A vibrant mix of free experiences, interactive performances and large-scale spectacles makes SIFA 2026 more family-friendly than ever.
Venue: Various locations across Singapore (including Empress Lawn & Nexus, Punggol Digital District)
Date: 15 – 30 May 2026
Time: Varies by programme
Fee: Free and ticketed programmes (early bird discounts available)
A Festival That Invites Families to “Play”
The Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA) 2026 returns this May with its bold theme, “Let’s Play!” — and this year, families will find more accessible and engaging experiences woven into the programme.
While SIFA is often known for its contemporary and experimental works, the 2026 edition introduces more interactive, participatory and visually engaging experiences that are perfect for families with kids — especially through its Festival Village and Play!Ground programmes. Here’s what families can look forward to:
Festival Village Returns — A Free Playground for the Arts
One of the biggest highlights is the return of the Festival Village at Empress Lawn, a free, open-access space designed for all ages.
Expect a lively, nostalgic atmosphere inspired by old-school pasar malam vibes, with:
Noli Timere
Venue: Empress Lawn
Date: 15 - 17 May 2026
Time: 7.15pm & 9.15pm
Fee: Free Admission
The result of a 5-year collaboration between 2 Guggenheim Fellowship Award winners, Director/Choreographer Rebecca Lazier and world renowned sculptor Janet Echelman, Noli Timere is a soaring aerial performance featuring a specially designed, voluminous Echelman net sculpture and eight outstanding, multidisciplinary performers. The work is a fusion of contemporary dance and avant-garde circus; art installation and advanced engineering; public sculpture and social practice exploring how we navigate an unstable world.
Choreographed to an original score by popular Quebecois composer JORANE, Noli Timere marks the first-time performers will be presented, up to 25 feet in the air, upon and within a suspended Echelman sculpture. This collaboration showcases a choreography and a sculpture which are continually transformed by one another. Noli Timere, Latin for 'be not afraid', uniquely renders interconnectedness visible, making tangible how, like the butterfly effect, a change in one element has cascading effects on its surroundings, demonstrating the fragility of our ecosystem and the need for innovative responses to global challenges.
Duration: 30min
Non-verbal performance
A Light Between Rains
Venue: Anderson Bridge
Date: 15 - 16 May 2026
Time: 6.30pm
Fee: Free Admission
The people gather at the cusp of change, the inter-monsoon – when the big winds shift. Beneath the charged skies and the swelling heat, those that have gathered cheer and move. The people move through their city. They move to celebrate the joy of creating. They move to honour artistic traditions. They move to embrace change. They move to share, and they move to move.
Conceived as a speculative theatrical procession, A Light Between Rains unfolds as a display of colour, texture, sound, melody, movement, and an embodiment of the five elements – the building blocks of life. An act of collective world-building, it includes and interacts with its audiences, unfolding through community workshops, performance-installations and walking theatre.
Join the procession and be part of a powerful finale that celebrates community, creativity and the currents that connect us all.
Duration: 45min
Performed in English.
Makan Culture
Venue: Festival Market @ Empress Lawn
Date: 15 - 17 May 2026, 20 - 24 May 2026 & 28 - 30 May 2026
Time: 6pm, 8pm & 10pm
Fee: $20 (Eligible for SG Culture Pass)
A community performance that ticks various nation-building boxes is disrupted by a critic, sparking off a lively debate about what elevates food and art. Through a communal sharing of local eats and spicy stories, the audience and performers come together to answer the question – What makes us worthy?
Be part of this riotous interactive experience featuring music, theatre and even puppetry, all which you can wash down with an actual Singapore dish as part of this food-inspired performance.
Duration: 40min
Performed in English
Just Keep Swimming, Just Keep Swimming 《记忆游泳池》
Venue: Wayang Stage @ Empress Lawn
Date: 15 - 17 May 2026
Time: 8pm
Fee: Free Admission
Just Keep Swimming, Just Keep Swimming explores artistic lineage, mentorship and the intangible inheritances passed from one generation of artists to another. Set on the Wayang Stage at Empress Lawn, the work invites audiences into a casual, communal environment – seating all around the stage on bean bags and benches – to witness and participate in a celebration of our artistic heritage.
At the centre of the stage is a transparent, recording-studio-like room. Two people are seated: an interviewer and an artist. Their conversation focuses on the artist’s relationship with a mentor – someone who shaped their artistic lives. The dialogue explores not only forms, techniques, and craft, but also the emotional and intangible inheritance that artists carry: a gesture of encouragement, a guiding phrase, a sensibility, a way of seeing or listening.
The conversation is heard live by the audience for a short while. Then, gradually, the voices fade. The recorded dialogue dissolves into a music track: fragments of their words are woven into a curated dance beat that takes over the space. The dance track becomes a soundscape that holds memory, lineage, and artistic influence – remixed in collaboration with a music arranger.
Across the hour-long session, the space shifts between live dialogue and communal dance/movement. Two facilitators – acting as hosts, cheerleaders and guides – encourage audiences to participate.
