I can’t remember if there were park festivals before this year but I knew about this year from an emailer I got since they were having a WaterFire® art installation at Bedok Reservoir on the 24th and 25th September!
Main programme starts around 6pm onwards but the people of Temasek Polytechnic were setting things up around the reservoir.
The hosts of the programme were from TP too and it’s cause this year they decided to have their Global Community Day to be outdoors instead of just in school and to do it with Nparks cause the school’s just across the reservoir anyway.
It starts off with a musical performance by the Temple of Fine Arts.
Then a some songs and dances by the Filipino community. They did sing the “Anak” by Freddie Aguilar too which I think a lot of people would know since there’s so many translations and versions of this song.
The Malay dancers from TP also performed and if I can remember, they do win competitions since they’re really good.
Yes, there were a lot of people there watching the performances and waiting for the main WaterFire® event too so everyone sat across the floating platform stage area.
After that Temasek Poly and their international students put out a performance of five movements with the theme of water and fire. This one was around twenty or so minutes so I’m not puting the videos of it up.
Well, except for the first one which I liked since it was like Avatar: The last air bender in terms of water and fire since it was a combo of Chinese and Indian dance!
Plus the last one where it got everyone all excited since it was kinda like one of those mass Bollywood dances and fun to watch.
Before the lightning of WaterFire® commenced for the night, a dance group called the Fireflys did their thing which the emcees of the night did warn the audience to soooo totally not do it since it is dangerous if you aren’t practiced in it.
Video is 14 minutes but when you’re there you could tell everyone was entranced by their skills and flaming torches!
Then it was time to light the burners set in the water all around the floating platform! Barnaby Evans was there along with the other guests of honour which I can’t remember but I think they were from TP and Nparks. Anyway, since that was Sunday, after it would all end at around 10pm (I didn’t stick around that long), they would “send back” the flame via skype from where it started.
Also, the dragonboat guys helped to light up the various floating burners all around while groovy music played on. Yeah, groovy cause it sounded just so… groovy.
You can walk along the walkway since they’d open the entrance for it. You had to queue up though since there were a lot of people who wanted to do so.
Meanwhile, the art installation is not the only thing on that evening. Remember the bikes earlier on? Well the students of TP plugged it to some light sculpture thing. Cycle fast and you can get the lights all running! Lots of kids like to do this too since it’s fun seeing the lights go on only when you cycled fast.
There were “international villages” in tents since it’s Global Community Day and they gave out free stickers (Venezuela), pens (sponsored by Etihad for Dubai etc) and Finland was showcasing itself by showing off Angry Birds since it came from there.
There was cosplay at Japan’s booth and Switzerland gave out cheese. I wonder how they cut it since it was melted (heated knife?), you could smell the cheese easily since woaah, that’s some strong cheese. A long line for it too but I’m not sure if everyone acquired the taste for it. Nparks had a little area where they did a little environmental thingy too so yes, they were there since it’s a park festival too.
The park festival seems to be a yearly thing and not just for Bedok Reservoir. Perhaps next year I’ll get to check out the other parks and their programmes too.
