Most of the time, people, or youths to be exact, relate to the word ‘heritage’ to words such as ‘boring’ and ‘dull’. On the contraire, the Singapore Heritage Festival, which was organized by the National Heritage Board and was held at Suntec city’s atrium was far from being boring and dull.
The theme for this year’s festival is ‘Who is your Hero?’ To simply put it, this year’s festival aims to commemorate our nation’s previous icons in the past, such as Leftenan Adnan bin Saidi, who led a 42-strong platoon from the Malay Regiment in the defense of
This year’s festival was not much different than last year’s as it was also filled with exciting performances by different cultures. One of the performances was by SANG SINGA PURBA, a dedicated Malay Theatre Group who performed a 20minute musical play on our national heroes. The performance was filled with emotions as they reenacted very vividly, scenes from the past struggles of our heroes.
One of the stage actors, Muhammad Izzad bin Abdul Hassim, a student from Singapore Polytechnic’s Marine Engineering, who acted as Leftenan Adnan in the play, said that they have been practicing everyday for the past three months to put up the performance. And when asked what is his secret of playing out the role so well, the humble 19-year-old said that,” Well, I have to really put myself in his (Leftenan Adnan’s) shoes. The way he fought the Japanese with such courage, really made me want to show the world that he is one of our greatest heroes, and that he definitely did not die in vain.”
The atmosphere there was certainly buzzing with excitement, one to share with us his enthusiasm in our heritage is Mr Chan Eng Thai, a bubbly member of the Singapore Peranakan Association, clad in a floral shirt.
“So far, the festival is good. But however the things that are shown here is not really part of
When asked how can the festival be improved, he said that the National Heritage Board should really target more young school children and not those older generations. He suggested inviting more students from higher institutions.
While the atrium might be small, it certainly did not hinder a huge crowd from flooding in to the exhibition to have a slice of our nation’s heritage. In particular, when the Bellydancers were performing on stage, there were even people on the second and third floor of the atrium, sticking their head out amongst other curious passerby to catch a glimpse of these exotic dancers.
All in all, the festival definitely gave your senses a whole new experience.
By Muhd Daniel