Duration: 1hr
Performed in English and Chinese
RUPTURE
Venue: Wayang Stage @ Empress Lawn
Date: 28 - 30 May 2026
Time: 6.30am
Fee: Free Admission
RUPTURE is a site-specific sound installation and performance rooted in volcanic activity, seismic research and mythology. The project experiments with translating the Earth's deep, invisible processes into sound.
At the centre is Prometheus — the thief of fire, the first disruptor. Volcanoes carry the same duality: creation and destruction folded into a single act. Fertile ground and annihilation, side by side. The work unfolds as a slow shift from darkness to light. Field recordings from volcanic sites and seismic data is transformed into sonic texture that mirrors the cycles of rupture and renewal. As the night fractures into dawn, sound structures rise and collapse, tracing the tension between chaos and form.
To perform at dawn frames the work as a kind of ritual: a raw threshold where perception is heightened and time feels unstable. The Observatory pushes into this liminal space, treating seismic shifts – geological and emotional – as living material.
Duration: 2hr
We Live Here
Venue: Wayang Stage @ Empress Lawn
Date: 28 - 30 May 2026
Time: 8pm
Fee: Free Admission
In the fast-paced 탐포 (tempo) of the city, we are always in 트랜짓 (transit) – moving, turning, tracking time – yet rarely aware of our own embodied patterns. A Singaporean Biomechanics transformer, a 타임 (time)-bending traveller and a Korean Laban Movement Analysis investigator expose the everyday choreography hidden inside ordinary actions. We Live Here explores how small gestures evolve into shared sequences, how personal energy expands into ensemble energy, and how simple exchanges can open new emotional environments between people. Guided by visual 트리거 (triggers), audiences are invited to enter, explore and experiment – no 트레닝 (training) required.
Designed for the open setting of the Singapore International Festival of Arts, We Live Here is an interactive movement event where everyday actions become expressive encounters.
We Live Here unites two theatre practitioners from different countries and training backgrounds, blending their expertise in Biomechanics and Laban Movement Analysis to push the boundaries of physical theatre and collaborative creation. The artists embark on a journey to explore what it means to live: to move, to connect and to share space, inviting audiences to join in movement and dance. Through this interdisciplinary collaboration, the project seeks to uncover profound connections between body, memory and lived experience, using movement as a universal language of empathy and understanding. The journey culminates in an outdoor showcase at the Festival Village, celebrating individual and collective stories through a movement-based performance.
Duration: 1hr
This is easily the most family-friendly zone of SIFA, where little ones can roam, play, and discover the arts without needing to sit through a full-length production.
Festival Play!Ground — Designed for Kids & First-Time Festivalgoers
If you're heading out with younger kids, the Festival Play!Ground is where you’ll want to be. Expect:
A Light Between Rains
Venue: Nexus, Punggol Digital District (Punggol Coast)
Date: 22 & 29 May 2026, 23 & 30 May 2026
Time: 6.15pm - 7.15pm
Fee: Free Admission
The people gather at the cusp of change, the inter-monsoon – when the big winds shift. Beneath the charged skies and the swelling heat, those that have gathered cheer and move. The people move through their city. They move to celebrate the joy of creating. They move to honour artistic traditions. They move to embrace change. They move to share, and they move to move.
Conceived as a speculative theatrical procession, A Light Between Rains unfolds as a display of colour, texture, sound, melody, movement, and an embodiment of the five elements – the building blocks of life. An act of collective world-building, it includes and interacts with its audiences, unfolding through community workshops, performance-installations and walking theatre.
Join the procession and be part of a powerful finale that celebrates community, creativity and the currents that connect us all.
Duration: 1hr
Performed in English.
Noli Timere
Venue: Nexus, Punggol Digital District (Punggol Coast)
Date & Time: 22 May 2026 (6.30pm & 8.30pm) | 23 May 2026 (5.30pm & 7.30pm) | 24 May 2026 (5pm & 7.30pm) | 28 May 2026 (6.30pm & 8.30pm) | 29 May 2026 (6.30pm & 8.30pm) | 30 May 2026 (5.30pm & 7.30pm)
Fee: Free Admission
Discover the Nets with Noli Timere
Venue: Nexus, Punggol Digital District (Punggol Coast)
Date: 22 May 2026 (3.30pm - 5pm) | 23 May 2026 (2.30pm - 4pm) | 24 May 2026 (2.30pm - 4pm) | 28 May 2026 (3.30pm - 5pm) | 29 May 2026 (3.30pm - 5pm) | 30 May 2026 (2.30pm - 4pm)
Fee: Free Admission
The result of a 5-year collaboration between 2 Guggenheim Fellowship Award winners, Director/Choreographer Rebecca Lazier and world renowned sculptor Janet Echelman, Noli Timere is a soaring aerial performance featuring a specially designed, voluminous Echelman net sculpture and eight outstanding, multidisciplinary performers. The work is a fusion of contemporary dance and avant-garde circus; art installation and advanced engineering; public sculpture and social practice exploring how we navigate an unstable world.
