They said that food and art bring people together and the recent Singapore Festival at Yangon, Myanmar certainly did that with a Singapore street party at Bogalay Zay Street.
Singapore Festival organised by the Singapore Tourism Board, with the theme, Passion Made Possible, is on the mission to make every passion possible with the variety of attractions available for our travellers to Singapore. Targeted at the 7 Passion tribes, or travellers, Singapore Festival caters to the Foodie, Collector, Explorer, Progressor, Action Seeker, Culture Shaper and Socialiser. And that includes Food and Arts & Culture.
Launched in 2016, Singapore Festival is an annual celebration of Singapore in Myanmar, featuring a highly anticipated Singapore travel fair, exclusive F&B promotions and attraction displays. While Singapore Festival 2017 presented shopping and sightseeing to food and music, Yangonites are invited to experience what Myanmar travellers have come to love about Singapore.
Fast forward to the recent Singapore Festival 2018 in Yangon, Myanmar in November. The travelling festival brought the street down with a party of the year for the residents in Yangon.
Inspired by Myanmar street festivals, Singapore Festival travels out of the shopping mall, bringing the best of Singapore to Bogalay Zay Street. The location was specially selected as the venue to showcase Singapore Festival due to its unique history, heritage and community engagements. In collaboration with Doh Eain and the Bogalay Zay resident and business community, the third edition of this annual Festival offers Yangonites a chance to experience the riches of Singapore’s culture through an exciting slate of never-before-seen food, urban design & art, music as well as film activities. A street festival of this nature and scale is the first of its kind in the Yangon events calendar, as well as for Singapore’s projects in Myanmar. In a bid to reach out to and enable more Yangonites and visitors to enjoy the festivities, the STB transformed the Festival from a mall-based format to an outdoor street event this year.
Celebrating Singapore’s & Myanmar’s Friendship at Singapore Festival 2018
The event was held at Bogalay Zay Street in downtown Yangon from the 30th November to 2nd December 2018. The Singapore Festival’s main event offered Myanmar consumers an experiential taste of Singapore – from world-class attractions, iconic architecture and delicious food to cultural heritage and boundary-breaking art for all kinds of travellers.
The locals in Yangon were treated to an exciting line-up of never-before-seen activities, ranging from food collaborations to tech-driven interactive art installations. Families partook in heritage games and envisioning workshops conducted by placemaking and urban rejuvenation social enterprise Doh Eain.
Apart from the Festival’s main event, visitors can continue to experience Singapore Festival’s in movie screenings, four-hands dinner and art performances throughout December.
• Union Bar & Grill hosted Chef Shen Tan (https://ownselfmakechef.com) for a contemporary Singaporean menu, available a la carte to customers.
• Rangoon Tea House hosted Chef Jeremy Cheok for a Singapore-Myanmar fusion menu, a ticketed dinner event on 1 Dec 2018 and a la carte is available to customers throughout the month of Dec 2018.
• Buthee also hosted Chef Jeremy Cheok, who created special dishes for the curry house, during the Singapore Festival 2018 event days.
500 Kyat Street Food Fair
Foodies at the Singapore Festival enjoyed a Singapore feast with Myanmar’s first ever 500Kyat (50 Singapore cents) street food fair. Our ambassadors in Yangon including Singaporean chefs, including Michelin-rated Hawker Chan and Chef Jeremy Cheok and other key F&B partners include the Pan Pacific Group, served over 3000 plates of Singapore delights such as Hawker Chan’s Soya Chicken, Roti Prata, Satay and injecting some modernity and fusion for the younger audience, Jeremy Cheok served his signature Chili Crab Samosa.
“Singapore Festival 2018 is designed in Myanmar, with Myanmar and for Myanmar,” explained Mr. Chang Chee Pey, Assistant Chief Executive, International Group, STB at the launch of Singapore Festival 2018. “I’m encouraged by the positive public response we’ve received today and would like to invite all Yangonites to come and savour Singapore cuisine, experience our never-before-seen tech-driven art showcase, learn about our iconic attractions and contemporary culture, and build a deeper connection with Singapore.”
Atypical Singapore Art and Augmented Reality Technology Showcase
Atypical Singapore is an art and augmented reality (AR) technology showcase featuring the works of seven contemporary Singaporean artists curated by Mr Khairuddin Hori, curatorial director and partner at Chan+Hori Contemporary. Seven top Singaporean artists participating in Atypical at the Singapore Festival are Eugene Soh, Daniel Yu, Amanda Tan, Gerald Leow, Angie Seah, Muhammad Izdi and Speak Cryptic.
Having been presented in Moscow earlier this year, the interactive and multi-sensory showcase made Yangon it first stops in Asia, to delight and inspires Myanmar consumers through its display of Singapore’s cutting-edge contemporary creative culture. The exhibits, installed across various locations along Bogalay Zay Street, are accompanied by AR technology developed to provide visitors with an unprecedented multi-sensory and revolutionary way of experiencing the artworks.
Live Art, Music and Street Performances
As part of the opening ceremony at the Singapore Festival, local celebrity and Singapore’s brand personality in Myanmar, He’ Lay collaborated with acclaimed Singapore rapper THELIONCITYBOY to co-produce the lyrics, score and music video for an upcoming drama, Where There is Love. Perched on one of the balconies of a shophouse in Bo Galay Zay Street, the artists wowed the audience with their duet.
Throughout the Festival’s main event, Bart Was Not Here, a well-known artist among Yangon’s passionate and boundary-breaking urban youth will be also creating an exclusive artwork on Bogalay Zay Street, inspired by Singapore and Myanmar’s energy, together with his crew Wunna Aung and Thu Myat. This mural will remain on display until the end of the year.
Street performers, including jugglers, stilt-walkers, magicians and jazz performers, will turn Bogalay Zay Street into a vibrant atmosphere, allowing Yangonites to discover new perspectives on art and culture.
Co-produced by STB and MRTV-4, Where There is Love is a 20-episode drama series set in Singapore and Myanmar. The series will be aired on primetime television (i.e. 6pm to 8pm) in the first half of 2019.
The Singapore Festival 2018 in Yangon, Myanmar ended on a high note with over 120,000 visitors at the 3 days festival.
