Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay's The Studios Turn 20 This Year

The Studios turns 20 this year. After two decades, Esplanade - Theatres on the Bay remains firmly committed to enable and collaborate with performance- and theatre-makers, to create work that challenges our notions of what art can be and do.

From 28 Jul to 3 Sep 2023, the season expands to include artists from a wider geography and companion programmes that enable deepened engagement with the artistic work and the issues raised. Through these interactions, we hope that we are provoked to think, make sense of and hopefully, make good of our collective human experience at this time. Besides the Esplanade Theatre Studio, presentations will also be held in the recently opened Singtel Waterfront Theatre at Esplanade, opening up the possibilities for art-making and performance.

Our overarching theme for the next three years is Land. As the Singtel Waterfront Theatre was being built, old photos we found showed how dramatically the Marina Bay landscape has changed. Between this visual reminder and the current local and global discourse, it felt urgent and fitting to look at land as our thematic focus for the next three editions.

For 2023, we turn our lens inwards and examine our relationship with land under the specific theme of Landings. How much do we know about the land on which we reside? What does it mean to us, and to what extent do we understand what we are trying to protect or preserve, particularly in Singapore where urban re-development is analogous to progress? What is the cost of this progress and what do we give up or have we given up, in order to move ahead?

The six productions and the companion programmes in the 2023 season are a starting point to examine some of these complex questions. We are ever privileged and grateful to build this conversation with Silke Huysmans and Hannes Dereere, The Necessary Stage, Joel Tan, Tan Shou Chen, Robert Zhao, as well as Dr Natalie Pang, Yong Ding Li, Esmonde Luo, and Centre 42.