Though the live season of The Studios 2020 was cancelled in April, the digital season of The Studios Online featured screenings of two new works recorded just before Circuit Breaker, plus six archival productions from the past 17 years and accompanying artist live chats. The six archival productions were selected based on connections to the 2020 season, and for their thematic threads that still resonated based on conversations that had emerged from reflecting on COVID-19 and our society. The live artist dialogues were a way to connect and create meaningful engagement between artist and audience, as well as to provide fresh insight on the works. The two new works were the audio play The Heart Comes To Mind by Checkpoint Theatre and Lost Cinema 20/20 by Brian Gothong Tan. Lost Cinema 20/20 was one of the productions that benefitted from the Digitalisation Fund which is part of the Government’s $55 million Arts and Culture Resilience Package (ACRP). The fund helped to cover the cost of filming the performance.

#THEATRE by design collective INDEX was an Esplanade commission presented at the Theatre as the opening production of the 2021 season of The Studios. This work by the collective, comprising lighting designer Lim Woan Wen, spatial designer Lim Wei Ling and sound artist Darren Ng, was a site-specific conversation with the Theatre, inspired by the stories and energies of the theatre space, crafted with the ephemeral language of light, sound and space. This immersive work, created as a poignant response to the closure of performing spaces in 2020, invited the audience onto the Esplanade Theatre stage to experience the quiet magnificence of the theatre space. The production included two performances for the design students of Nanyang Polytechnic. 

Targeted at budding artists and/or collectives interested in Theatre for Young Audiences (TYA) for ages two to six years old, developmental platform PLAYlab+ launched with an open call in May 2020. PLAYlab+ aims to provide opportunities for research and development in the creation of new TYA productions at the centre. Fifteen applications were submitted. A selection will be staged as a digital/physical presentation and others will be developed for future programmes in festivals such as Octoburst! or March On.

A special online edition of Esplanade’s well-loved annual alternative music festival, Baybeats, took place over three days in August 2020 on Esplanade’s social channels and Esplanade Offstage, with the videos available for viewing subsequently on those platforms. Baybeats Online featured music across a range of different genres, from unplugged acoustic sets to rip-roaring performances by metal bands, live and pre-recorded gigs, as well as artist live chats and panel discussions. Notable musicians featured included Singapore boy wonder Charlie Lim, popular actress and singer-songwriter Annette Lee, and punk rock stalwarts Iman’s League.

A key element of the online programme was a series of unplugged, acoustic performances by Singapore musicians and bands, each not exceeding 15 minutes, filmed at nine unconventional spaces in Esplanade, from the rooftop to backstage areas. A series of live-streamed gigs from Esplanade's Annexe Studio was another lynchpin of the festival. This was the first time Esplanade's Technical Production and Programming teams were live-streaming from that particular venue.

The November edition of Baybeats featured performances by some of Singapore's best bands and musicians such as Astreal, Opposition Party and THELIONCITYBOY which were live-streamed on Facebook, TikTok, YouTube and Offstage over three nights, from Esplanade's major venues, the Theatre and Concert Hall, as well as the intimate Annexe Studio. In all, 18 local bands and six overseas bands were invited to perform. While all the local bands were live-streamed, the overseas bands' sets were pre-recorded. Our collaboration with TikTok made Esplanade the first brand in Singapore to do a livestream with the popular youth social media platform. In addition to digital content, Baybeats also offered a ticketed backstage experience in the Esplanade Theatre for a small number of live audiences.

Together, both editions of Baybeats generated over 690,000 video views, making them two of the centre's best-received digital festivals or series to date.

The Baybeats Budding Programme is an annual mentorship programme open to youth musicians, writers, photographers and videographers. A total of 20 sessions involving 44 mentorship participants and 25 music industry professionals took place digitally. Notable mentors include music producer Leonard Soosay, journalist Eddino Abdul Hadi, photographer Aloysius Lim and video director Glenn Yong. 

Auditions for the Baybeats Budding Bands Mentorship Programme were held in August 2020.  Six finalists were selected from 20 participating bands, who then performed at Baybeats in November.  The selection panel comprised veteran music producer Leonard Soosay, musician Martin Kong, Andrea Khoo from the National Arts Council and Syaheed MSBI from the music distribution company, Believe SEA.