Choreographed to an original score by popular Quebecois composer JORANE, Noli Timere marks the first-time performers will be presented, up to 25 feet in the air, upon and within a suspended Echelman sculpture. This collaboration showcases a choreography and a sculpture which are continually transformed by one another. Noli Timere, Latin for 'be not afraid', uniquely renders interconnectedness visible, making tangible how, like the butterfly effect, a change in one element has cascading effects on its surroundings, demonstrating the fragility of our ecosystem and the need for innovative responses to global challenges.
Duration: 30min
Non-verbal performance
Festival House — Workshops & Interactive Experiences
For families who want a deeper dive, Festival House offers:
The Lighthouse
Venue: Multiple venues under The Arts House
Date: 15 - 17 May 2026 & 20 - 24 May 2026
Time: Various timings
Fee: $28
The Lighthouse beckons young people and their adults to explore the endless wonders of light. This immersive promenade performance is part installation, part scientific quest, part rave. Designed for all ages, this house of marvels is full of intimate vignettes and grand lighting. A series of interconnected rooms await, each full of hands-on experiences exploring a different property of that elusive yet fundamental force of nature: light.
Taking light out of traditional theatre spaces and moving it into a new terrain, The Lighthouse puts children and their families at the centre of an exploration of light. The Lighthouse is a conversation with the universe. It exists at the intersection of science and art, sparking curiosity in the world around us. Through its innovative use of light, sound, perspective, and reflection, the performance encourages you to engage and experiment.
Duration: 50 min
Non-verbal performance
These programmes are great for older kids who enjoy making, experimenting and expressing themselves creatively.
Festival Stage Shows
While many Festival Stage productions (like theatre and international works) may be more suited for older audiences, families with teens might still enjoy selected titles such as:
Lush Life
Venue: Victoria Theatre
Date: 29 - 30 May 2026
Time: 8pm
Fee: $48, $68, $88 (Eligible for SG Culture Pass)
Two of Singapore’s most iconic and contrasting voices share one stage in a groundbreaking new work. Helmed by internationally acclaimed Singapore director Ong Keng Sen known for his distinct aesthetic in creating documentary performance through collaboration with his performers and extensive research, Lush Life is an intimate documentary piece that weaves the lives, artistry and connections between the sublime, audiophile-grade jazz of songbird Jacintha and the bohemian spirit of pop icon Dick Lee.
Through personal narratives, archival traces and a live four-piece band, this distilled work paints a dual portrait of artistic and life pursuits. Sink into the lush world of Jacintha’s music and Lee's vibrant classics, revealed as chapters in their lives. Lush Life is a conversation across styles and generations, a meditation on what it means to live a creative life in its most resonant form.
Duration: 2hr 15min (with 15 min intermission)
Performance in English
Strangely Familiar《熟悉的陌生》
Venue: Victoria Theatre
Date & Time: 22 May 2026 (8pm, with a post-show talk) | 23 May 2026 (8pm, with a post-show talk) | 24 May 2026 (2pm)
Fee: $38, $48 (Eligible for SG Culture Pass)
Duration: 1hr 10min
Non-Verbal performance
An evolving presence enters the space – neither fully human nor entirely machine. In Strangely Familiar, five dance artists encounter this shifting digital being, moving at the threshold between instinct and invention.
Rooted in T.H.E’s HollowBody methodology, the work centres the body as a living site of listening, adaptation, and alertness to what it cannot fully grasp. As physical and virtual forces share the same terrain and an otherworldly ecosystem reveals itself, the encounter becomes a mirror – inviting reflection on coexistence, healing, and how the futures we imagine may depend on our capacity to live with what we create.
Directed and choreographed by T.H.E's Founding Artistic Director Kuik Swee Boon, Strangely Familiar brings together collaborators across Asia and beyond. The work is co-commissioned by Asia+ Festival (Hong Kong) and SIFA, with additional support from the William and Lena Lim Trust.
Tickets & Early Bird Promotion
SIFA 2026 runs from 15 to 30 May 2026. Early bird tickets (20% savings) are available from 12 March 2026, 4pm via sifa.sg. Selected programmes are eligible for the SG Culture Pass.
- 20% Early Bird Savings: Now - 13 Apr 2026
- 15% Student, NSF and Senior Concessions: 14 Apr - 30 May 2026
- Accessibility Discount (50% concessions are available for persons with disabilities and one accompanying companion for selected shows): Now - 30 May 2026
- 20+1 School Group Booking Discount: Now - 30 May 2026
- The Lighthouse Bundle of 2 (20% off for every pair of tickets purchased for The Lighthouse): 14 Apr - 30 May 2026
If you’ve always found SIFA a little too “atas” or abstract for kids, 2026 might be the best year to give it a try.
With its playful theme, expanded family-friendly programming, and free-entry Festival Village, it’s a great opportunity to introduce little ones to the arts in a fun, low-pressure way.
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