tabitha Surita
Festival Manager
Tabitha graduated with Distinction from Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts majoring in Arts Management. Currently the assistant manager at The Storytelling Centre Limited, she manages artist coordination, programme scheduling, financial accounts and administrative work of the company. She has many years’ experience in office management for media and construction companies. She interned at The National Gallery of Singapore’s events management team, and assisted in The Children’s Biennale 2017 and the Yayoi Kusama exhibition.
Nur Diyanah Said
Production Coordinator
Diyanah is a graduate of the Bachelor of Arts Management (Hons) programme at LASALLE. She has been actively involved in various festivals such as Poetry Festival Singapore and the Singapore International Festival of Music. She has worked on the Singapore run of Ramesh Meyappan’s Off Kilter and produced works like Bhumi’s Charlie and Every Brilliant Thing. She is currently the Company Manager for Bhumi Collective.
Isabelle Yee
Production Coordinator
Isabelle graduated from LASALLE with a BA (Hons) in Arts Management. She has built her portfolio predominantly around project coordination and marketing. She has taken on projects with Singapore Drama Educators Association (Project Manager) The Finger Players (Marketing and Sales Executive) and CultureLink (Artist Liaison). She has also stage managed for The Rooftop Collective (06:59, 2016) and One Man Riot (Pull Up, 2015).
Sarah Amalina
Marketing Assistant
Sarah is a graduate of the BA Arts Management course in LASALLE. She has a breadth of experience in artist management and festival management, which include events such as the Singapore International Festival of the Arts, the Singapore International Film Festival and TEXTURES. Interested in theatre, she has worked with Spacebar Theatre as a stage manager for two productions: thisisemeraldgirl and The Utama Spaceship.
Media Centre
For more information, please contact:
Tabitha Surita
Festival Manager
The Storytelling Centre Limited
E: [email protected]