THE RIVER REMEMBERS / Ding Yi Music Company / Review

 

THE RIVER REMEMBERS

Ding Yi Music Company

Drama Centre Theatre

Saturday (16 August 2025)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 18 August 2025 with the title "The River Remembers an ambitious if patchy SG60 project".

The River Remembers is Ding Yi Music Company’s big SG60 project, a multi-genre tribute to the history and legacy of Singapore River, and the nation as well. With music by Cultural Medallion recipient Law Wai Lun, playwrighting and stage direction by Goh Boon Teck, it sought to capture the essence and significance of Singapore’s iconic waterway within a compact 70-minute duration.

The artistic team of Goh Boon Teck (Director),
Law Wai Lun (Composer),
Cai Shiqi (Choreographer)
& Dedric Wong (Conductor).

It, however, did so in fits and starts. The premise was familiar as this was an expansion of Ding Yi’s 2019 River of Life production, also with Law’s music, which had the coherent feel of a documentary and show-and-tell session. The River Remembers took the path of a series of choreographed tableaux narrating the story of an orphaned baby-boomer Everyman from a humble 1950s childhood to the present of glorious fruition, and everything else in between.

Conducted by Dedric Wong, who also served as co-narrator in Chinese, the music was pleasant and fully-engaged with the narrative. The main-storyteller was Paris-based Singaporean actress and media personality Sharon Au, the personification of Mother River, possessed with divine and mythical qualities. Everyman adores and worships the River, who in turn may or may not grant him his wishes.

There were four chapters, chronologically traversing through Singapore’s history. The pivotal year 1965 saw Scotland The Brave blared out by suona in place of bagpipes. Independence from Malaysia had somehow been confused with Scottish self-determination. Otherwise, the Chinese instruments projected an overriding Sinocentric feel as this was clearly a history as viewed through Chinese perspectives.

The dancers from Dance Ensemble Singapore (Choreographer: Cai Shiqi) were excellent, their moves distinguished with balletic grace and athleticism. Had the large flag unfurled and waved in the second chapter’s The Prosperous River been red instead of blue, memories of Chinese communism would have been revived.

Chapter three’s The River Symphony closed with a melange of voices – all spouting Chinese dialects - to accompany silhouettes of river coolies at work. The little orphan boy, pluckily danced by Kok Jun Kang, also turned out to be unequivocally Chinese based on his pugilistic stances. According to the story, he grows up to become some Sim Wong Hoo-like big tech entrepreneur, surviving into old age to inspire younger minds. All thanks to the River.

In its final chapter River Reflections, Lee Kuan Yew’s name had to be invoked sometime, hailed as the river’s saviour for ordering its eventual clean-up. For ridding the water of its filth and bacteria, this viewer would have been better pleased had senior civil servants Lee Ek Tieng and Tan Gee Paw been credited as well.

The inevitable had to come, a quote from Zubir Said’s Majulah Singapura and finally an apotheosis with Van Moring’s Singapura, Sunny Island to complete the story. Once the lifeblood of Singapore’s economy, the Singapore River has now morphed to become a glitzy tourist attraction.

Ding Yi Music Company’s efforts in highlighting Singaporean history and heritage have been most laudable, but this ambitious production came across as less than the sum of its parts.

Photography by Andrew Bi Photography.