Pesta Raya Online featured nine new and archival programmes of music, theatre and dance, including an archival screening of the acclaimed Alkesah from Pesta Raya 2018, a talk show with music performances filmed from artists’ homes and featuring the likes of popular veteran singers Izat Ibrahim and Asnida Daud, as well as special content for families with young children. These online programmes were shared with various community partners that included nursing homes, senior activity centres and residential homes for youths, bringing cheer to the beneficiaries as they celebrated Hari Raya during this difficult time.

Producer Hanie Nadia Hamzah was quoted in The Straits Times saying that “we were mindful to choose productions that highlight the unique identity of the nusantara, that are across various genres and have the ability to reach out to audiences from all backgrounds and age groups. The productions selected also have the universal themes of strength, positivity and hope—timely reminders to tide us through this period and uplift spirits—even though we cannot physically be with our audiences and artists”.

In the 19th edition of Kalaa Utsavam – Indian Festival of Arts, Producer Rajeswari Ramachandran envisioned the importance of throwing the spotlight on the local Indian arts as it has shaped Singapore’s cultural and arts scene in more ways than one. The festival’s new initiatives included three digital premieres, an Indian classical dance open call targeted at dancers aged 15 to 25 and an eight-day digital marathon of hindustani music concerts. With live performances resuming in November, Kalaa Utsavam was a delightful occasion to welcome back audiences at Esplanade.

Esplanade presented its first ‘hybrid’ festival with an equal intensity of both live and digital programmes at Huayi – Chinese Festival of Arts. Playing to a limited number of audiences with safe management measures in our venues, the live festival ran from 19 – 28 Feb 2021. The digital programmes were available online for viewing till 14 Mar 2021. The majority of these were free and enabled more audiences to experience the stellar festival line-up.

We utilised digital technology to present the works of overseas artists in inventive ways. In Not Only Music in Anticlockwise, Hong Kong sound artist GayBird  performed ‘live’ via livestream from Hong Kong alongside Singapore’s Concordia Quartet in Esplanade’s Recital Studio. Esplanade also seeded a three-year collaboration with arts centres National Theatre of Taichung (Taiwan), National Kaohsiung Centre for the Arts Weiwuying (Taiwan) and Tai Kwun - Centre for Heritage and Arts in Hong Kong to create dance films and develop a cinematic language around movement. The first Dance en Scene was screened at Huayi.  

Among the live performances, Huayi’s five new commissions of Singapore groups and artists included Toy Factory Productions’ All The World Is One’s Stage and the puppetry work for young audiences Universe of Niu by Paper Monkey Theatre. These two productions were filmed and will be released in subsequent months as ticketed digital programmes. 

Esplanade’s Senior Producer Delvin Lee was quoted in Lianhe Zaobao’s cover story saying that “even though the pandemic has brought forth much loss in many aspects, there was also a growing acceptance and awareness that it was probably also the best time for humanity to take stock, reflect on life and how best we should live. For those in the arts, there were questions on the role of the arts in such times, and as we enter the 'new normal', there were also many reflections and experimentations as to how artistic expressions and presentations would shift.” 

We collaborated with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra (SSO) to release two never-before-seen performances of works by Singapore classical composers from the archives of both Esplanade and SSO. The recordings of Kelly Tang’s Two Symphonic Dances: Radiance and Spark , commissioned for Esplanade’s 10th anniversary in 2012, and Bernard Tan’s Guitar Concerto were released on both Esplanade Offstage and SSO’s channels in June 2020.

Esplanade continued to pursue a multimedia and multi-channel content strategy to keep pace with digital consumption trends among audiences, and to reflect our thought leadership and digital innovation in the arts. New content on Esplanade Offstage included the Making A Scene podcast series — also hosted on Spotify and SoundCloud — where artists and industry leaders reflect on topical issues, and the little red comma series which reimagined diverse works of Singapore literature through the interactivity, soundscapes and animation of digital media. The latter is a collaboration with the National Arts Council.

Esplanade’s Visual Arts series works with established and emerging artists in Singapore and the region. Highlights of the year included In Order by Fiona Seow and the vibrant underwater world installation Diver(sea)ty by Indonesian artist Mulyana. A retrospective of Ho Ho Ying’s works over the last five decades featured his abstract, figurative and calligraphy paintings, along with creative calligraphy works, sketches and materials from the collection and personal archive of Ho and his family.